Pellet Burning Stoves

How Pellet Burning Stoves Work

Pellet burning stoves for the most part look like normal wood burning stoves. But the stove components are much more sophisticated, but don't worry the operation by you isn't. Pellet burning stoves burn pellets for it's heat source. These pellets can be purchases by the pound for around $3 per 40lbs. Typically, one would load around 30lbs to 130lbs of pellets into a device called a "hopper" which holds the pellets. Each pellet burning stove will vary in the size of the hopper. Obviously the bigger the hopper the more pellets you can load and the longer the stove will provide heat. Some stoves have automatic lighting and others may require you to light the stove. Then a device will transfer the pellets from the hopper to the heating chamber on a controlled and automatic system using an internal thermostat to gauge the heat and when more pellets are needed to be added. Then, air from the room is sucked in from a built in fan which is then transferred through the heating chamber. The hot air is then distributed back into the room or through your vent system of your house.

Residue gasses from some pellet burning stove are transferred to the outside of the house through a small tube that's located on the top or behind the stove. If you do not want to go through the hassle of installing this tube, I recommend that you buy one with out it.

Pellet Feeds

There are two types of feeds that are used to server the wood pellets to the combustion chamber for them to be burned. The device that carries the pellets to the chamber is called an Auger. There are typically two types of pellet feeds:

Top feed - Pellets are served by the Auger from the top, this reduced the likely hood of a the fire burning back into the hopper. Though ash may get caught up in the firebox grate which can build up and cause fire to die

Bottom feed - A horizontal Auger. Pellets are moved in horizontally and the ash is moved to the sides which fall into an ash pan and makes cleaning and maintenance much easier and safer.

Fueling the pellet burning stove is very simple and convenient. Normally, one would only need to fill it up in the morning for it to provide heat for the entire day. We recommend that you also read our article on the benefits of pellet stoves.