Adding a wood heating appliance to your home is a big commitment. But before buying supplies and cutting out drywall to build a chimney, there’s a fundamental question to consider: “Which kind of wood heating appliance should you get?”
At HY-C, we manufacture wood burning furnaces, a whole category of heating appliances in itself. But between fireplace inserts, wood stoves, wood boilers, and more, there’s a diverse range of wood heating equipment you can use to warm your home.
In this guide, we’re going to compare forced-air wood furnaces to another popular type of wood heating appliance: pellet stoves. We’ll consider key differences in the types of fuel each heater uses, how the units deliver their heat, how much they tend to cost, and much more.
By the time you’re finished here, you’ll have a much clearer sense as to whether a wood furnace or a pellet stove is the right heating appliance for your home.
Wood Furnaces vs. Pellet Stoves: Fuel Type
As their names imply, a wood furnace burns cordwood for heat while a pellet stove burns wood pellet fuel. Both fuels have their own sets of advantages, disadvantages, and nuances.
Acquiring Each Fuel Type
Cutting and splitting firewood is an age-old tradition. Especially for those who live in cold, heavily wooded areas, chopping down trees and storing their wood for the heating season is just a regular annual task. Of course, you can also purchase and transport firewood by the cord.
Wood pellets, on the other hand, simply need to be purchased. They’re made from wood fiber and pressed in a pellet mill into their final form. Wood pellets can typically be bought in bags or by quarter-pallet, half-pallet, and full-pallet quantities.
Storing Each Fuel Type
Storing cordwood and allowing it to season is a regular part of good burning practices. This usually necessitates the purchase of a properly sized firewood rack, as leaving firewood piled up on the ground can subject it to excess moisture buildup and invasion by insects.
Wood pellets, on the other hand, come in sealed bags ranging from 20 pounds to 40 pounds. This packaging keeps them well-protected from moisture and bugs. They’re typically stacked to take up as small of a footprint as possible in a garage or backyard.
Loading Each Fuel Type
Though the processes of loading a wood furnace and a pellet stove are different from one another, neither is particularly difficult. For a furnace, all you have to do is open the furnace door, set the wood in the firebox, and light a fire.
Pellet stoves typically come with a top-fed hopper. Loading it consists of opening the hopper and pouring several pounds of pellets in. From there, the unit automatically feeds more and more pellets into the burn pot to keep the fire going.
Wood Furnaces vs. Pellet Stoves: Heating Method
Wood furnaces and pellet stoves deliver heat very differently from one another. And the kind of appliance you should buy for yourself depends on how you want your home to be heated.
Wood Furnaces
To put it in familiar terms, wood furnaces operate just like natural gas furnaces do: they burn fuel to produce heat inside the unit, and they distribute that heat through ductwork installed in the home. Those ducts are connected to registers in each room from which the hot air flows.
When it comes to whole-home heating, wood furnaces have the upper hand. Their attachment to HVAC ducts allows them to heat homes evenly, spreading warmth to every corner of the house. They’re also thermostatically controlled in order to supply additional heat as needed.
Their connection to ductwork, however, does make them a bit more difficult to install than a pellet stove. Depending on which furnace you buy, you may need to construct a plenum or retrofit your existing ductwork to accommodate the unit.
Pellet Stoves
While wood furnaces blow hot air through a home’s HVAC system, pellet stoves heat homes through radiation. As pellets burn in the firebox, the unit heats up, spreading that heat to the areas and rooms around it.
While they’re easier to install and operate, wood pellet stoves may not distribute heat as effectively as a furnace. Also, the area around the stove itself tends to be the warmest, while parts of the home farthest from the stove may not get much heat at all.
Some pellet stove manufacturers do supply blowers with their appliances to help spread the hot air around the home. This works to varying degrees depending on which stove you buy and how your home is designed and insulated.
Wood Furnaces vs. Pellet Stoves: Heating Area
So, what size home or space should you expect a wood furnace or a pellet stove to be able to heat? In general, wood furnaces are designed to heat larger areas than pellet stoves. As an example, let’s compare our Fire Chief FC1000E wood furnace to PelPro’s PP60-B pellet stove.
The FC1000E is capable of heating homes up to 2,500 square feet, while the PelPro PP60-B is capable of heating areas up to 1,500 square feet. This comparison is a good example of the contrast between the heating coverage wood furnaces and pellet stoves can provide.
There are outliers, of course. For Example, ComfortBilt’s HP22 pellet stove can heat homes up to 2,800 square feet. But that level of performance is on the highest end of the heating spectrum that pellet stoves can cover.
In general, if you’re heating a space that’s 2,000 square feet or larger, opt for a wood furnace. If you’re heating an area less than 2,000 square feet, a pellet stove may work well for you.
Wood Furnaces vs. Pellet Stoves: Delivered Heat
Wood furnaces pack a bit more of a punch in terms of the total area they can heat. The same holds true for the amount of heat they’re able to deliver.
Again, using the Fire Chief FC1000E and PelPro PP60-B as an example, we see the contrast. At its maximum operating capacity, the FC1000E can deliver over 46,000 BTUs to a home in an hour. At its maximum output, the PP60-B can deliver just over 26,000 BTUs per hour.
Part of this has to do with the type of fuel used in each appliance (i.e., cordwood vs. pellets). Part of it has to do with the heat delivery method each appliance uses (i.e., forced air vs. radiation).
In general, the relatively high level of heat energy they’re able to deliver make wood furnaces a better option than pellet stoves in colder climates. If the winters in your area are a bit milder, the right pellet stove may be able to keep up with your heating needs.
Wood Furnaces vs. Pellet Stoves: Cost
Finally, let’s talk about price. It’s no surprise that with a higher heating area and a larger rate of heat delivered per hour, wood furnaces tend to be more expensive than pellet stoves (on average). Again, let’s look at the Fire Chief FC1000E and PelPro PP60-B.
The FC1000E has an MSRP of $3,375, though wood furnaces can get much more expensive than that. For example, Lamppa’s Kuuma Vapor-Fire 100 costs $7,895.
The PelPro PP60-B pellet stove, meanwhile, costs $1,200. Even stoves on the higher end of the spectrum cost less than most furnaces, with the pricey ComfortBilt HP22 coming in at just $2,299.
In most cases, though they’re designed for smaller spaces and don’t deliver quite as much heat, pellet stoves tend to cost much less than wood burning furnaces.
Wood Furnaces vs. Pellet Stoves: Which One Should You Get?
This has been a close look at several differences between wood burning furnaces and wood pellet stoves. And if you’re still wondering which one is right for you, here are some tips to help you decide.
Start with the size of the area you’d like to heat. While some pellet stove models can get close to heating up to 3,000 square feet, in general, wood furnaces are designed to heat spaces 2,000 square feet or larger, while pellet stoves work best in spaces 2,000 square feet or less.
Consider the type of fuel you’d like to use as well. If you live near a wooded area and don’t mind cutting firewood every year, a wood furnace will serve as a very cost-effective heating solution. If you plan to buy your fuel, though, furnaces and pellet stoves are just about on equal footing.
Finally, keep your budget in mind, too. Wood furnaces themselves tend to cost more than pellet stoves. Remember too that you’ll need to hook them up to your ductwork, which can incur additional costs. Both pellet stoves and wood furnaces require you to build a chimney, which costs additional money as well.
At the end of the day, choose the appliance that’s best suited to your home, its climate, your access to cordwood or pellet fuel, and your budget. And for more in-depth comparisons on wood heating appliances, take a look at our comparison between wood furnaces and wood stoves.
