My Story, Something that may be helpful to anyone thinking of pellets!

My Story starts about 2 years ago when the price of home heating oil just got to me too much. I live in the North East in a 2500 sq ft typical 25 yr old 3 bedroom home.

I already had a wood stove insert (Osburn) that we used in the evenings to give that warm home feeling but keeping the stove running 24hrs was not practical for us. I needed a cheaper source of energy to keep the house warm during the day. I purchased a Harman XXV and had it installed in our catherdral ceiling living room. I managed to negotiate a 10% discount and free install. Note that Harman only permits discounting by their dealers up to 10%, any more and they risk loosing their dealership. Of course installation is another matter. I have to say this is a really nice stove, the build quality is superb and it looks great. The only 2 minor critisisms I have are:
1) The glass panel on the top for loading pellets is too small. You have to pour the pellets into the stove rather than dumping the whole bag into the stove and then splitting the bottom of the bag and letting the pellets fall out as you pull out the bag. This is an easier technique if you can do it.
2) I added a timer thermostat that works well but because the stove is controlled by a thermistor you can only place the control close to the stove that does not work as well as having it the other side of the room. Extending the cable is probably possible but since the temp is controlled by resistance I didn't want to screw with it too much.



So, how did it work out? Well the stove does do what I was looking for but it's a little small to heat the whole house. The cathedral ceiling allowed too much of the heat to rise up and even with a large ceiling fan I wasn't getting enough heat into the rest of the house. This seems to be a common complaint since they rely on convection air currents to circulate the heat. However, we managed to survive without oil by using the wood stove in the evenings. This worked for me but my wife works part time and so she wanted something easier for the daytime and early mornings. This leads me to step 2.

I just recently picked up a Quadra Fire Classic Bay 1200 used. It was a bit tatty and had spent most of its life in someones basement collecting dust where it failed dismally at warming his 3000 sq ft home. This stove is not in the same class as the Harman in terms of build quality but it's a lot cheaper. Incidentally, Harman and Quadra Fire are owned by the same company. The Quadra Fire is easier to load and uses a simple switch circuit for temperature and so I was able to install a timer thermostat in a more appropriate position. This stove is not as appealing to the eye but it does get the job done. Maintenance of the Quadra Fire is a little more intense but nothing to be concerned about unless you're a complete couch potato.



Now with 2 pellets stoves in the house we can easily keep the house at a temperature that is pleasing (about 74F) and we have the added benefit of a wood stove to give that extra kick when we want it. Of course the pellet stoves start to shut off when we have the wood stove running so cost tends to be a wash.

Hope this is of help to anyone thinking of going the pellet stove route.

OldBrit

Thanks for the replies guys. I will try the thermostat extension cable now that I have someone else that confirms that it works OK. I never did like having the sensor close to the stove and on an outside wall.

Regarding mepellet's dilema, you shouldn't have an issue connecting to an existing 8" pipe unless the problem is that it comes vertically down to the stove. In that case you might want to consider the stove made by Nu-Tec. It's designed to be a wood stove replacement with the pipe coming straight up from the stove. It's a rather unusual design in that it relies on simple convection (like a wood stove) and has only a small fan for stoking up the flame. This means that you can run it from a car battery when you have a power outage. No auto ignition which is a minor drawback. This is a pretty looking cast iron stove of moderate heat output. The castings are made in China and the enamelining (and presumably final assembly) is done just down the road from me in RI. The burn pot is designed to fill with pellets and then flow out like a volcano, which again is unusual. Only a small company, which is always a little bit concerning, but they use proprietry parts for auger motors etc. which lowers the risk. Nu-Tec sells thru eBay which not everyone would be happy about but, lets face it, it cuts out the middle man who inevitably takes the largest margin anyway. Cost is $2500+ which is not bad for an enamelled stove, this is inclusive of shipping and of course no sales tax unless you live in RI, like me.

After a few days of running with 2 pellet stoves and my wife cranking up the wood stove at night (she likes it 80+) I would guess that the pellet consumption is only marginally higher tha n it was with one. The house maintains a much more even temperature now and the dogs have 3 places to lie at night.