micro:
Re: “Had you ever looked at those pellet stoves for heat? I have a friend who uses one and swears by it. The pellets will burn all night and provide good heat. And, they are fairly cheap around 3 bucks a bag..”
No, I haven't looked into them. Remember - I bought my stove 10 years or more ago and haven't yet had a fire in it! It's a good one, though, a Jøtul rated for 1,900 sqft. Our place is only 1,200 sqft, so it will do fine.
I actually thought that wood-burning stoves could burn logs or pellets. There's a difference?
The Home Depot site says of pellets "A 40-pound bag can provide 20 hours of nonstop heat".
That means I'd need 144 bags to cover the period from December to March (4 months). Tractor Supply (a chain that's popular around here) has hard wood pellets for $5.19 a bag. That comes to 747 dollars - which is pretty competitive given that I spent $729 for 3 cords of firewood (delivered.)
Pellets are probably a lot cheaper by the ton, though if they just get dumped in a pile the way the firewood was, I have no idea how I'd store them....
Thanks for the advice. I'll look into this a lot further before making a decision of what types of stove to get for house #2. Yeah, it will have two wood burning stoves. And an external wood burning furnace too...

Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months