Are wood boilers or pellet stoves more cost-efficient?
On One Hand: Wood Boilers Burn Wood Scraps and Waste WoodWood boilers are large, hot wood furnaces that are usually located outside the home and that burn wood and wood scraps at very high temperatures. New wood boilers claim efficiency ratings of 65 percent to 70 percent, but some older models are far less efficient. Homeowners with easy access to free wood are attracted to wood boilers, but many municipalities and some state governments now ban them because of toxic smoke emissions. Wood boilers create five times more pollution than high efficiency wood burning stoves and many times more pollution than pellet stoves.On the Other: Pellet Stoves Are Safe and EfficientPellet stoves are efficient and create so little smoke and other emissions that they do not need to be regulated by the EPA. A pellet stove capable of heating a 2,000 square foot home typically costs between $1,7000 and $3,000, whereas a typical outdoor wood boiler starts at around $9,000. Pellet stoves do rely on purchase
Wood pellet stoves have a number of advantages over normal wood stoves. Because the stoves are so efficient, there is almost no smoke or creosote produced, in fact the exhaust is barely even hot so the stove doesn’t need a masonry chimney and can be installed anywhere a tin metal liner can be put in, either directly into the roof, or sideways out a wall. They can be stand-alone stoves on legs in the corner of a room, or chimney inserts using an existing chimney. Unlike wood stoves, Wood pellet stoves work well in urban environments because of little exhaust and no need for a chimney and can be installed in any room.
