OK so I put in a pellet stove fireplace insert 4 years ago. I use about 4-5 tons of fuel per year. I don't use fuel oil for anything except my hot water. I hope to remedy this situation eventually. The heat from a pellet stove is more like heat from a gas heater than from a wood stove. Mine gives a very nice viewing window to see the flame.

As I installed in a masonery fireplace I didn't have to do much in the way of construction or demolition. All that I had to do was disconnect my damper and push it up out of the way, then I ran a piece of flex duct up into the chimney connected it to my base frame and slid in the insert. (Harmon Accentra) This unit has been both reliable and pleasant to have and use.

The only thing that I found that was a bit of a pain was the cleaning brush that Harmon provides is too short for the left hand burn channel so when you clean it you have to be very careful to push it all the way through. I use a pair of needle nose pliers to hold the end loop so I can get it in far enough. Before the dealer found this error I had plugged up this channel without noticing it. They also installed a flex duct all the way up my chimney ($800 worth ouch) to help with the perieved burn issue but it didn't help that is when we found the plugged duct. I don't think the flex duct  was necessary but it is done now and the stove burns great.

For maintenance you need to clean out the burn pot  every day! Scrape out any carbon buildup, and get the ashes off the edge fo the burn pot. I use a very gentle brass wirebrush to wipe the fly ash off the interior guards of the heat exchanger. Once every few weeks or so I take out the guards and wipe off the heat exchanger with the same brush. This seems to make the stove much more efficient. When it is very cold you burn more pellets and need to do it more often. If the effecientcy seems to go down you know it needs it. If I am going to get a cold snap I always take the time to do it. This only takes 20 minutes or less and saves me a lot of pellets. I do all of the maintenance that is listed in the manual and it keeps my stove running nicely. My ash pan needs to be emptied much more often than the manual says it should I have used several brands of pellets and this has always been the case. I would estimate I empty the ashpan weekly or so. The manual and  sales pitch say you need to empty less often. About 1 time per ton. This has never been the case for my stove.  The ash from a pellet stove is much different than from regular wood. It is much finer and will cause a cloud if you are not careful with it. Just make sure that you work gently with it and you won't have any issues. If you use a vacume on it make sure it has a very fine filter! Also be careful with a vacume with hot embers. They make special vacumes for wood and pellet stoves, this is the type you want to use. I use the vacume sparingly and get most of the ash out into a metal bucket with a stove shovel.

My house is about 1800 square feet which is a bit of a stretch for this unit but it does it in spite of this. I burn just over 4 tons of pellets to keep the house comfortable. Now with this said the stove is in one end of the living room which stays nice and toasty usually in the low 70s. The other end of the house is the kitchen which will average about 66 degrees when it is very cold outside. I live in middle New Hampshire where the outside temperature will get into the single digits regularly in the dead of winter and sometimes below zero too in the dead of winter. The upstairs of the house stays just a bit cooler than the kitchen so I  would estimate that it is around 62 or so up there. I like the cool to sleep so it doesn't bother me a bit.

Conclusion.

I really like heating with pellets, they are clean, easy to handle and do an excellent job heating my house. I would not go back to oil no matter what. I am considering switching my boiler over to pellets also so I can be free from oil for heat.