Our customers are always asking

Which fuel and stove is best for you?

Our customers are always asking us what is best...Wood, Pellet or Gas?

When it comes to choosing the right stove or fireplace for your home, a few things come into play when deciding on which type of fuel is best...for you.

There are pros and cons to every one of these choices, so when it comes to making a decision on what type of fuel you want to go with , you really need to consider the type of person you are, and what you expect from this heating source.

Here are a few things you should keep in mind when choosing a stove or fireplace:

Wood:

Pros:

When it comes to "ambience", it is hard to compete with a wood burning stove or fireplace. Not only you get great BTU (heat unit) output from a modern wood appliance, you also get the sounds and smells that come from burning natural wood. A wood fire will always be the most beautiful fire you will see. Most pellet and gas units try to mimic a wood fire, but when it comes to looks, wood is still the best fire around.

When you burn seasoned wood, today's modern wood appliances give you great efficiency, and often they are rated at higher BTU's per hour than comparable Gas or Pellet appliances.

A wood stove or fireplace needs nothing more than wood to give you great heat, no matter of what the weather conditions are outside. If the power goes out during a storm, your wood unit will always be there for you. This can be very important when deciding on which one to go with if you live in an area that is often affected by power outages.

There is relatively little maintenance needed on a wood appliance. Aside from having your chimney-venting cleaned every season (recommended by NFPA-211), there is very little else you will need to do. Ok, you will have to clean the door glass once in a while and remove ashes from the firebox.

Cons:

Unless you have your own free supply of hardwood, wood fuel costs are on the rise. A cord of seasoned wood is going for around $200-250.00 in our area.

Wood burners can stay ahead of the game by stocking green wood one to two years before they burn it. This way you rotate your wood pile, and purchase fuel for about half the cost.

Now the kicker. Wood fuel requires work...physical work!

If you are in good shape, and enjoy the crisp cold winter air, then going out to the wood pile with the wood carrier back and forth can be invigorating, but if you have a bad back, or are not up to the continuous wood pile trips, wood is not for you, unless you are planning on getting a someone else to do this work for you!

Wood is also a little messy. You will bring in wood chips and debris, and sometimes bugs with your wood.

The location where you are planning installing a wood stove should also be considered.

Keep in mind that wood units will need a chimney or an available flue within an existing chimney that extends all the way to your roof line.

So for example, if you are planning on installing a wood stove in the basement, keep in mind that the cost of installation here would be quite a bit higher than , say, a pellet stove or gas stove. Class A (metal insulated pipe) chimney installations can get expensive, depending of how high the chimney needs to go . By code, the chimney needs to extend 3 feet above roof line, and needs to be 2 feet higher than any roof or structure within 10 feet of chimney .

Wood stoves usually have more strict "clearances to combustibles" requirements as well. You will need a non-combustible floor material underneath it, distances to combustibles are higher than in pellet or gas.

Wood stoves are heavy!

if you are planning on installing it yourself, make sure you have help, unless you're HULK!

Pellet

Pros:

Pellet appliances are becoming more and more popular around here. It is no surprise. They offer a great alternative to wood and gas.

In many Northern European countries, this fuel is a favorite source of heat. They actually heat government buildings, schools and many other big buildings with this fuel. This fuel is great! Not only it delivers high heat per weight, it is also made of recycled sawdust...which makes this fuel very environmentally friendly.

More and more pellet factories are being built every year, so fuel availability is not a problem. For best pricing, you want to buy pellets by the ton, and early in the year.

Pellets are also easy to deal with. They come in 40 lb bags that you can easily store outside or inside ( they need to stay dry), and an average pellet appliance will hold 40-60 lbs of fuel in their hopper. These units run fully automatically for a good 24 hours, without you having to do a thing. They can run on a thermostat as well. Some of them offer hopper extensions. They can go for days without any tendering to. They will be easier on your back, as you do not have to carry more than a bag at a time to feed your stove.

Pellet fuel leaves very little if no creosote in venting, which means that chimney fires are rarely an issue with pellet burning. Pellet stoves and inserts put out very little emissions as well. Because pellet stoves are power-vented (fan forced exhaust), they can be easily installed on any outside wall. They do not require a full chimney. These units typically cost a bit more than wood or gas units, but venting installation is usually less.

Cons:

Pellet stoves don't run just on pellets...they need a little electricity to run auger motors, fans, etc.

