Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - Simple and to the point, oil- to pellet wood

I'll make this as short as possible...

I just moved into these house about a year ago. My house is heated with hot water radiators by oil. The heat is nice but it just isn't cutting it, I mean my oil bill is high and the house could be warmer. I been told the furnice is in good condition, so it's not that.
So I been looking into these pellet wood fireplaces, and I am impressed with them. I been told that one fire place will do my whole house , which is 1500 sq. feet. I don't know about all that, I find it hard to believe, but thats what they are telling me.

My 2 choices are up-grade to a high efficency furnice and maybe save money that way or go with a pettet fireplace. Both will run me the same amout of money to install.

But the thing is if I go with the fireplace, I still want to keep like the up stairs water heat, just incase the fireplace doesn't do as well as expected. Plus I still need the furnice for hot water ( drinking water & bathing water).

My main question is, if I go with the pellet fireplace, I wouldn't be making a mistake by removing the radiators would I? The whole down stair including Dining room, kitchen, livingroom are going to getting remodeled and I want to remove all the radiators and get more space out of the rooms. As far as the pipes go, down the basement I will be leaving them there, I'll just cap them off.

But are these fireplaces as good as everyone says, how many bags of pellets would it take to keep my home warm each day. I was told one bag which cost $3.00


Any help or suggestions would be great, I'm just thinking with a fireplace I will not only save money with the heating bill, I will also get alot more room in these rooms after i remove the radiator, plus I'll probable only need to buy 1 or 2 tanks of oil each year, plus no more service contract fee to lock the oil price, which is $200.00 a year.

I don't know my head is confussed over these whole thing.

First Id look at the oil burner you have now. When was the last time you had it look at??? Did they service it and set it up for top Combustion on the burner. Clean the boiler. You said it dont heat all the home WHY ???? You could kick up the pump pressure and cut down on the nozzle size that could help some. You also could put new baseboards in for a better heat and more room in the home.;) ED

Originally posted by Ed Imeduc
First Id look at the oil burner you have now. When was the last time you had it look at??? Did they service it and set it up for top Combustion on the burner. Clean the boiler. You said it dont heat all the home WHY ???? You could kick up the pump pressure and cut down on the nozzle size that could help some. You also could put new baseboards in for a better heat and more room in the home.;) ED

Thanks for the reply, and yes i did have it serviced rerecently, the burner is fine. I think it could have something to do with me having 21 windows just on the one floor , six in the basement, and 4 up stairs. Total 31 windows in the house, oh make that 32 I forgot one.
What I really should be asking is , I have baseboard up stairs and that works fine ( I want to keep that) , the basement needs no heat being with all the water pipes down there it stays warm on it;s own. I'm just wondering of I do get the pellet fireplace for the main floor, are they dependable, can they be run all day long, day and night?

The radiators on the main floor take up so much room, and being the whole floor is getting remodeled , I have to deside to rip them out or keep them in , just in case the fireplace broke down?

If you take them out you are "re-engineering" the system. Hopefully it was sized for x amount of radiators. If you remove a bunch of them the boiler will be oversized then it will short cycle. That's bad.
The wood burners are nice for astetics but I lived with one as a kid in KY. It's not fun waking up freezing cold and having to feed the fire. I haven't dealt with the pellet stoves but it seems you would have to have alot of storage space to keep the bags of pellets and I've hears alot of stories how they are becoming unpopular and stores quit selling the pellets so then people that do use them now have to drive long distances just to get the pellets.

In order for you to get any heat distribution from a single point heat source, you will need a duct system. If you try to heat the whole level with a pellet stove in one room, you will not be able to use that room except possibly for a sweat shop. Air does not move from room to room unless it is pushed. If you push it out of one room, it will need to be replaced. That causes the problem of needing 2 fans for each room or one that can shoot the air all the way to the back of the room. You will not be pleased with the result of installing the pellet stove. I am surprised that in a house with 1500 sf of living space you have enough walls to fit 32 windows. Is there any wood there anywhere? Don't bother replacing your oil boiler for more efficiency until you know what you stand to gain. If you have a conventional boiler with a Beckett or Carlin or even Riello burner, you will not save more than a few hundred dollars a year on a $1200 usage.

Originally posted by mattison
If you take them out you are "re-engineering" the system. Hopefully it was sized for x amount of radiators. If you remove a bunch of them the boiler will be oversized then it will short cycle. That's bad.
The wood burners are nice for astetics but I lived with one as a kid in KY. It's not fun waking up freezing cold and having to feed the fire. I haven't dealt with the pellet stoves but it seems you would have to have alot of storage space to keep the bags of pellets and I've hears alot of stories how they are becoming unpopular and stores quit selling the pellets so then people that do use them now have to drive long distances just to get the pellets.

Okay you got me there, I never thought about short cycling the system. I will have to look into these alittle further. I also do haver issues about why can't I go to a local store and buy bags of pellets. But from what I hear I know either home depot or lowes do sell them, but I never really seen them.

Anyhow there are a lot of pros and cons to these whole thing I am planning on doing and as each day that passes, there seems to be more cons added.

Originally posted by KField
In order for you to get any heat distribution from a single point heat source, you will need a duct system. If you try to heat the whole level with a pellet stove in one room, you will not be able to use that room except possibly for a sweat shop. Air does not move from room to room unless it is pushed. If you push it out of one room, it will need to be replaced. That causes the problem of needing 2 fans for each room or one that can shoot the air all the way to the back of the room. You will not be pleased with the result of installing the pellet stove. I am surprised that in a house with 1500 sf of living space you have enough walls to fit 32 windows. Is there any wood there anywhere? Don't bother replacing your oil boiler for more efficiency until you know what you stand to gain. If you have a conventional boiler with a Beckett or Carlin or even Riello burner, you will not save more than a few hundred dollars a year on a $1200 usage.

As far as venting, see this is why I asked these question here on this site. You do have a good point and I have thought of this and yes I do wonder how am I going to vent the whole level. I asked the sales man at the fireplace store the same question and he said" One ceiling fan in the room will do the job". He claims it will spead the heat out. But I don't really want to get all into that because I'm kinda changing my mind with these whole pellet heat deal, there are to many things working against me on these and it could be a bad idea.

I know am thinking maybe I'll go with baseboard heating to cut down on some of the room. As far as a fireplace, I really do like the heat they put off and the look of them in a living room, so I may decide to go with a propane fireplace instead, and use it when needed.

As far as the sq. footage of the house goes, I really don't know how they measure that, but like I said I did buy the house about 1 1/2 years ago and thats what they said the house was and then about 2 months ago I had the house appraised and the apprasier said the same thing. It is a 2 bedroon, 2 full bathroom house. I really think it's a nice size house for me, I mean all the other rooms in the house are not small but then again it's not a house for a large family.

With the windows here you go.............


living room 4 windows
Dining room 4 windows
Kitchen 2 windows
Bathroom 1 window
Bedroom 5 windows
Florida room 11 windows
Basement 6 windows
2nd floor 4 windows

Consider adding insulation and be sure all the windows are sealed tightly. This should drastically lower your heating costs.
I agree with the other posts regarding the pellet fireplace. It might be a nice auxillary heat source, but stick with the boiler for your main heat.
Just my $0.02 worth.

My uncles just switch from pellets to oil to save money and the hassle of getting bags of wood pellets all the time. I don't have the oil burner model #, but it burns like a wood / pellet stove. You light it and it has 4 levels of flame. Its just like a wood stove / pellet stove with a glass door so you can see the flame. There is no fan, just radiant heat. It located in his living room. They have a heat pump as a second source of heat.