Pellet stoves are a great heating alternative. Using wood pellets is convenient, efficient and cleaner burning. However there are some drawbacks and some of them are severe. The first being you must locate a reliable source of pellets before you purchase one. Pellet stoves are slow to catch on because no one in the area sells the fuel. You must have the pellets shipped in to our local area and that can get expensive quickly. It is much more economical to stick with wood.

Pellet stove or insert are not cheap either. Couple that with the problem of getting fuel in this area and the drawbacks start to outnumber the pluses. Oh and one more thing...it runs off of electricity. So if you lose power, you lose your source of heat. Contrary to  what you may hear, pellet stoves still need their chimneys cleaned. If they do not have them cleaned regularly the units will stop working.  Granted they do not need cleaning as often as their wood burning counterparts but they do still need cleaning. We suggest if not annually and least every other year. Pellet stoves are very tempermental and require extra care when cleaning.