We currently use oil for heat, and unfortunately it seems like the local utility has no plans to bring gas down the street in the near future.

We only use about 400 gallons of oil a year, which isn't a whole lot but it's enough. And we only keep the temp around 66-68.

I'd like to supplement the oil with a stove, one so I don't have to use as much oil, and two so I can have it a bit warmer in the house. I've been weighing the pros and cons of both a wood/coal stove and a pellet stove.

I like the idea that the pellet stoves don't need as much clearance and can be controlled by a thermostat. Although it seems like the cost of pellets can get quite high sometimes, whereas I can cut my own firewood if need be. Also a wood/coal stove doesn't require electricity to run.

Anyone have any input, experiences and things you'd do differently?

I dislike my pellet stove. The blower motor runs constantly when pellets are burning and the motor quit after 3 years. One year pellets were very hard to come by. Have you looked at a heat pump?

my G.P. has a wood stove he purchased it 20 years ago , he installed it 70 feet from the house, by himself,
he cuts his own lumber from his own property, and
feeds it before going to work and before going to bed.

He said that all the "stuff" paid for itself after six years.

Stuff: concrete slab,wood shed,shed,boiler,pipe, saws, splitter, trailer for the wood.

I talked to a bunch of people who had pellet stoves and most told me they used about 2 bags a day. At say, $4 a bag that's $8 a day or $240 a month plus whatever electricity you need to run it. To me that seemed pretty expensive.

Most also bought Pellets by the pallet load, so you'll need to find a dry place to store them.

I ended up going with a wood stove, cut my own wood and store it outside.

We have been burning wood as our primary source of heat for nearly 30 years. As I recall, we paid about 700 bucks for the fireplace insert that provides the heat.

We have never bought wood, harvesting nearly all of it from our own lot by cutting down dead standing stuff and cleaning up the pile left by the builders.

Newer stoves are perhaps more efficient than our insert, but very expensive! The other day I visited a stove store out of interest, and discovered that the cheaper ones were running around $3,000 each.

We had an agreement, some years ago, with a tree service that they could drop loads of logs on our place. I would then cut, split and stack the wood.

Nearly finished now with 3 dead standing trees.

We have about 15 cords of aged, dry hardwood all cut, split and stacked. Enough to last us until we are both too old, decrepit, to deal with firewood.

Wood stoves, inserts, etc can provide really good heat, but be aware that they also dry out the air in the house, you have to keep the chimney cleaned. We just got finished sweeping our chimney rather than paying someone a couple hundred bucks to do it. Takes us about 15 minutes. Get out the ladder, crawl up the roof, do the sweeping. Then Mrs. Elk cleans out the fireplace and we are set for at least 2 more years.

Burning wood gives a nice heat but is/can be a lot of work. It saves a ton of money if you do not have to buy wood.

It is also good exercise!

I frequently see piles of firewood next to the side of the road that are free for the taking.

I have yet to see any piles of coal or wood pellets next to the side of the road, period.

Running my pellet stove 22 years now - use 3-4 tons of pellets a season. My house is all electric (baseboard and radiant) so pellets make sense.

Your decision all depends on the various fuel costs - and what you want to put into it in labor

Depends a lot on your supply of wood and your willingness to do the hard work of felling, cutting, splitting, stacking, hauling it in, stacking again, and feeding the stove a couple times a day vs. loading up a hopper and turning the thermostat.

I've had a pellet stove and I hated it. It didn't heat the house worth a damn and the blower was noisier than hell. It was nice that I could just dump a bag in the hopper and go, but that was the only plus IMO. I don't remember what I was paying for pellets, but I bought them by the ton and as I recall I used to go through about two tons a year.

Wood, in a good quality stove, is the only way to go IMO. Yeah, it'll dry things out, but that's easily remedied by putting a kettle of water on top of it if you want to. I go through about 2 cords of larch or 3 cords of fir per winter, and am taking a lunch break right now from splitting and stacking. I get by with about 5 pieces per day in this stove. Two in the morning, one in the afternoon, and two at night. This keeps my house in the mid-70s day and night.

If you've got a good supply and you're not averse to the work, I say go for it.

If you're looking for a good stove, check out Woodstock Soapstone. This is the stove I bought. Can't say enough good things about it. It ain't all that pretty, but it puts out the heat.

Here is a calculator http://tinyurl.com/y7hh6eyh .Plug in the numbers for your situation.

I purchased a good quality pellet stove off of Craigslist after the winter with $6.00 a gallon propane prices. I'm here in the midwest and have forced air heating.

I did the math and figured that my break even point was somewhere just north of $1.00 a gallon propane. Any higher, and it was cheaper to burn pellets.

I didn't even burn any last year due to the propane price being down, so I'm still sitting on 5 tons or so of pellets. I'm fortunate in the sense that I have a place to store them as well as the means to move them.

