heating your work shop or garage with a pellet stove.

[DDD]

I want to hear some replies from people who heat their work shop or garage with a pellet stove. Tell me about the brand of stove and how much pellet fuel you use as well as how warm it makes your shop. Thanks for the feedback

[garyash]

Having been frozen out of the garage a year ago, I put a Modine Hot Dawg propane 60,000 BTU/hr heater in the 36x24 ft 2-story garage this past fall. It works great, and I can set the thermostat to hold whatever temperature I want. Of course, when the first gas bill got delivered - at $441 to fill a 100 gallon tank - I decided I wanted less heat and bought a thermostat I could set at 35 degrees when I wasn't in there. I just want it so things don't freeze solid when I'm not around and be able to heat up quickly when I am. My 60,000 BTU/hr Hot Dawg is rated to burn up to 0.66 gallon/hr (~$2.80/hr) when it's firing.

I hadn't thought about wood pellets because I didn't want to have to shovel all the time, both in and out. But, they do have some appeal. I just checked on-line for local pricing; here's a summary based on pricing in New England - your mileage may vary:

Propane: ~$4.25/gallon including "fees" plus taxes, 92,500 BTU/gal = 21,764 BTU/$ [my furnace is about 80% efficient, so use 17,411 BTU/$ net]

Electricity: ~$0.18/ Kw-hr for generation and distribution fees in New England, 3412 BTU/kw-hr = 18,955 BTU/$ [but 100% efficient!]

Oil: ~$4.15/qallon delivered , 138,500 BTU/gal = 33,373 BTU/$. At 80% efficiency, output is 26,989 BTU/$. I heat my house with oil.

Hardwood pellets: $229/ton cash-and-carry locally (add ~$20-$25/ton delivered), 16,000,000 BTU/ton = 69,868 BTU/$ [note: corn cobs have about the same heating value] At ~80% efficiency, net is 55,894 BTU/$ - though you may need to also add in the cost of electricity if it has a fan.

Natural gas: We don't have it available on our road, though I suspect it is the cheapest thing now available. There is a major gas pipeline a mile from my house, but no local taps. Heating value is 100,000 BTU/therm, so check your bill to see the current price. NSTAR in Boston charges $0.5869/therm or 170,387 BTU/$. Oh, do I wish I had natural gas available!

Coal: Can anyone get coal delivered any more? I came from several generations of coal miners, but haven't seen coal delivered in more than 40 years.

Conclusion: If you don't have natural gas, wood pellets win over everything else by a huge margin - if you are prepared to store them, shovel them in the stove, shovel out the ashes, and dispose of them. Also, you have to be around to keep the fire going and you have to buy an efficient pellet stove.

Another conclusion: At the current price of propane vs electricity, I could just run a little electric heater to maintain temperatures and it would be cheaper than running the gas furnace! I should do these calculations before I spend $1400 putting the furnace in!

Info on heating values of various fuels here: http://www.hrt.msu.edu/energy/pdf/he...on%20fuels.pdf

Good luck with your choices!

[BobGlasscock]

I have an Englands 25PDVC pellet stove in my house. Used for quite a few years to heat the whole 1600 sq. ft. house. Living in West Texas doesn't usually take a lot of heat, but we do have a couple of spells of below 20 for 2 or 3 days and nights in row. Rest of the winter is usually in the teens or twenties at night and in the 50s or 60s during the day. This thing kept the whole house warm to toasty and I NEVER got the pellet feed or fan above a 3 on a 1-10 selection. Wonderful heater. I think it could deal with a poorly insulated, 2000 sq. ft. building. As I recall, a bag of pellets was around $5. On normal days, one bag could last 3 or 4 days. During those really cold spells, one bag for a full 24 hour day. I would spend about $250 on pellets for use from November through February. A lot less than a natural gas bill for the same time span and not having the house as warm.

[BobGlasscock]

Gary and I were apparently writing at the same, and I read his reply, prompting this reply.

I'm not parsing his words too much, but I would disagree with the word 'shovelling'. My stove holds about half a bag (25#) which I just pour into the feed bin from the top of the stove. Very easy. As for ashes, if you burn a good quality hardwood pellet, there is nearly NO ash at all. I would scoop mine out with a teaspoon every 2 or 3 days, about 30 hours of use. If you use lesser quality hardwood or any softwood, you will get more ash.

I have never heard of corn cob burning stoves. I do know that there are stoves that burn corn, such as deer corn. The stove has to be manufactured to burn that. A regular wood pellet stove won't burn corn as the corn gets mushy or something in the auger. Around here, deer corn is cheaper than wood pellets, but my stove won't burn it so I don't know a lot about it.

As for storage, a ton (50 40# bags, which is about what I would buy less than once each year) fits on a regular sized pallet and stacks up about 5 feet tall.

[JBOYLE]

We have a pellet stove in my den in our daylight basement. My wife turns it on when she's in her adjecent quilting room.
I agree with Bob, we have a similar stove and at the recommendation of the people we boughtthe house from use good quality pellets. No ash, no mess, no chance of chimney (sp?) fires.

[Jim B PEI]

Gary, all I can say is YIKES! for your electricity cost. I thought it was high here with 12.65 cents a kw/hr, but 18 cents!

For my eventual similar garage, I was going to go with a solar air reheater like on my house. It runs even on overcast days (like now--its running while it is snowing out). Running the air in a loop via PVC pipe under/through a concrete slab will keep the garage from freezing, and I can always tap into the propane to up the temperature. The solar air reheater costs less than $20 in electricity per year to run, and it was able to keep my old poorly insulated house liveable inside, all by itself, when it was -15F, but it backstops any type of heating system. For the handy people like you, building a bunch of panels from heavy gauge aluminum sheets properly bent into frames, Lexan, some 12V fans powered by a solar PV cell, and some black painted light gauge aluminum piping shouldn't be all that hard. www.Cansolair.com is one builder of such a thing on the commercial end.

[Kdancy]

Gary, all I can say is YIKES! for your electricity cost. I thought it was high here with 12.65 cents a kw/hr, but 18 cents!

For my eventual similar garage, I was going to go with a solar air reheater like on my house. It runs even on overcast days (like now--its running while it is snowing out). Running the air in a loop via PVC pipe under/through a concrete slab will keep the garage from freezing, and I can always tap into the propane to up the temperature. The solar air reheater costs less than $20 in electricity per year to run, and it was able to keep my old poorly insulated house liveable inside, all by itself, when it was -15F, but it backstops any type of heating system. For the handy people like you, building a bunch of panels from heavy gauge aluminum sheets properly bent into frames, Lexan, some 12V fans powered by a solar PV cell, and some black painted light gauge aluminum piping shouldn't be all that hard. www.Cansolair.com is one builder of such a thing on the commercial end.

Jim-did you build your own or buy a commercial brand?

[60studehawk]

Thats expensive propane. I just got 220 gal delivered and it cost $488. It was 2.199 a gal in central Pa.

[DDD]

here in ohio pellets can be found for 200 dollars a ton during the heating season but some places like walmart try to get 250 dollars a ton. If you buy your supply before the heating season starts you can get even better prices. We do have some pellet mills in ohio and alot more pellet mills in near by states such as west virgina and pennsylvaina