How Much Does It Cost to Run a Pellet Stove?

A pellet stove burns compressed wood pellets, but unlike a wood stove it cannot run without electricity. An auger motor feeds pellets from the hopper into the burn pot, a combustion fan pulls air through the fire and pushes exhaust out the vent, and a convection fan blows heat into the room. Together they draw about 80 to 150 W while the stove runs. The igniter is the exception. It is a hot-air or cartridge heater of 250 to 500 W that runs for 5 to 10 minutes each time the stove lights.

The default here is 100 W for 12 hours a day, 1.2 kWh, about 21 cents at the national average rate. That is a stove running half the day. A stove used as the main heat source might run around the clock in January, which doubles it to 2.4 kWh, about 42 cents a day. Frequent starts add a little, since each ignition uses roughly 0.02 to 0.08 kWh, so letting a thermostat cycle the stove on and off many times a day costs more than running it steadily on a low setting.

The electricity is the small part of the bill. The pellets themselves cost many times more than the 21 cents of power on the default, and what you actually pay to heat with a pellet stove depends mostly on the pellet price and how much you burn. Burn rates run roughly 1 to 5 pounds an hour, so a day on a medium setting can use most of a 40 pound bag. The heating cost by state pages compare pellets with gas, oil and heat pumps.

The electrical dependence matters most in a power outage. When the power cuts, the auger and fans stop and the fire dies. Some stoves can push smoke into the room as the fire goes out without the combustion fan, which is why makers sell battery backups for them. At about 100 W running and up to 500 W during ignition, a pellet stove is one of the easiest heating systems to keep going on a power station or small generator.

Because it plugs into a standard outlet, a plug-in meter gives you a real number over a day.