Should I buy a pellet stove or a wood burning stove?
As a chimney specialist, I’ve had the opportunity to service several pellet stoves. They are an absolute pain to service properly. It usually takes us about 4-5 hours, and is therefore considerably more expensive than most other appliances. We charge more to service a pellet stove than we do for any other standard wood burning appliance. Five years of annual sweepings is enough to pay for a new wood stove and liner. Pellet stoves are a neat idea. They work very well at their intended purpose and most models are easy to use. However, they are a nightmare to clean. They do not function without electricity, which makes them difficult to use during a power outage. They require power to vent, so if you are burning the stove when the power goes out, you can smoke up the house. They are dependent on several fans, an auger, and other fiddly bits of electronics to function properly. If any of these systems fails, the entire unit is inoperable. Stoves that burn firewood are not as convenient as
