Tell me about your pellet stove

r.man · April 05, 2014, 04:11:20 PM

I am interested in members experiences with pellet stoves as well as pellet furnaces. From talking with two different friends I am thinking that there is a lot of variety in day to day usage. How often do you have to clean, shut down to do things, remove clinkers etc. How many hours do you get to a bag / hopper? Whatever you think someone else should know about your pellet stove before they buy one. Thanks in advance.

thecfarm · April 05, 2014, 04:27:52 PM

Do not buy a cheap one. He brought it from a big box store.My FIL did. :

Auger broke on it,got a new one,all set. That one was a real bother to keep clean,did not burn the pellets up all the way. He brought a higher price one,one that has some support system to it.Parts are available more than one year, He said much easier to keep clean and it burns the pellets a lot better. I think his has a blower on it too. It does push some heat out. I have no idea what kind it is.

currantvt · April 06, 2014, 10:29:06 AM

We bought a Harman a few years ago and it has been pretty good, seems to burn all types of pellets. They have had trouble with the electrics so I' ve heard but so far ours is ok. The biggest draw back is the noise - I cant cope with the fan whining away , maybe they are all like that I havent any experience of others. We passed our stove on to our daughter and she is very happy with it - baby in the house and the last thing she wants to wrestle with is firewood. We are back to a woodburner and I'm enjoying the quiet !

SwampDonkey · April 06, 2014, 11:09:50 AM

My brother put one in this winter in an old farm house. Takes a bag a day, plus a little bit from another bag to do. One morning it was -17 below and it was 70 F on the far corner of the house. Won't freeze to death I guess. The furnace type take two bags a day I have heard. Only know of one guy with one, has a bungalow house. One thing though, hardwood pellets have less ash. The guy was using local pellets from a softwood mill, now gets them from a hardwood mill. All pellets made right here, never had no shortage. I think the stove needs cleaning once a week. The stove comes from PA, forget the brand, might be Harman. $6000 stove I know that (installed). More BTU's than the forced air wood furnace. Still has the furnace. I still maintain you need some heat down there to dry the basement out. ;)

WmFritz · April 06, 2014, 09:15:15 PM

I've got a Heatilator PS50 ( 50,000 btu's rated. Not sure how accurate their rating is). The salesman claimed it would heat my 2600 sq ft cabin even with its 15' ceiling upstairs. When I bought it, I didn't know about figuring heat loss and it's obvious to me now that he didn't either. It will keep the first floor at 70°f ... as long as the outside temps are above 35°f ( 2°c). ;D ;D But luckily, I didn't buy it for a primary heat source. I paid $2000.00 U.S. for it in '00. I installed myself. Just cut a hole through an outside wall for a 4" thimble and then a 3" exhaust through that.

With the auger on high running nonstop, I use a 40# bag every 18 hours. If I'm using a good pellet, I dump the pot every 2 days and scoop out the fly ash 3-4 days. With poor quality pellet, I dump the pot daily. I shut the stove down once a month, let it cool a bit and give it a more thorough cleaning. Takes about 15-20 minutes.

The only issue in four seasons is a bearing went out in the squirrel cage blower last month. And yes, the blower is annoying when watching television. We usually knock the blower down to low in the evening for a couple hours.

thecfarm · April 06, 2014, 09:37:57 PM

I think those square footing ratings is a bunch of you know what. I put a Monitor in my Mother's house after my Father passed away. No problem,they said,even though I wanted the next size up,it will do it easy. Yes,when it's about 30 out. :

Get down into the single numbers would not bring it much past 65°. I would have to go over and start the wood stove up when it was that cold out.

WmFritz · April 06, 2014, 10:51:17 PM

Quote from: thecfarm on April 06, 2014, 09:37:57 PM
I think those square footing ratings is a bunch of you know what. I put a Monitor in my Mother's house after my Father passed away. No problem,they said,even though I wanted the next size up,it will do it easy. Yes,when it's about 30 out. : Get down into the single numbers would not bring it much past 65°. I would have to go over and start the wood stove up when it was that cold out.

I've learned since then, that no heating appliance can be sized solely on square footage. A heat loss study, along with the desired interior temp at the lowest expected outside temperature, is the only way any heat source can be sized. Anything else is a guess. My salesman was correct about mine heating 2600 sq ft. If the building was in Florida! At 45° latitude... not so much.
Good thing I put a radiant heat in when I built. I just need to get off the propane water heater and get a wood burning boiler tied in.

r.man · April 07, 2014, 11:22:33 AM

I have a brother who has been in HVAC for 25 years and to do the calculations properly you need insulation numbers, square footage, window size and quality, expected outside and inside temps, wind, house volume and maybe I have missed something. What trades people usually do is walk around, make a guess and bump it up a size or two just in case. If the salesperson won't put a 100 percent trade up guarantee in writing then they are not very secure in their recommendation. I see one of the firewood processor manufacturers has that, within 1 year they will credit you with 100 percent of your purchase price if you choose to buy a bigger size of processor from them.

thechknhwk · April 07, 2014, 10:39:54 PM

We have a Harman PF100 pellet furnace outfitted with an A-coil for central air that runs off a separate thermostat because the Harman has this stupid thing called a "thermister". We have heated our 1500 sq ft house with it for 5 years and we average 4.5 tons of pellets per year, but this year we have used over 6 due to the hard winter. I have had a few problems with it, but it has saved me several thousand dollars compared to propane. I have replaced a vacuum actuator, upgraded to a high capacity combustion blower due to my chimney length, and had to replace a temperature probe. I used to have to clean my stove more frequently and have ignition problems, but that was due to buying pellets from the "box" stores. I have switched to pellets that the dealer formulated and has manufactured and now I only clean for every ton that I burn, that includes the burnpot and heat exchanger. Harman says to clean more frequently, but I don't find it necessary. The ash pan will actually hold 2 tons of burnt pellets. Yearly I clean the combustion blower and chimney. The stove is rated at 112,000 btu/hr and is supposed to be 89% efficient. An elderly lady bought my house and was not interested in the stove, so luckily I'm taking it with me to heat my barn when it's done. I plan to use it to keep the temp around 50 and then do the rest of the heating with wood. Anyways, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

tmarch · April 14, 2014, 06:04:11 PM

After researching pellet stoves for a coupla years we purchased a Harman, can't remember the model, sold that house and bought another Harman corn/pellet stove. Corn price went up so never burned any, but it does well on pellets and I also have another Harman in my shop so if something happens I have a "spare". I've visited with a lot of folks with other brands that require cleaning from daily to weekly, ours gets cleaned monthly sometimes. Keep in mind it's our only heat source so we use 3 ton of pellets per year. All in all I would only burn wood in a unattached outside stove to save the mess of wood in and ashes out now, but I have burned a LOT of wood in the house in my lifetime.

Jack72 · April 14, 2014, 09:43:43 PM

I still have a free standing corn stove up on a raised tiled area in the corner of my house I like that the outside didn't get hot it was a inch off the back corner next to the drywall just the front door got hot
I loved the heat it kicked out and was quiet but when prices got above 4.50 a bushel wasn't much worth it not one of the better ideas I've had there is a converter kit that you can burn pellets but I didn't get it mine was corn only I don't like that supply and demand control the price of pellets and corn but I would say you don't have the mess that you get from burning firewood

SwampDonkey · April 15, 2014, 06:34:43 AM

My brother's can burn both corn and pellets, but he doesn't have to clean for awhile, every ton of pellets or so. Doesn't need a big long pipe up the side of the house neither, just a small pipe out the side and a short extension with an elbow on the end.