Heating with wood is an excellent way to reduce expenses. Realizing the benefits of an efficient source of heat for you home can be satisfying. I wanted to find out which source was better so I did some research on each and here is what I found.
Which type of wood stove is more efficient, a wood burner or a pellet burning stove? On pure efficiency, a pellet burning stove is more efficient. If cost is the factor you are focused on, wood burning stoves come out on top.
I will break both types of stoves down and look at cost vs. efficiency in this article. Let’s take a look at each.
Wood Burning Stove
In the U.S. 2.5 million homes use some source of wood heat as the primary heat source. Another 9 million homes use wood as the secondary heat source. The majority of those are wood burning stoves.
Wood burning stoves started mass production in the early 1980s. The market was ripe for an alternate heat source shortly after the energy crisis of the late 1970s. Wood burning stoves were designed to operate more efficiently by reducing the air flow into the firebox of the stove.
Other innovations were introduced including adding a blower to the stove to circulate heat and push it away from the wood-fired heater. Glass doors were included on most models to allow the large black box to add a bit of ambiance to the room.
Heating the home while watching a fire burn was a great marketing tool for wood burning stoves. Unfortunately, the glass would become stained black with creosote, and other contaminants if proper air flow was not provided to the glass. Regular cleaning of the glass was necessary.
With wood burning stoves capable of burning wood for 8 hours or more, the technology was mainstreamed. By 1990, almost 9% of U.S. homes used wood as a heat source for their home in the cool or cold winter months. Wood for burning has been and still is a plentiful and renewable source of heat.
The sales of wood burning stoves dropped in the late 1990s as the price of abundant natural gas dropped, and the regulations on wood burning stoves tightened.
As sales of the wood burners increased in the mid-1980s, regulations were first imposed by the EPA on the manufactures in 1988. This reduced the manufactures of stoves from around 400 companies to 150 by the early 1990s. The added equipment necessary to meet the EPA regulations along with the increase in production by the lack of manufactures would lead to a sharp increase in price. The regulation was steadily increased and will reach the toughest standard by 2020.
The remaining manufacturers are targeting the 2020 standard, and most have models in production that will meet or exceed those standards by the deadline.
Efficiency
Wood burning stoves are ten times as efficient as a fireplace when it comes to BTUs of wood burnt to heat received. In reality, they are at best, up to 70% efficient in heat used. While 95% of the heat of a fireplace goes up the chimney, 30% of an excellent wood stove heat still rises up the chimney and is wasted as exhaust.
The new EPA certified wood stoves are the most efficient stoves available. It is because of the EPA requirements that they have this higher efficiency. The smoke that would just exit the stove is re-burned in one of two processes, and that re-burn adds additional efficiency to the stove.
While adding efficiency to the stove, this has also reduced the burn time of the wood. To reach the required temperature to re-burn the smoke, the wood is consumed faster than the slow burn of the older, non-EPA certified models.
The hotter burn is more efficient but burns shorter. The cooler burn is less efficient but burns longer.
Wood Burned
How much wood we burn in a season is the yardstick we use to measure the cost of heat. This amount used varies based on several factors. The primary factors that affect the wood burned in a season are:
- Outdoor temperature
- Type/Species of wood burning
- Type/size of the wood burner
- Dryness or seasoning of wood
- Outdoor wind
- The consistency of burn temperature
These factors are listed in order of importance from most to least.
In a cold winter we will burn more wood. Of course! When we have better burning wood or BTUs per cord, we will burn less wood. Averaging these factors and assuming the typical winter and wood type, and average size home of 2,200 sq. ft., we will come up with the usage of 3 to 4 cords of wood per winter.
All of the above factors will affect this amount up or down depending. Let’s, for cost analysis, assume on the high side of 4 cords per season of wood.
Cost
We can spend hours on the list of items that would add up when cutting our own wood. Chainsaw, parts, sharpening, gas, oil, and the list could go on but needless to say, the more you do yourself, the more you save. Also, the more money you spend on items that make the job easier and faster the more of your own valuable time is saved.
“On the other hand”, as Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof, how much is your time worth? That is an equation you will have to work out for yourself.
Simply on cost, a cord of hardwood, delivered, will run around $275.00, more or less, depending on where you live and what type of wood you are purchasing. This would total $1,100.00 and removing all the other factors including cutting, delivery, and splitting. You still have to stack it and load the wood burner.
If you have access to the wood, a truck, chainsaw, and a log splitter, you can cut this cost to $100.00 for gas and oil, plus your time spent. Again, this is your call!
Pellet Burners
The first pellet burning systems were developed in the early 1970s. They did not catch on due to a lack of available pellet fuel until about 2004. Since then the efficiency of the pellet stoves have increased, and the supply of pellets has also increased. Production of pellet stoves has improved with demand.
