Pellet stoves growing as secondary heat source

Pellet stoves growing as secondary heat source

By Keith Gushard

09/21/06 —

Tom Baird of Meadville only wishes he would have done it sooner.

Baird estimates he’s cut his winter heating bill by about 33 percent by installing an alternative heat source.

He had a pellet stove installed in his home last November and he burns a mix of compressed wood and corn pellets.

“It was the predictions in the (rising) cost of natural gas,” Baird said of what caused him to the pellet stove.

“It’s about a five-year payoff period,” he said of how long it will take to have the cost of the stove balance out against the savings it creates.

The escalating cost of conventional energy costs has sparked interest in pellet stoves that can use wood, corn or even things like compressed cherry pits as fuel.

“In the last two or three years, we’ve sold more than 200,” said Scott Muckinhaupt of Scott’s Heating and Air, a pellet stove dealer in Cambridge Springs who sold Baird his pellet stove. “In the last two or three months, we’ve sold 65 to 70. Previously, we sold 15 to 20 a year.”

Joe Bontreger of Greenview Lawn and Garden of Conneautville, another pellet stove dealer, says he, too, is seeing big customer interest in such stoves. He estimates he’s had a 15- to 20-percent increase in the sale of pellet stoves.

“Most people think of corn as a food, but now it’s a renewable energy source to heat the home or office and helps farmers,” Bontreger said.

Like Muckinhaupt, Bontreger is getting an increase in calls about pellet stoves.

“We’re getting as many as two calls per day, but that will only pick up as the weather gets colder,” he said.

Muckinhaupt has a full-time crew that installs the stoves, which are free-standing appliances.

“They are a secondary heat source (for a home),” he said.

Muckinhaupt estimates an alternative like a pellet stove can operate 85 percent of the time while a home’s conventional furnace needs to operate only about 15 percent of the time.

That’s based on the pellet stove being sized properly and installed in the correct location in a home. It will operate during the day while at night it’s used in conjunction with the home’s furnace when it’s colder.