Over the summer I came across a used pellet stove that the owner just wanted to "go away" as he put it. I know that it works but makes an odd noise when running but since it will be going in the shop I am not that worried about it. The shop currently has an old oil furnace that was pulled from a mobile home (20 years ago maybe) and worked up till two years but not well, and it had a bit of a drinking habit and has not been used since. The only thing I am concerned about installing the stove is getting the exhaust pipe through the wall, I "think" the sleeve in the wall will work as it was rated for an oil fired furnace but I am not sure about the stove as the heat passing through the pipe will be constant instead of short burst.
Think it will work or should I up the fire insurance 
I know I have to clean it first and not to use glass cleaner.
Thanks, Paul B
With the blower a pellet stove has, I don't think they need a stack, just a side vent. You might even create some problems joining into that existing stack, but I'm far from knowledgeable of that.
Oil furnace= very little work.
Pellet stove = place to store the pellets, feeding pellets to the stove, disposing the ashes.
The best day I had with my pellet stove was the day I replaced it with natural gas.
Pellet prices are wildly variable and when they jumped from 2.75 to 5.99 for 40lbs I gave up on it.
Maintaining a pellet stove is easy. There are two blowers and an auger. All parts were easily sourced from grainger. Motors were common and all couplers in mine were Lovejoy. You can run them during burn advisory days which is a big deal here in the Willamette valley.
Having to let the fire go out and wait for the thing to cool on a 15 degree day so you can empty the ashes, vacuum it out, clean the glass and relight it was a 2 hour job which let my drafty old house cool off quite a bit. It was a once or twice a week thing depending on how hard I was running it.
They are neat devices but since I never bought pellets by the skid I was having to pick up 2 or 3 bags a night in the January/February months..... In a Miata. That dampened my enthusiasm for them.
Oh yeah. Pellet stove exhaust pipe is different than other vent pipes. They are usually a unique size to deter folks from using the wrong materials.
A trip to home depot will show you what I mean.
I ran my pellet stove through B vent. Worked fine for years. It was a ~18' run. Buy pellets by the pallet if you can...
Its in my garage now, pipe runs straight back though the wall with a vent cap on it, soots the wall a little but works fine.
wbjones
MegaDork
12/4/15 12:14 p.m.
Jumper K. Balls wrote:
The best day I had with my pellet stove was the day I replaced it with natural gas.
Pellet prices are wildly variable and when they jumped from 2.75 to 5.99 for 40lbs I gave up on it.
Maintaining a pellet stove is easy. There are two blowers and an auger. All parts were easily sourced from grainger. Motors were common and all couplers in mine were Lovejoy. You can run them during burn advisory days which is a big deal here in the Willamette valley.
Having to let the fire go out and wait for the thing to cool on a 15 degree day so you can empty the ashes, vacuum it out, clean the glass and relight it was a 2 hour job which let my drafty old house cool off quite a bit. It was a once or twice a week thing depending on how hard I was running it.
They are neat devices but since I never bought pellets by the skid I was having to pick up 2 or 3 bags a night in the January/February months..... In a Miata. That dampened my enthusiasm for them.
have pellet stoves taken the place of corn fired stoves ... those were all the rage back in the '80's
I used a pellet stove at my CT house. It is a bit of work, but is a nice sort of heat. Run a stack, You'll get a big puff black smoke when the stove starts. I bought pellets by the pallet. Buy good ones.. The junk aren't worth your time.
Energy prices in CT were so high that pellets and wood burning were very common. I have since moved to Seattle and energy prices are much lower. I would not run a pellet stove as my primary heating source out here if that tells you anything. too much work...