This means that if the power goes out, you will not have heat. This can be a problem if you are in an area that is often without power in the winter, unless you invest in a generator or a battery back up system. This is really not a very big deal around our area, but you have to take this under consideration. If the power goes out for one hour or two, no big deal, as the room temperature will still be OK, but if the power goes out for days....forget it.

Pellet fire flame is usually less attractive than a wood stove. However, there are some pellet units that offer log sets to make this flame look more "wood-like".

Pellet stoves work on a vacuum balanced system- you cannot open the door and roast marshmallows! The door need to be closed at all times in order for the unit to burn efficiently-or at all.

Pellet stoves require maintenance on a a weekly basis. We always bring this up when selling a pellet stove, because if you do not keep up with the stove, you will not be happy. This is very simple to do, but you need to realize that it needs to be done, or you will be calling us to service your stove often. The biggest annoyance with a pellet stove is the very thin ash that remains in the venting ducts and pellet residue in the burn pot. You will need a vacuum to keep up with this. Do not use your house vacuum, unless you enjoy the dust and smell of ash all over your house. Get a dedicated shop -vac for the stove, and make sure you use a fine particle filter. You can buy an fancy ash vacuum, but this will do. If you spend 10 minutes every week cleaning your stove, you will not have a problem. You will need the venting cleaned once a year, or once every one ton of pellets burned.

Gas:

Pros:

Gas fuel is going to be the most clean fuel you burn. A large percentage of the exhaust from a gas stove or fireplace is simply water. Your venting will need very little maintenance, and the unit is usually very reliable. Burning gas is pretty safe, in contrary to what most folks think . Modern gas appliances have all kinds of safety mechanisms that will ensure peace of mind and great heat. Room gas heaters have become very efficient . In the old days, if you bought a gas stove or fireplace, you were compromising heat vs. ease of operation. Today, you can get a gas stove or fireplace that puts out about the same heat as a comparable in size wood appliance. If you are the type of person that wants nothing to do with managing fuel, carrying it around, seasoning it, etc, than gas is a great choice for you. All you will have to do is to click a button and, there, you got fire and heat!

Gas appliances can offer quite realistic "wood-like" flames and logs. Most manufacturers have invested greatly on "real flame" technology. Direct-Vent gas appliances have become the most popular for personal, room heating applications. This are easy to install, as they do not require a full chimney up to the roof-they can be vented through a wall or ceiling. Direct-vented appliances use bring in outside air for combustion, and also vent to the outside, therefore they do not compete for oxygen with living space air. This is a great improvement over natural-drafting "B vented" appliances, which use room air for combustion, therefore competing for air with other household systems ( furnaces, exhaust fans, etc).

Cons:

There are also "vent-free" gas heaters out there. These units use room air for combustion, and exhaust right back into the living space. They introduce quite a bit of moisture into the home, which can be a problem, especially if you are sensitive to odors. If you live with pets, are a smoker, or love cooking fish indoors ( or other smelly stuff), this type of heater will magnify all these smells, as it burns all this stuff and sends it right back into your room.As cosmetic, occasional use appliances they are OK, but not recommended as heaters .

Gas fuel can become expensive, especially if you are planning on going with propane. However, when you do the math, natural gas is indeed about the same price of seasoned wood or pellet fuel, unless you run the heater constantly at higher settings.

In Massachusetts, a licensed plumber or gas fitter will have to run all gas piping to unit, and do the final connections.

You need to take this into account when you are calculating total installation costs.

Rule of thumb, if you do not have gas already serving your home, it will cost you!

Some gas appliances require electricity as well, but most modern units do not.

When something goes wrong, you really should not fuss with a gas unit yourself, unless you are qualified to do so. These units are factory tuned to burn a precise way, and you should not play with it. Call a certified technician when the unit needs service.

It is important that you like the way the logs are set when you see them inside the unit in the showroom, because you cannot play with the log set-they are placed one specific way in the firebox, and one way only!

You cannot open the door of a direct-vent gas appliance, so if you are planning on roasting marshmallows, get a wood stove instead!

While great strides in burning technology have been made in the gas field, they are still not quite the same when it come to flame and ambience....they can't be quite the same as a wood fire.

So which fuel or appliance is the best?

That is entirely up to what appeals to you, and what your needs and wants are.

Sorry, you need to make your own decision on this!

Hopefully you will find this information helpful.

If you need help in choosing one , it's best to come to our showroom and see some of these units burning...that usually does the trick!