Several other factors have also added to the increase in production and purchase by consumers. The pellet stoves are easier to install due to the relatively lower temperature of the exhaust. This lower exhaust temperature allows for a much simpler chimney system.
The exhaust from a pellet stove is typically between 120 degrees to 350 degrees F. The stove pipe is designed to a maximum of 500 degrees F. This is much lower than the 1900 degrees F. max that a typical wood burning stove chimney requires.
Second, a pellet burner lights by turning it on. An electronic ignition starts the fire and keeps it burning. This is much easier and quicker than the lighting procedure for a wood burning stove, which can take up to 20 minutes to light.
The third factor is the ease of loading. Just fill the hopper once a day or in some larger units once every other day. This is an extreme improvement over 3 – 6 times every day for a wood burning stove.
Fourth is the availability of wood pellets for fuel in the pellet stoves. The supply of pellets is fueled by the uptick in sales of pellet burners and the supply of disposable wood products that make up the pellets.
All of these factors have made pellet stove sales increase. With more stoves on the market and installed in homes, awareness of the product is increasing, adding to sales.
One of the major differences between pellet stoves and wood burning stoves is the requirement of electrical power for the pellet burner to operate. The pellet burner needs the electric power to ignite and continue burning as air is forced into the firebox to increase the heat of the fire. Air is also moved around the small firebox and blown out of the stove to heat the room. An auger is also powered to move the pellets into the firebox.
A wood burning stove burns without any power unless it has a fan to blow the heat away from the stove.
Efficiency
A pellet burning stove can be between 70% and 82% efficient. This rivals 1980s natural gas furnace efficiencies. It is well above wood stove efficiency. The fuel that is burnt in a pellet stove produces a large amount of heat for the home it is in.
It is efficient enough to have a basic furnace chimney installed. The chimney only needs to be rated to 500 degrees F. and typically is a 6″ diameter pipe on the exterior. This also means there is relatively little heat being released through the chimney.
Pellet stoves are rated in BTU output per hour. The range is from 30,000 BTU/hr. to 170,000 BTU/hr. The size of the stove would be based on the size of the area you intend to heat.
The larger pellet stoves are intended to replace a forced air furnace and have very large hoppers to hold, store, and feed the pellets into the stove.
The BTU rating is based on the output of the pellets burnt (as is firewood type) so a premium pellet will produce more BTUs and thus more heat.
A Season of Pellets
How many pellets measured in tons, will you burn in a season? Again, this depends on the efficiency of the burner and the size of the stove. Also, as mentioned in the last paragraph, the quality of the pellet will affect the total burnt for the desired heat output.
Going back to an average size home of 2,200 sq. ft., to make a like comparison, a 65,000 BTU/hr. unit would be reasonable to heat this size home. This would require 60 lbs. /day. That is translated to a ton a month.
Pellets are packaged in 40 lb. plastic bags. This makes them convenient to store, handle, and load in a stove. They are grouped in 50 bags to a pallet. This makes a pallet an even ton or 2000 pounds.
For an average 2,200 sq. ft. home it is going to require 6 tons or 6 pallets of pellets to heat that home exclusively with pellets for a season.
Cost of Pellets
Premium pellets for a stove run between $4.49 and $5.00 a bag. Since they are bundled in 50 to a pallet, simple math (even for me) give us $225 to $250 a ton. Average that out to $235 a ton. From our last paragraph we assumed six tons a year, so an average pellet burner will cost in fuel $1,410.00 per season. Here is a graph with the facts:
| Type Stove | Efficiency | Quantity/Season | Cost/Season |
| Wood/Oak | 70% | 4 Cords | $1100.00 |
| Pellet | 83% | 6 Tons | $1410.00 |
Comparison of Wood Burner to Pellet Stove
Comparing a wood stove to a pellet stove is going to be a personal decision. Several factors are going to have to be weighed by the individual making that decision.
The first decision is going to be based solely on cost. Is the difference in fuel cost of $300 dollars a season worth the additional work required to burn wood? I am basing this on both products being delivered to your door or yard or where ever.
We did not discuss the cost of stoves in this article, but, pellet stoves are more expensive to purchase. It may be outweighed though by the cost of a chimney if the wood stove would require a tall pipe or many expensive fittings.
Second would be the availability of wood and the ease (or lack of ease) of accessing that wood. Wood pellets are a known dollar amount and are always available (at least for the foreseeable future).
Although pellet stoves are slightly more efficient, the gain is offset by the higher BTU output of most wood species. If you have access to a good quality hardwood, the efficiency gained by a pellet burner is negligible.
Last is the mess that may come with the woodpile. Wood carries with it dirt, bugs, and sawdust. You also may need to keep others that live in the home happy while you are saving money burning wood. The mess is tied to burning wood. Pellet burners have a much cleaner fuel to deal with.
It all boils down to the availability of good hardwood and the willingness to cut, split, haul, and stack it. Then you have to sell it to the people you live with!