The wood stove is an ecological solution to heat your interior. Indeed, it uses a renewable fuel and consumes little energy while being very efficient. Discover the essentials to know about this heater.
Summary
The operation and the choice of the pellet stove
Heating with wood is currently the least expensive on the market. The pellet stove is ideal for heating small areas of less than 100 square meters. It can also be used as an auxiliary heater.
How does a wood stove work?
The wood used with a pellet stove comes in the form of pellets with a high energy density. These small cylinders of sawdust were compacted to obtain 6 to 9 mm in diameter and 10 to 30 mm long. The wood stove being a autonomous heating solution, it does not require connection with central heating for its operation. It produces heat through the combustion of wood pellets, which are reloaded using an endless screw on the automated versions.
This fuel having an optimal hygrometry, the combustion is almost complete and the yield constant. Be aware that your wood-burning heating appliance must meet mandatory performance criteria. In particular, energy efficiency must be above 70% and particle emissions below 90 mg/Nm³. As for the concentration of carbon monoxide, it must be less than or equal to 0.3%. Finally, the environmental performance index will ideally amount to 1, or even more.
How to choose a pellet stove?
To benefit from the right temperature, you have the choice among the different types of pellet stoves to heat your home. Before deciding on a model, make sure you choose the right power. Keep in mind that the device will never run at full speed and there is no point in choosing the most powerful.
We advise you to refer to the heat balance of your home to decide the power that suits your needs. If you do not have this document, know that for an RT 2005 house, the power required is 100 W for one square meter. These data correspond to a 10 kW stove. If the accommodation is perfectly well insulated (RT 2012), a 6 kW stove for 100 square meters capable of diffusing 60 W per square meter is sufficient. Also take into account the minimum power which must not be too high at the risk of causing the machine to operate at underspeed. Note that the standard minimum power is 2.5 kW.
The different types of pellet stoves
The market offers different types of pellet stoves that differ from each other in the way they distribute heat. In addition, the wood stove, whatever it is, allows you to divide your bill by two.
Natural convection and forced convection stoves
With a natural convection stove, the heat diffuses into the room through the air outlets of the device without any help. This stove has the advantage of being particularly silent due to the absence of a fan. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you place it in the center of the house for good heat distribution.
The forced convection, for its part, works with a fan that blows hot air through the room. This device generally has several power levels, thus limiting noise pollution. Even if you place it in a corner, it efficiently distributes heat throughout the room thanks to the fan. The heating of the room is also done more quickly than in natural convection.
The ducted pellet stove
A ducted pellet stove is ideal for heating several rooms in your home. It is connected to ducts in which the air will be routed to the rooms farthest from the device. Note that even the rooms located upstairs will be efficiently heated thanks to ductable ducts. As this device is equipped with two to three fans, it may cause noise. To limit the latter, opt for a model that allows you to turn off the fans or adjust them independently.
Savings with a pellet stove
A pellet stove is a good investment and has many advantages. In addition to offering good value for money, it is also programmable, economical and stylish. The main advantage of a pellet stove is undeniably its ability to allow you to‘save energy. The inseparable elements that make up a heating bill are the unit price of kWh and its quantity.
Savings on the number of kWh
If you change an old boiler with 70% efficiency to a version with 90% efficiency, you already save 22% on the amount of kWh consumed. These savings are further boosted by the low price of wood pellets. Note that even if the boilers running on gas or oil that you replaced had a high efficiency, you earn more with pellets. Indeed, the price of this cheap heating energy does not undergo sudden variations.
Save on your energy bill
Estimating the amount of savings you will achieve is easy to do based on the heating energy you use. To simplify the comparison, let’s take the case of a boiler running on fossil energy and another on pellets, both of which have an efficiency of 90%. Note that if your device is old, its performance will be lower. With a pellet model, you save on the heating billbecause it will take less kWh to provide the same amount of heat to make the house comfortable.
Regarding the price of wood pellets, it will inevitably increase in the future. However, the cost of fossil fuels, which are, moreover, rare, is increasing more rapidly. Wood, on the other hand, is a renewable resource. The benefits for the planet and for consumers are greater when it is managed sustainably and operated locally.
