New Heatilator Eco-Choice CAB50 install

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bond1973

bond1973

Member
Nov 18, 2008
67
Weare, NH
Hello All,


Just sharing. Back in 2008 my wife and I had ordered a pellet stove...which ended up never coming on so we took our money back and put it off. Didn't really know where we would fit it anyway.

About two months ago we decided it was time as I was tired of $1500 - $2000 oil bills for the season. Was going to get a Lowes $1600 stove and last minute called a stove shop whom talked me into the CAB50 for the same price. I did the pipe install the Thursday before this past Christmas and finally found the balls to fire it up Christmas morning. This thing may heat me out of the house. Haven't run it at night (while sleeping) or when no one is home yet....little chicken. Just wanted to share and share a pic...glad to have joined the club.
AXIWW0V7.jpg
 
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My house is brick but they installed it straight out the back of the stove, goes straight through the wall to the outside and terminates a couple feet outside. It does not angle up. Mine does not have a single angle in it.
 
Looks Good... Here is to hoping you have a good surge protector on the stove.

The Heatilator brand is just a less expensive Quadrafire. Uses the same components as a Quad. Just a different Heat exchange system.

For the price, its hard to beat. Also the HUGE hopper helps a lot to.
 
Nice. Hope you will come to trust the safety of the stove. There are so many safety devices built in. If installed and maintained properly, it should be as safe to run when you are away or off to bed as it is when you are baby sitting it.
We burned wood for 15 years. These pellet stoves seem way more safe to me.
Keep up with this forum. Your learning curve will be much faster.
Thanks for sharing the pic's
 
congrats! i have the heatilator PS50. loving it.

do you have a good surge protector?
 
I had originally planned to go straight out, then maybe up, but I had a forced hot water baseboard heater in the way, so to eliminate as many angles as I could....I went up then straight out ...capped it about 1.5 feet away from the house outside.

No surge, but thanks for mentioning it...I'm on it. Define "good surge". I did read that it was a Quad based stove which was part of the selling point.
 
there are some good threads on surge suppresors here. but it has to do with the joule rating and the clamp time.
the tripplite brand is what a lot of folks here go with.

i will add links to one of the most popular tripplite units (a 2 outlet model) and i myself went maybe a litlle overboard and spent $39 for their four outlet 3300 joule model.
be back with the links.


* ok. here is the isobar ultra block. $24.99 on amazon. if you are buying something else from amazon you can push the total into the free shipping range if you put stuff on the same order.

http://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-ULTRABLOK428-Protector-Direct-plug/dp/B00006B81D

and this is the one i got. (the ultra block is more than fine though)
http://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-IS...7?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1295451734&sr=1-1

i saw one member who got a belkin brand that had good specs. too.

here. this thread actually links four other good threads on the topic-
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/58498/
 
We love our PS50. If the CAB50 was available when we got ours, there would be one in our house now. If it's anything like the PS, keep it clean and you won't have any trouble.
 
St_Earl said:
congrats! i have the heatilator PS50. loving it.

do you have a good surge protector?
Click to expand...

Due to the responses....I'm looking into surge suppressors now. I found it odd...where I bought the stove....the 3 bag hopper CAB50 was $50 cheaper than the 2 bag hopper PS50 with the same specs...all I could think of was an aesthetics thing.... Noticed in your sig you live in Millinocket, ME. My wife is originally from there and her brother, mother and sister still live there. We were up there in Oct/Nov so I could replace the blower motor on their coal stoves vent.
 
Thanks all. To you other Eco-choice owners...what's your cleaning regimine for your stove? I did have to order this one as the stove shop didn't have it in stock. Good to see other Eco-choice owners. Wish you all a happy new year.
 
