Winter is coming here in Spain and an often asked question is which is better a wood burner vs pellet stove. We have lived in houses with log burners and we have also lived in houses with pellet burners.
Just to make this even more interesting we also lived in a house with both. here there was a pellet burner in the kitchen dining room and the living room had a wood burner.
When we lived at 900 meters in the Granda region, winters were cold and long and oh, did I mention cold. We used to turn on the pellet burner in the kitchen so we had heat while we had breakfast. At the same time, depending on the forecast for that day and the actual weather conditions on the day, we’d clean out the wood burner in the main room, prep it, and even some days that would be lit mid morning, if the sun was not going to make an appearance.
Pellet Burners
How Efficient Is A Pellet Stove?
For optimal efficiency and convenience, pellet stoves are generally the better choice. Because of a pellet’s size and composition, it is able to burn with less energy wasted. They provide precise heat control and consistent warmth too.
Pros And Cons.
There are pros and cons for pellet burners, as you can imagine.
Pros.
Easy to control the heat, so if you find you are too warm, you can adjust the temperature accordingly. The biggest advantage of a pellet burner is the speed in which the rooms heat up. Forget the waiting for the kindling to catch, then the small logs taking hold.
Very quick and easy to clean, you can actually buy the small vacuums which are designed for these types of products.
Cons.
The noise, I hear you say. Well, this was one thing that had concerned us too and yes it is noticeable the first couple of times you use it. we had ours in the dining kitchen in Granada and used to turn it on first thing in the morning to take the chill out of the air while we had breakfast. there was a little back ground noise, but you could not hear this some mornings over teeth chattering and people shivering.
Where we live now, the pellet burner is in the living room, on the few times we have lit it on an evening, we have had the television on and don’t notice the noise.
Buying Pellets
The big home improvement retailers stock pellets, including Leroy Merlin, Brico Depot. Your local ferreteria may sell these and the big Chinese stores that seem to sell everything imaginable will often have these in the winter months.
For the cost, Є6.50 per sack is a guide price for a 15kg bag. Again it depends on where you buy from and the quality of the product. We have bought a couple of bags from a local retailer, but found the quality to be quite poor, the pellets were not as good and generated more dust than the ones from Leroys.
Wood Burners
How Efficient Is A Log Burner?
As we have not bought wood for 2 years almost, I’d suggest that depending on where you live Є 100+ per ton, would be a decent price. The price would depend on the type of wood, and the quantity you order.
Wood burners are fairly low maintenance, after use though they need cleaning out and the ash-tray emptying daily. It’s advisable to ensure your chimney flue is swept every couple of years if you use your stove from time to time. if you use it often, consider having it cleaned once a year.
Something else to ensure is that the top of your chimney has the metal meshing in place. This is to prevent birds from falling into the flue.
Pros And Cons of A Wood Burner.
Now, let’s look at the good and the bad of wood burners.
Pros.
The good thing about a log burner is you can cook amazing jacket spuds on them, we had one where the top opened as a lid for cooking. With our next house the log burner we used to cook spuds actually inside the burner. There is zero noise, apart from the crackling of the wood burning. You don’t need electricity for a log burner, just kindling, some old newspaper, firelighters and matches.
Cons.
With the logs, you’ll have to move them and stack them, which if you’re buying a ton is a joyous task, especially if it is raining. We found a log burner produces more soot/dust inside the house too. When we lived in the Murcia region, we had a local farmer who used to bring a trailer full of logs, drive past the house, turn around and come back down the road to park as close to the side gate as he could, then tip the load in the road. It was fun trying to move these to the side of the road so vehicles could get past.
We found these generated quite a bit more dust in the house, compared to a pellet stove.
The need to light the stove an hour before you are wanting to sit down to eat or watch tv, as the kindling needs to light up and the flames take hold. Wood stoves are not an instant heat source!
Buying Logs
If you are going with log burners, buy a mix of Almond or Olive and Oak. Oak being a harder wood will last longer. Air dried is fine, if you can get kiln dried even better.
Make sure it is the right size to fit into your burner or you will need a chainsaw to cut or heavy duty axe to split the wood. We once got caught out when we ordered a truck load of wood, the guy turned up, reversed into our yard and dropped the logs from the back of his tipper truck, took the money and drove off. As we both started handballing these into our wood store, we realised that instead of all being the approximate size we asked for, quite a few were huge. By huge I mean we had to cut some into a third of the size to fit into our wood burner. This meant we then had to buy a chainsaw, otherwise all this wood was useless for us.
Check too for root in your delivery. Sometimes you might get 2 or 3 pieces of root, which is fine, but there is the risk you end up with a lot of root.
There are usually plenty of places selling wood and some will also sell in smaller bags that you can pop into the boot of your car.
Which Do We Prefer Wood Burner Vs Pellet Stove?
When we had our house redone we had the choice of either, as we had the chimney in place and with either we’d just need a flue. We went with the pellet option, as these are the more cost effective, heat up quicker and we can actually use an app from a smart phone to set the timer, set it going and set the temperature if we are out and want to come home to a warm and snug house. Coming home in the evening and finding your logs have burned through and you have embers would be a bit of a downer, but not as depressing as coming home to try to start lighting the fire.
Obviously, this is all dependent on where you live. We have lived inland in Andalucia, an hour and a half drive to the coast at almost 900 metres and it is cold. We are now back in the Costa Blanca area and live at 12 metres, so as you can imagine a huge difference.
