Heating for rental: Electric vs pellet stove
I am currently under contract on a property i plan on renting out long term. The property has electric baseboard heat in every room throughout the property. Yet in the dining room there is a pellet stove the previous owner used to use along with 4 huge pallets of pellets in the basement. I am unfamiliar with a pellet stove and i feel uncomfortable renting and having tenants use it since it may be a safety hazard also that seems like a fire hazard. Is it possible for me to remove it? If so, How much would that cost? Is it worth it to remove it? If anybody has had any experience with this i would like to hear about it and what is the best way to go about it. Thank you.
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Pellet stoves are good for owners in Alaska but not for tenants in Philly. Try to make it unusable rather than removing it. Generally they are electric start so easy to disable.
@Bjorn Ahlblad are these common in Washington at all?
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I agree with removing the stove. I have a wood stove in one of my rental as the power is known to go out for a day or two with winter storms. In another that is in town, I simply removed the stove...and put it on the curb where someone took it for free.
Quote from @Jorge Morales:
Pellet stoves, particularly newer ones, are an extremely safe and cost-effective method of heating a home. They pump out a lot of heat and can warm the entire house. You can leave them running at night without having to load it like a traditional wood stove.
Heating a home with oil will likely run more than $2,000 this winter. Electric baseboard could run $1,000 a more. A pellet stove may cost $300. You already have the stove and you already have four pallets of pellets, so you can probably heat the home for free this year.
It would be foolish to get rid of it.
I think remove it and install it at your house or in your garage and leave the baseboard heat. Anything that requires tenants to buy stuff from the store and successfully get back to their house to operate it will likely not get done (see water softener) having a one off like that that tenants are not familiar with may lead to mistakes in operation. I do like pellet stoves so using it at your place is a great option or put it on FB marketplace and make some money off it.
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Quote from @Will Fraser:
@Bjorn Ahlblad are these common in Washington at all?
We have the cheapest electricity in the US in Wa and yes, wood burning and pellet stoves are still popular.
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The last rental I bought had a wood-burning stove, and even though it could provide a lot of cheap heat, I chose to get rid of it. Too much risk IMO. Now a pellet stove is different and safer by far, but you need to do what you feel safe doing.
Quote from @Bjorn Ahlblad:
Quote from @Will Fraser:
@Bjorn Ahlblad are these common in Washington at all?
We have the cheapest electricity in the US in Wa and yes, wood burning and pellet stoves are still popular.
Got it. What factors make the electricity relatively cheap in WA?
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Quote from @Will Fraser:
Quote from @Bjorn Ahlblad:
Quote from @Will Fraser:
@Bjorn Ahlblad are these common in Washington at all?
We have the cheapest electricity in the US in Wa and yes, wood burning and pellet stoves are still popular.
Got it. What factors make the electricity relatively cheap in WA?
Thera are dams on rivers, windmill farms, solar farms and maybe politicians don't realize that this can be taxed more. Have a great Holiday Season!
Quote from @Bjorn Ahlblad:
Quote from @Will Fraser:
Quote from @Bjorn Ahlblad:
Quote from @Will Fraser:
@Bjorn Ahlblad are these common in Washington at all?
We have the cheapest electricity in the US in Wa and yes, wood burning and pellet stoves are still popular.
Got it. What factors make the electricity relatively cheap in WA?
Thera are dams on rivers, windmill farms, solar farms and maybe politicians don't realize that this can be taxed more. Have a great Holiday Season!
You too, Bjorn!
if you're going electric I don't think you can beat these....
probably 1/4 what it cost to run baseboards.
and you have air conditioning too!
@Henry T. Good suggestion but one of those is not going to do a multibedroom house.
@Jorge Morales you need a landlord policy for insurance and the pellet stove may impact the cost so you may want to check that out.
Pellet stoves may be cheap and efficient (we heat our own home with wood), but as others have said - I get very nervous with something like that in the hands of a tenant. In order of decreasing importance, I worry about liability from burns on children/pets (they get ridiculously hot while operating), risk of house fire (like if they lean something combustible against it or do not provide a wide enough berth around it), and smoke damage/deposits on the walls from improper use/air mixture adjustment. You also will bear an additional maintenance expense for annual cleaning of the chimney and unit itself.
If you have gas service on the street, you could use gas-fired "room furnaces" - I use them almost exclusively in my rentals. They do not have that many parts so are easy to maintain and are pretty bullet proof. The manufacturer I use most is Williams. The box home improvement stores carry them. One unit will heat up to about 800 sq ft. I sometimes supplement with electric wall units in the bathrooms (since people like to be toasty coming out of the shower). On my larger rental units that do not have furnace/boiler, I have two units installed - one at either end of the unit.
The mini split heat pumps won't work very well below 32F, you would need an alternate emergency heat strip of sorts to back it up. The do make multi-zone ones so one unit can heat 4 rooms, but all rooms would have to be nearby for it to work layout wise.
I would love to have a pellet stove.