Warm Your Home With A Pellet Stove Insert
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When my husband and I were looking for a way to save on energy costs a friend of ours suggested that we check into pellet stove inserts. We have a lovely fireplace in our home. We burn it from time to time but with three kids we don't like to have the fire going often as we're afraid of potential burn accidents.
We decided to check into pellet stove inserts for fireplaces because of the saving potential. As I said earlier, we don't really use our fireplace. The wood is messy to bring indoors and a hassle to stack and store outside. The fireplace also needs to be cleaned out after every use.
Pellet stove inserts are a very clean and highly efficient way to produce heat. A ton of pellets gives the same burn time as a cord and a half of wood, and pellets burn much more efficiently than wood. I like the idea that pellets don't produce smoke inside the home and burn CO2 neutral.
My husband and I have also read that putting in a pellet stove insert may be overall cheaper than a freestanding unit since you don't need a chimney or to add new flooring protection. When we talked with professionals about installing an insert we were guided to Harman and QuadraFire pellet stove inserts.
We're so excited to be able to save money by using our gas heat as a secondary source and that we're going to be able to get true temperature control using the automatic temperature control that comes with either the Harman or QuadraFire pellet stove inserts.
Harman sells the Accentra pellet fireplace insert. QuadraFire offers three models of inserts, the Mt. Vernon AE insert, Santa Fe pellet insert, Classic Bay 1200 insert and Castile insert. These inserts produce between 30,000 and 60,000 BTU's. The latest model, the Mt. Vernon AE insert heats up to 3,800 sq. ft.
You'll find some differences between pellet stove inserts manufactured by different companies, but generally they all have automatic lighting, quiet blowers and programmable thermostat controls. My husband and I have also learned that we need to pay attention to the hopper capacity of pellet stoves. We don't necessarily want to have to fill the hopper on a daily basis so we'll look for a large hopper.
I'm looking forward to the drafty old fireplace being closed up and having a new clean burning pellet stove insert installed.
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