This youtube video, from Heatilator, does show some cleaning. No matter what brand of stove you have, cleaning the exhaust flue pipe, is about the same. Also, doing a search at youtube for (pellet stove cleaning), you will get to see alot of different cleaning of different stoves. Also a few videos using leaf blowers to clean your flue pipe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T34lpKYDgNw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv06cgPqubc
 
it's my understanding that the cab and the ps50 are essentially the same stove with the cab having a bigger hopper.

i haven't seen inside the firebox of the cab very well. but from a pic on this or the other cab thread, it looks exactly the same. three back baffle plates.
same output rating.
the ps50 has a roomy compartment housing the motors. the cab has an even roomier one.
that big hopper sure would be nice though.

i clean everyday-

St_Earl said:
i'm getting really really good at the art of hot cleaning.

turn stove off. wait a minimal time and pull the burn pot rod letting the ashes/embers drop into the drawer.

wait slightly longer and start brushing down the fire box. i know i wait long enough because the bristles on my paint brush don't smoke. ha!

having the stove fans still running carries the fine ash out the flue so i can aggressively brush things down fast w/o worrying about the room filling with super fine ash.

then leather gloves and pull the three back plates. brushing them down inside the stove while the blowers are still running.
i stack them on the little drop cloth i use in front of the stove.
then brush out the channel that leads to the combustion blower. just not going so far as to touch the blades.
i found the perfect brush for that job.

take my long screwdriver and scrape the burn pot. (oh yeah. i have a small wire brush i do the sides of the burn pot as the first step in all this)
put the back plates back in.

then i spread the ash out in the bottom of the fire box using my paint brush and give it a minute or less and vacuum.
haven't caught my vac on fire yet.
it's just fly ash in the fire box anyway. i still check though.
and i check the canister of the vac when i'm done to be sure.

no glass cleaning when it's really cold.
turn old helga back on and continue playing xbox in my shorts.
Click to expand...

i also just did the one ton flue cleaning with the linteater.

and, bond- i am really liking living here in millinocket.
we are essentially retired. so the great deal we got on the house and the fact that the job market isn't a factor make this the perfect place for our modest lifestyle.
i'm interested to see what seasonal work opens up in the summer.
just to make a little extra mad money.

of all the small towns we looked at in maine, millinocket has the best feel in my opinion.
it's not got the strip mall feel some of the small places had.
it's like a real town.
and this house is better than all the ones we looked at at twice the price.
we're up high so the basement is bone dry.
 
hello everyone
glad to see there are a few cab50 users out there
I will be buying one soon so....
my questions is burn time. all the videos out there say burn for three days on a load (if your putting 3 bags in a cab50 ) thats one bag in a 24 hour period .
the ps50 holds 2 bags so i would guess 2 days with that one
so if you dont mind the question HOW LONG WILL ONE BAG LAST. 24 hours or less?.



Lets talk burn time......any info is good i do relize there are many variables to this question hi medium low temp outside ect just want to average it all out
talked to some quadra fire and breckwell people and they get 24 hours on a single bag so thats the mark i am looking for.

anything is better than my englander 25pvd one bag every 12 hours and thats on one.
 
Three days is Best case scenario, with the unit on Low and the Feed gate probably almost closed.

Burn times per bag, are also BTU's... The BTU's are what heat your house.

So if it took 40 lbs in 12 hrs before, its likely to he about the same.

It will run on a low firing rate. But it will only produce so many BTU's at that rate.

A bag a day, in warmer weather isn't bad (30's) but 2 bags a day is pretty common for most stoves. Especially if your trying to heat your home. If you only want to heat the room the stove is in? Then 3 days may be achieved. But heating your home? 3 days is highly unlikely. IMO. BTU's are BTU's. One unit may extract more a little easier. But not enough to reduce a whole bag of pellets a day.

My 2 pennies.....

Welcome to the Forums. Good luck with the new stove. And please post pics of you can? We love pics!!
 
yeah. i would love to get a bag a day rate in this cold weather.

but it just ain't gonna happen.
i do have more work to do sealing the house from infiltration and insulating.
but i am seeing a lot of folks burning at a similar rate to me.

i'm still a bit under two bags a day (maybe 1.5) on the really cold days and nights.
but i have a small house.

my goal is to be back as close as possible to a bag a day average over the whole burning season.
looking forward to days in the upper 30's where i can run on low and even turn the stove off for long periods.

thank god for south facing windows and the fact that the coldest days seem to be sunny as well.
 
