Hi All: My wife and I just became home owners of a nice 1920 3Br colonial 1450 Sq.ft. that has oil heat we want to put in a stove but are undecided on what type of fuel it will run on. Wood Pellet or coal. We live in Westchester county NY which is about 50 Min outside of NYC. Last winter we had 0 and low teen days. The house is not insulated and has 30 windows the with added single pane storm windows. We have looked at the Hearthstone Mansfield which is cast iron and soapstone (Would really love a Tulikivi masonry stove but way to costly all around install). Other stoves we looked at were the Harman TLC 2000 which can run on coal or wood. I have friends who heat with wood and pellet and I get mixed views some have had both, but all agree there is nothing like a real wood fire. But reality sets in I want to use the stove to heat my house. Any help out there would be great.

dvetter, I think that you can heat your area in your New Jersey location with a regular corn/grain-fired heating stove. I am a bit concerned about your 14 foot ceiling situation, but 60,000 BTU units can heat up to around 2,000 sq. ft. in the Great Lakes area, colder than your area, I think, if the residence has good circulation and insulation. There are a small number of companies in a cartel that run world grain, which make few reports, as most them are privately owned, not joint-stock companies like the oil companies, who have to publish much more of their information. The grain cartel has proven for many years that they are effective in keeping prices paid to farmers for their grains low. A number of users in this area find that they can heat using 150 - 200 bus. of corn per heating season. Not too shabby a price. But - you must operate it similarly to a wood stove, which needs managing oftener than once daily, so such a heater should be an alternative heat source - but you say that you have a furnace in place now, which can heat the place when you're away. They run somewhere around $2,500. in price, I think. Try www.grainstovesinc.com (or maybe ending ".ca"): my friend builds a high qualtiy stove. Good wishes as you seek an alternative heat source. joyful guy

from the 70's up through the early 90's home construction made significant leaps and bounds. In the 70's if you took all the air leaks in a home and added them together you would end up with approx. a 3' diameter hole in your wall! Todays construction however is so tight if added all the leaks it would amount to approx. a 3" diameter hole BIG difference. Also in the envelope of the home you have all these appliances taking air out of the home. Dryers, ventahoods, CH/A, and yes even the fireplace just to name a few and nothing is bringing air in so eventually you end up with a negative preassure in the home or a vaccumm if you will and the home will take a breath where ever it can. Because of this hearth designers and manufacturers have come up with outside combustion air kits to offset the negative preassure sometimes its not enough to overcome it but does help in the efficency if the home is really tight. Hope this information aids you in your querry

It sounds like your pellets. This is a common problem with top-feed pellet stoves like yours. Just because you are using the same brand does not mean that they have the same content as last year. Especially with the pellet shortages, who knows what they could be throwing in those.