Choosing a pellet stove

Pellet stoves, boilers and fireplaces differ from the rest precisely by the type of fuel used for heating. They run on pellets. Our advice site will tell you what kind of pellet stoves are, what selection criteria should be followed when buying them.

Let’s immediately identify two main types of heating devices that use pellets as fuel:

• Boilers with the ability to heat the coolant. The portal devoted separate articles to the selection of solid fuel boilers, as well as their installation, we will not repeat ourselves. Such equipment is rather bulky and requires installation in a separate room – a boiler room;
• In this article, we are interested in precisely pellet stoves-fireplaces. They heat not water, but air; they can be installed in living quarters, replacing wood-burning fireplaces, compact and visually attractive. There are fireplace stoves with a water circuit, but, again, their dimensions exceed the standard.

You can choose a stove that works specifically on pellets, you can – partially combined, in which firewood will serve as an addition. Fully combined stoves that run on different fuels have several fireboxes, they are rather bulky and are rarely used inside living quarters..

According to the types of burners, pellet stoves are divided into:

• Flare. A very popular household option. Convenient and easy to operate, reliable. But the power is low and there are high requirements for fuel quality;
• Fireplace. Pellets burn in a special bowl. The equipment is very quiet, safe, great for living quarters. But there are fewer possibilities for adjusting the operation of the oven, the requirements for the quality of the pellets are also high;
• Volumetric combustion. Most often they are used in massive industrial-type boilers, but they are rarely found in household ones. Powerful, undemanding pellet quality, but more bulky.

When choosing a pellet stove, you need to be guided by the following criteria:

• Power. We have already written that 1 kW per 10 square meters is needed if the height of the room does not exceed 3 meters. It is from this figure that you need to build on when choosing a stove for a particular room or house as a whole;
• Granule type. Pellets are different! Make sure that you can definitely get the type of fuel that is used for this stove model, and nearby and inexpensively;
• Fuel consumption. On average, you need a ton of pellets per month if no other heating is used in the house;
• How fuel is loaded– horizontally or vertically, think about which option is more suitable for you. According to user reviews, it is more convenient to fill pellets into a special hopper from above;
• Heat exchanger material. It is best if it is made of thick quality steel. Pig-iron are heavier and more heat-resistant;
• Manufacturer. Is there a guarantee for the oven? Service maintenance? It is important;
• Fuel supply type. Manual, semi-automatic, fully automatic. If the fireplace stove serves, rather, for the beauty and heating of one room, you can manually toss the pellets. In all other cases, it is better to choose a model with automatic filling of the required amount of pellets into the furnace..

The advantages of pellet stoves are many:

• Efficiency at least 75%, reaches 90%;
• The granules burn almost completely, there is no need to frequently clean the ash pan;
• The fuel is environmentally friendly, there are no harmful substances in the pellets;
• The pellets are used sparingly;
• Autonomous heating. If there is an automated system, a person does not need to control the combustion process;
• Independence from district heating;
• The equipment is modern and safe;
• There is no need to coordinate the installation of a pellet stove with any controlling services;
• The fireplace stoves look aesthetically pleasing and fit perfectly into any interior style.

Among the minuses, it can only be noted that in Russia it is still difficult to get high quality pellets of a certain type. In addition, the pellet stove must be connected to the electrical network, without which the ignition systems, pellet feeding, and the control unit will not work..

Another disadvantage of pellet stoves is the high price. It starts from 100 thousand rubles for the simplest and low-power models. And it can reach one million rubles. Popular brands of pellet stoves in our country – Termal (Macedonia), Gran, La Nordica, Castelmonte.