I'm usually pretty slick about buying them from Lowe's. I'll wait until they come in, and then buy them online for pick up at the store. Over so many bags and they give you a "bulk" price (which tends to be cheaper online than in the store itself). I'll then come up with another 10% or 15% of coupon and apply that.

I'm too lazy to cut wood, and the pellet stove is self contained so there's never any smell inside of your home.

My dad has a pellet stove and was running it a lot in the winter back in the bad old days of $4+ a gallon heating oil, but as oil has gone way down and pellet prices have gone way up, he's not using it anymore.

I would really do some math and look at the cost of a pellet stove (several grand) plus the cost of pellets which have skyrocketed in price before I would write off heating oil which in my area is down to around $2.15 a gallon

I run a modern type wood stove in the cold winter months to cut down on the electric heat bill. We cut our own wood off our property.

Regardless of cost I will burn wood as long as I am physically able. The heat is much more comfortable and I can keep it as warm as I like for next to no additional cost. The fact that it is cheaper than about any other form of heat is an added bonus.

I put the stove in my “new” house 5 years ago and have yet to buy a stick of wood. I get every bit of it free from Craig’s list. Some from tree trimmers directly, some from home owners that didn’t want to pay the tree company extra to haul it off, and some from owners doing their own cutting. I have to go get it myself which does incur some cost but also, most times, it is already cut into firewood lengths. No felling trees, cutting, or brush to deal with for, basically free wood. Even if I had a place to cut my own I wouldn’t. Makes no sense when someone else will do half the work for you.

If using cut/split wood, it needs to be "aged" as green wood will burn poorly and lead to creosote buildup that will cause a chimney fire.
Dry or "aged" wood will burn more efficiently needing just the seasonal sweep to keep the chimney clean.
Pellets do burn a bit cleaner, and can also be direct vented negating the need for a chimney.

I know in Maine it is against code to combine two different fuel sources in the same chimney. I'm looking at converting my chimney over to a wood stove and doing a newer high-efficiency oil furnace with stove pipe for next year.

I grew up cutting firewood, and actually like doing it. I have an inside woodstove, Vermont Castings type, need no electricity to work.

I usually have access to 'free' wood, 2+ year supply right now. I clean my own chimney too.

There are pros & cons to every type of heat. Some of what I do wouldn't appeal to the next guy. Our house averages 75+ in the Winter, with a heat bill close to zero.

If you can get free firewood, that's a big plus. I also like the idea of having heat should the power ever go out.

I burned wood for about 25 years at my previous house in Southern NH. I got it every way, cut my own, free on the road, grapple loads, 4 foot sections and finally cut and split.
No matter how you get it burning wood is a lot of work, and cleaning the stove gets pretty messy.
I loved burning wood because I always had a nice warm house especially during an ice storm when we had no power for 6 days.
With wood you have to be very disciplined and run it hot once or twice a day to burn off the creosote in the chimney to prevent a chimney fire, which happened to me once.

I moved further North the house I bought has FHW oil heat and a fireplace. I weighed the options and decided on a good quality pellet stove, a Harman to be exact which can be a bit pricey, I burn bout 3 - 4 tons of pellets a year.
I find that pellets are easier for me now that I'm getting up in years, they are easier to handle, bags vs armloads of wood. they are cleaner, less maintenance. Granted you have fan noise, but you get used to it. The last time I filled my oil tank was October 2015, yes two years ago and I still have 1/4 of a tank.

I loved my woodstove but I don't regret buying the pellet stove for it's ease of use and less work. I store my pellets in my garage and never have to go out in the snow for wood.
This decision is a matter of preference, it's all up to you on what you want, there are pros and cons to both, but overall in my current state I'm happy I went with the pellet stove. I spend about $750.00 for the year, with oil it would be more expensive especially if it spikes like it did in the past.

Do your homework, shop around at stove shops and educate yourself with the resources of information a good stove shop will offer.
Whatever you decide, good luck and enjoy the warmth this winter.

Cut your own firewood = more work, less cost

Pellets = more cost, less work.

We have a pellet stove that easily heats our 2,300 sq.ft. House. Use 1-2 tons/ year, primarily Dec. to March but not usually continuous use. We can (and do) run it continuously for 2-3 weeks before I will shut it down and remove ash and clean it. It is much cleaner that burning split logs and may be safer as well. The dust from burning is relatively low and it does dry out the air. I buy pellets by the ton and they are just outside the basement door, dry and under cover. Burn about 2 bags per day.

Considering my age (60) and the fact that I will only get older, pellets are much easier than chainsaws, splitters, fuel, oil, machinery maintenance, stacking, drying, hauling, burning and cleaning up after all that work.

My choice of the two would be pellet.

But if you want to save money, Heat Pump. Nice and convenient, set the stat and enjoy the comfort. No messing around with wood or bags of pellets.

We burned a Whitfield pellet stove in our last house. When we started, pellets were $75 a ton. At a bag-a-day, we heated for about $40/month.

That was then. As pellets got ridiculously expensive, we shifted to propane.

Mike