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I’ve been interested in thermoelectronic devices for a while now, but they’ve just recently begun to be really inexpensive.  For instance, cheaply made Chinese units can be had on eBay for $1 each.  Each unit is rated for an output maximum of 2volts and 700ma.  Plan on getting half of that with room temp on one side of the unit and 300F on the other.  That means that an array of 12 of these little fellas could supply enough voltage and current to effectively run a 120mm computer case fan.  Put this in the doorway between a room with a woodstove and the adjacent room and you will start moving some serious heat!  The best thing about it is that the fan would only start running once the stove got up to temp and once the stove cooled down the fan would shut off too.

Turns out we could add a pellet stove into the mix that mounts into the wall.  It’s the US Stove 2400.  Puts out 24,000 btu/hr, plugs into a standard AC outlet and requires no chimney or vent pipe because it mounts in the wall so the back part is already outside!  A check for $1,300 to NorthernTool.com and we’d be on our way!

If we did decide to do this it would be a good backup heat source, use local fuel and eventually when we got our wood stove we would be able to heat our home 100% fossil fuel free while we are home and only use the oil for backup heat!

It would probably make sense to do a unit like this in the living room before even considering upgrading our oil boiler or installing a wood stove.

The more research I do, the more I like Jotul.  And the more I look into Jotul, the more I realize that the Jotul F 100 Nordic QT is the perfect stove for our home.  It puts out 35,000 btu/hr, is a handsome stove and is alcove approved.  This means we could put it in our kitchen nook!

Here are some numbers I’ve run that make the install even better:

We would save an estimated 285 gallons of oil per year* with the Jotul 100.
With oil prices at $3.09 per gallon, that is a savings of $880.65 per year.

To purchase the stove, installation pieces, hearth pad, chimney liner and professional installation would cost $2,600.

This means that in 3 years we would be saving money.

With our current boiler our yearly oil usage is 700 gallons.  To make the wood stove possible we would need to replace our boiler with a new direct vent one to free up the chimney.  This would also necessitate installing an electric hot water heater.  This would bring our oil consumption down to 550 gallons per year or possibly lower (as low as 450 if we install an outdoor temp reset controller).  Going with the high side of 550 gallons per year and then subtracting the 285 gallons saved per year due to the wood stove, that would leave us with 265 gallons per year of oil.

Current oil bill: $2,163/yr

Future oil bill: $818.85

If we burned 10% more often and at a 5% higher burn rate we would save 330 gallons of oil per year.  Couple that with an outdoor reset on the new boiler which would bring yearly oil to 450 gallons, subtract the 330 gallons saved by burning wood and we are down to 120 gallons of oil per year to the tune of $370.80!  I could live with that.

* Based on burning wood at 50% heat output of stove for 8 hours per day during the week and 16 hours per day on the weekend.