Pellet Stoves – Clean Comfort
With a close eye on the natural environment as well as costs, the residential heating technological solutions have evolved and are now centered upon recycling as much of the organic waste resulted from other industrial activities as possible. The pellet stoves are part of these solutions which turn the efficient use of waste into home comfort.
What are the pellets, first of all? Pellet fuels or pellets are fuels made from compressed organic matter, or, biomass. Pellets can be made from any one of five general categories of biomass: industrial waste and co-products, food waste, agricultural residues, energy crops and virgin lumber. Wood pellets are the most common type of pellet fuel and are generally made from compacted sawdust and related industrial wastes from the milling of lumber, manufacture of wood products and furniture, and construction. This is a green type of fuel with neutral CO2 emissions while the resulted ash can be later used as garden fertilizer.
Unlike the traditional stoves, the pellet based ones are more efficient because the owner can program, according to his or her own needs, the operational stages of the device, such as switching on and off. Moreover, automatic or auto-pellet stoves or boilers include silos for bulk storage of pellets, a fuel delivery system that moves the fuel from the silo to the hopper, a logic controller to regulate temperature across multiple heating zones and an automated ash removal system for long-term automated operations.
Saving fuel, in comparison to classic fuels, such as wood or gas, is the main advantage. Compared to a classic gas heating system, the pellet stove will save you 20-30 per cent of the costs for the exact same thermal output. For instance, for a 200 square meter house, an owner needs about 5 tons of pellets over the cold season, say October to May. A ton of pellets costs about 150-160 Euros and since a 15 kg sack of pellets produces about 4,500 Kcal/kg, that means its overall thermal output is about 67,500 Kcal, namely the equivalent of 8 cubic meters of natural gas or 35 kg of firewood. So, heating a 200 square meter home over the winter incurs costs of roughly 110 Euros per month in Romania.
Prices range from 4,500 lei (about 1,000 Euros), for a 7 Kw capacity pellet stove, to the equivalent of almost 2,000 Euros, for a double capacity device. The automatic systems are more expansive, with prices starting from 13,500 lei (about 3,000 Euros).
Sources: Green-report.ro, Karmek.ro, Wikipedia.org
