Which Stove to Choose?

Selecting the type of stove for your home can also be a difficult task especially if you have never had one before.
The stoves differ on the type of fuel they use: wood, wood pellets, natural gas, propane gas, coal, fuel oil or electricity.

On stoves-only.com website I found very good comparison of different types of stoves based on fuel type and cost of fuel used to produce 1,000,000 BTU. This information can help any homeowner to make the best decision while choosing the best cost-effective or environmentally friendly stove.

I will give you only part of information which is posted on their website so you can see which type of stove is the best for your home and your needs.

Fuel Type~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Cost to Produce
______________________________ 1,000,000 Btu

Electricity................................... $29.31

Propane Gas................................ $27.00

Natural Gas................................. $18.75

Fuel Oil...................................... $18.00

Wood Pellets............................... $17.60

Wood........................................ $14.40

Coal......................................... $10.00

From this table you can easily see that the cheapest fuel is coal. Still, the coal makes the biggest impact on environment, and requires most maintenance.

The next least expensive fuel is wood and wood pellets. This website is recommending the wood pellets as the most optimal type of fuel because they are affordable enough and very efficient.

The most expensive fuel types are propane, natural gas and electricity. The electric stove is the most convenient one that is clean and doesn't require buying fuel and delivering it home. Whether electric stove is environmentally friendly or not depends on how that electricity is produced: using coal, hydro dam, nuclear reactor, solar panels or wind turbines.

In case of emergency, wood, wood pellets or coal stoves would be the best choice.
My friend has natural gas stove down in his basement and he used it during two day power outage last winter.

To read the whole article about different stoves comparison you can go to:

http://www.stoves-only.com/fuel-comparison-table

-Peter Y.

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