What you saw on the truck was probably a wood-burning, hot water furnace. It goes outside your house, the hot water is piped inside and tied in with a forced air heating system.
Upside, all the mess is outside the house, (along with the fire), some can burn coal as well as wood. Some can be purchased with gas or oil backup in case your wood fire goes out, or you're away for a while. Most can be tied into your hot water heater to heat that as well.
Downside, expensive to install, requires constant maintenance (water level, clean the firebox and flue), and if you live in an area prone to electrical outages, you're SOL if the lights go off (no power to run the pumps or fans).
And if your luck runs like mine does, something, anything, important will fail on the COLDEST day of the year, on a weekend, after the hardware store has closed!
DD I would say you are correct. We do have one of those in the 'hood. Another down side is stack height. While I wouldn't swear to it, I think the city here is looking at an ordinance regulating the height of those particular devices. I do know the one down the road smokes excessively when it starts up on wood laying down a low lying cloud in its immediate vicinity on some days .
Vesta: Pellet stoves are the cats pajamas in wood heating devices but require regular maintenance. As with anything you get what you pay for. I have a fireplace insert make by Quadra Fire which I purchased used at the nursery in No Hampton although I am not sure if they carry that brand any longer. The place I use now is in Hampton Falls. What I was looking for yesterday was touch up paint. My unit had couple chips on it and I wanted the factory paint. I ended up going to Sanford (where I got the paint I wanted but had to pay sales tax ).
Like any wood burning device (or any fuel burning device for that matter ) pellet stoves need to be cleaned regularly depending on usage. In my case (I tend to be a bit anal) I clean the entire fire chamber after one to two bags of pellets. I have a company come in and do the chimney ( stainless steel pipe through the original chimney damper and liner actually) and other blower parts yearly. So far I have had to replace a few electronic components called snap disks ( they monitor the heat at various places on the stove) and a computer control box. Parts are not cheap but then as I said you get what you pay for. Just think of the control box as similar to one used on automobiles.
Pellets can vary in quality and ash content. More ash means more frequent cleaning. I generally run the pellet stove during the day and early evening then set the thermostat (yes thermostat) down to a few degrees below what the furnace is set to come on at. If the furnace fails to come on (and that has been known to happen, after all it is a mechanical device prone to failure), the pellet stove will come on to keep the house warm. This house is pretty tight and the furnace is run on a computerized thermostat which sets back at night so it only comes on infrequently during most nights. My hot water is off the furnace on a separate zone and SuperStor unit. I have a steam boiler and radiators which as you know are great for heating gloves, mittens, and bath towels. The furnace comes up in time to warm the house when we get up then sets back during the day when I generally run the pellet stove.
Using the pellet stove in combination with the oil allows me to save quite a bit on oil costs. I do not freeze at night when I go to bed. Even though there is a floor grate to the second floor the bed room can get quite cool when just running the pellet stove. But then that is where pajamas and down quilts and a bed warming beagle come in. I also have a small electric heater if I want to take the chill off for example to read in bed.
Pellet and wood prices tend to vary with oil and gas in this economy. Steam is probably the best heat I have ever had and over the last sixty plus years I have had: Wood only, kerosene fired hot air, (mobile home), oil fired hot air (house), all electric, solar with electric back up, oil fired hot water, and oil fired steam. Hot air is just that, hot air. It has always been my least favorite form of heat.
One nice thing about the pellet stove insert, it changed the fireplace from a heat source loss to a heat source gain. The biggest rap beyond the work involved would have to be the noise from the blower system but I find that a small price to pay for what I am getting. It generally takes me fifteen to twenty minutes with my "stove" vacuum to do a complete cleaning of my stove but it is an insert so it may take a bit more time, and as I said, I am a bit anal about it.
eta: Oh yes, and when I was very young I lived in Wentworth Acres which, I believe, used coal. I seem to remember the coal truck coming. But darn if I can remember much more than that. Must be the lead tooth paste tubes have finally caused memory loss.