I am loving my Cab50 so far. I have a split level ranch and am heating primarily with the Cab50. I haven't tried to squeeze the documented 3 bags in. I have squeezed in two while having a little bit left in the hopper already. May be doable, but would take a little finessing. Regardless the big hopper allows for less filling. I really haven't paid attention to bags per day....I just fill it up and keep an eye. Certainly depends upon weather/temps, but I would say if I fill the hopper....I probably get a couple days out of it....maybe 5 bags a week. I rarely run my oil furnace. Had 100 gallons of oil delivered the Monday before Christmas (fired up the stove for the first time Christmas morning) and I have used about half of that....and I'm slowly lessening my oil usage.
 
With our ps50, 1 bag will last more than a day if on low setting, and with this mild weather, that's about what we are averaging. We have noticed a big difference when we switch pellets, however. The Blue lignetics are what we have been using for the last 1 1/2 months.
As far as cleaning, I vacuum the firebox everyday, and clean behind the baffles once a week. Leaf blower, sucker, once a month, which is what I may do now or tomorrow.
Other than that, absolutely no complaints from us, but maybe from the oil man.
 
I live in the Great State of Tennessee where this winter had us at 60 degrees today so location matters.
House is 1400 square feet and insulated above average.
Where I live we don't use terms like "ranch, colonial" etc to describe houses. It's either brick or not and 1 story or more. So my house is brick with 1 story.

The last time I really watched the burn rate, I got 15 days out of 10 bags on medium. My stove/house hate low setting. It will chew up pellets on low. I have tried 3 different brands and burn rate is about the same for all 3.
 
thanks everybody these are great numbers nice to know the stoves are running so well...
my experience is average i guess i live in rhode island i burn 1 ton from mid october to early december then i use 1 ton in january and 1 ton in febuary and can finish right up thrrough april on my 4th ton .
my house is a cape not verywell insulated and winters in north east can be tough
although in this mild winter we are having we are not even through our second ton .
i read in a harman data sheet that it takes 2 tons of pellets to heat a 1000 square foot home for the season so thats my goal i have more insulating to due.
 
densarc said:
thanks everybody these are great numbers nice to know the stoves are running so well...
my experience is average i guess i live in rhode island i burn 1 ton from mid october to early december then i use 1 ton in january and 1 ton in febuary and can finish right up thrrough april on my 4th ton .
my house is a cape not verywell insulated and winters in north east can be tough
although in this mild winter we are having we are not even through our second ton .
i read in a harman data sheet that it takes 2 tons of pellets to heat a 1000 square foot home for the season so thats my goal i have more insulating to due.
Click to expand...

Spend the money on rolled insulation for your attic at Lowe's and get the tax credit for 2011 to offset the cost. Again, we don't describe our houses as "cape, colocial, etc..." so I don't know your house layout. But insulation and caulk the windows will make more of a difference then you can imagine.
 
Probably just the pic but that looks really close to your couch.
 
I've waited for a comment like that. It's about a foot away from the couch. I often check it to make sure the couch isn't getting dangerously, or combustually hot... On another note, regarding how many pellets I use... topped it off Monday the 6th at 8pm and it's now Wednesday the 8th about 7:30pm....I always run it on medium and I have about 1/3 hopper left.
 
bond1973 said:
I've waited for a comment like that. It's about a foot away from the couch. I often check it to make sure the couch isn't getting dangerously, or combustually hot... On another note, regarding how many pellets I use... topped it off Monday the 6th at 8pm and it's now Wednesday the 8th about 7:30pm....I always run it on medium and I have about 1/3 hopper left.
Click to expand...


A foot seems REALLY close!
 
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