For those of you with pellet stoves:
What kind of stove do you have? Is it embedded in an existing fireplace/chimney? Do you just vent through the wall?
How do you distribute the heat?
Where did you get it? Do you have a maintenance agreement, or do you deal with it yourself?
I have a Quadra-Fire 1200I (insert) that was placed in a built out corner in our family room while we were building. We purchased the stove at AMerican Hardware in Waldorf, but you can go to Tri County on 925, or just shop around.
Like I said the corner of the room was built specifically for a fireplace or stove, but you can vent through an existing chimney and I'm sure there are inserts out there that will fit in your fireplace if you have one. You can of course vent through the wall, the venting system has a fan that evacuates the gasses without having to rely on drafting.
As far as heat distribution there are internal fans that blow the heat into the room. My stove has a 3 speed fan that has to be manually set. (3 position switch easy access) Since we have 18 foot cathedral ceilings we have to use our ceiling fans to keep the downstairs areas warm so we just reverse the direction and leave them on low which works out pretty good. When choosing a stove, go overboard on the BTU output, if you have a 2500 sg ft home, get the stove that can heat 3000+ sq ft.
Most of the maintenance is provided by the homeowner. The majority is just keeping the stove clean. I go a little overboard and vacuum the inside everyday before start up, and make sure to dump the firepot (ash). Most people do a thorough vacuum cleaning once a week which isn't hard at all. Quadra Fire has a stove now that will automatically dump the ash from the firepot and operates on a programmable thermostat A friend of mine has this stove as a free standing unit and heats his 3000 sq ft home with it and they love it. Once a year servicing should be performed by a trained technician which includes cleaning the fans and checking switches etc. American Hardware are good people to deal with during the initial purchase but sometimes you have to keep on them about returning calls. I think this has more to do with being understaffed in the stove area as opposed to negligence.
I'm sure others stove owners will chime in and if you want you can come out to my place and check out the stove and get some answers from my wife about it because we all know how that goes.
