It also seems like you're set up to not depend 100% on just one heating source. If pellets get hard to come by you have the heating oil (diesel). If oil gets hard to come by you have your pellets that might be enough to get by. Does that sound right?
I don't have that kind of diversified dependency on my house, but I do in my travel. If the left makes power hard to come by, then we can drive the gas pickup for long trips. If the left makes gasoline hard to come by, then we can drive the EV. (Of course with solar, if the left makes both power and gas hard to come by, then we can drive the EV at least for local driving.)
So, IF heating oil gets cheaper, I turn up the thermostat.
The pellet stove also has a thermostat. So you set it and it turns itself on and off. Just like a furnace.
The first two years I had the pellet stove, pellets would get scarce in the winter. You had to buy ahead in the fall all you needed for the season. Now, the best time to buy it now. Call around and see IF anyone has any left over they are willing to DUMP instead of sitting in their warehouse until October. Many more retailers sell them now.
Pellet stoves do have some moving parts. They do have a board. Which I had to replace once because I didn't have it plugged into a good surge protector. A lightning strike hit near the house and blew the fuse on it. It never worked right after that so I had to replace the board.
The fans are not hard to replace. You just have to pull the thing out of the fireplace. I need my sons help for that. It is on a track with wheels but weighs 450 pounds. I built a wooden platform to slide it out on. My fireplace is on a brick hearth about 10” above the floor. My family room is one large room across the back of my house. My kitchen, dining room and family are all together. The pellet insert is at one end. I use a computer fan to blow the air into the center hallway. Then it goes upstairs by natural convection.
Another benefit is there is no creosote. I clean the flue pipe once a year in October. I have my son help me pull it out of the firebox and clean behind it. There is also a fines box under the auger you have to clean out. It is where the sawdust and broken pellets end up that fall out of the auger. The auger also has a motor to turn it. So, there are actually four motors in my insert.