Wood Stove and Pellet Stove
 

On the main floor of my house we installed a Harman XXV about 2 years ago. In my finished basement I have an older Vermont Castings Defiant Encore woodstove. I am guessing this stove is about 15 years old. Although having stoves with two different fuel types has its good points, it's a real pain in the arse to stock wood and pellets. I am thinking of pulling out the woodstove and putting in another Harman pellet stove. I really can't decide what to do. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Were it me, it would be a cost vs. usage question. Specifically, if I used both consistently, and buying pellets was economical (vs. your regular heating fuel AND wood), then I would go all wood. If, however, the wood stove is supplemental, and would heat the home in a power outage, I would keep it.

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I look at it this way. I heat my house with wood, in fact I have a Harmon wood stove and love it.

Pellets are easy... BUT you can't manufacture them yourself and you are subject to whatever price you can get them at. If the price spikes you're screwed, if there is a shortage of them (history has proven that does happen) your screwed. If your electricity goes out and you don't have alternative power generation you're screwed.

Wood on the other hand is readily available and plentiful if you don't mind doing a little work can be had for FREE. You can also think about it this way, if you scrap your own wood you can save yourself a gym membership cause it's a hell of a workout to boot. Best of all no electricity required.

You have the ideal situation having both.

Wood lost me at hard manual labor and gym workout .. Nothing like cutting a bag of pellets open and sitting back on the couch.

...and the sweet sound of the auger and fan, and no heat during power outages, and 50-pound sacks, and... I'll keep my silent, pretty, unceasing woodstove any day!

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I'd stick with the pellet stove hands down. Much easier to feed, cleaner, you can fill it in the morning and leave for the day (with a bigger hopper maybe 2 days) produces far less ash to deal with and you don't smell like smokey the bear all the time. You don't have truck out to the wood pile in zero degree weather to grab logs. You can get a back up battery system to run if the power goes out. My buddy has a wood stove (similar size house) that he heats with and goes thru 6 chord a winter. I burn 4 ton of pellets. His cost for wood runs him a good $800 more than my pellets.:)

I have wood stove in NH property, and pellet stove in Mass. property.
Actually love both !

However, when we lose electrical power all those pellet stove owner's who heat entirely or partially, wil be over at their neighbor's house who has the wood stove to keep warm ! :)

Hopefully, any power losses would be temporary.

Not Quite...
 

Unless they have a generator...:eek:

12V backup
 

......Or one of the stoves that runs off of 12V backup power such as the QuadraFire Mt. Vernon such as we have. :)

There are battery backup options for Harman stoves as well.

I have a generator, as well as a beefy inverter, no real issues during a power outage.

Wood stoves are archaic, IMO. My goal is overall *comfort*, which means ease of use, ease of cleaning, etc. For that the pellet stove is a far better option.

woodstove
 

I will take your wood stove off your hands if you decide to replace it. I enjoy the workout from gathering wood. Thanks for considering me if you replace.