New guy looking for advice

Welcome to the group Craig, Lots of good people here with loads of knowledge/experiance to share with you.

One question is the size of the home. We'll need that to see about the stove size.

Harmans are very popular units and we have many members using them. One thing about the bottom feed is they tend to burn about any pellet. Not a true multifuel unit, but they do well with handling high ash fuels. You will still need to poke the burnpot once in a while to keep the air holes clear.

What other units did the Harman dealer have? I never did get why some will sell other units but always plug the Harman's. Has always made me wonder why they bother to carry anything else then. Will let the Harman peeps inform you about them.

There are many good stoves out there that can run with the Harman. St. Croix's are also good units and plenty of users here as well. Enviro has some nice units and they are multifuel units that burn about anything you throw at them(check my sig). Good stoves and built well. Lots of Quad burners here that seem to really like their stoves.

Price and looks/style seem to be what most use to choose a stove. IMHO what should be high on the list is dealer support. If you are not mechanically handy and plan on the dealer to maintain the unit. You should choose the best one possible in your area.

Check out Harmans website and download the manual for the p43. The lifetime warranty is only on the firebox and heat exchangers. The rest of the warranty for electrical components and cast iron parts is pretty much the same as all other manufacturers. When I decided on my stove, I did a lot of research here as well as the manufacturers sites. I downloaded lots of manuals to read and try to understand how the stoves worked and the differences in them. They are pretty much all good heaters, some just have different gimmicks than others, that may or may not be an advantage to you. Take your time and look around, if your dealer has both Harman and Enviro ask them to operate both and have him show you how to clean etc. then you can make an informed decision.

The P-43 is an awesome unit. I have very good results with that unit. If that stove is in your budget, you will not go wrong. I have very few pellet related issues with a P-43. Bad pellets tend to jam up other stoves but the P-43 can handle "lesser quality" pellets. It is always best to stay away from bad pellets but things happen.


Eric

I have both a Harman and a Quad Mt. Vernon AE. Yes the Harman is easier to clean the pot, simply run the provided tool over the pot after filling the stove with pellets. The Quad is a self cleaner, but I have had different issues with that. I do like the Harman better. That being said, I did a good cleaning yesterday, and the Harman does get a little dirtier inside the stove there is more area for the ash to accumulate than the quad. This is not really a problem just trying to be honest with ya. If I had to purchase again it would probably be the Harman but I would also look into the Enviro's.

I have one of each. I work part time for a stove shop and service both. They are both great stoves. The Harman is easier to clean and service. 99% of the cleaning is done from inside of the stove. All of the exhaust pathes are easily to get to w/ no tools required. The rear shield need pulled once per year to empty the clean-out on the feeder. The Harman was engineered for ease of cleaning and service. It is a pellet stove that can burn some corn mix if desired but it was designed to burn pellets and burns them well. The St Croix is a will burn corn and pelllets well. I have a manual lite stove that I burned corn a few years in and now straight pellets due to price of corn. Thius stove is the easiest manual lite stove that I have seen. I have a Lancaster. Lancaster Auburn and Greenwood have same guts, different cabinet. I dont know about the auto lite lite models, I dont have any experience w/ them. The St croix requires a little more on the cleaning and maintance do to exaust passages are not easily acccessible, takes a little learning. To clean exhaust fan requires removable of fan motor and there is a fiber gasket involved. If stove is installed in a corner it is a little dificult to get to everything. I end up unhooking exhast and turning stove around to get to everything. Still a great stove. Harman you can get to all exhaust passages w/out disassembly. Hope this helps

I agree with the info posted. I have no first hand experience with any other pellet stove but the Harman P series. I'd highly recommend a P38. Same stove as the P43 minus the auto ignite. $300-400 cheaper too. When heating season arrives my stove is running 100% of the time with the exception of cleaning time. Lighting the stove takes literally 2 minutes. That's 15 seconds to add the pellets to the burn pot, add gel and light, and 1 min 45 seconds for it to catch.....providing you don't use the silly method described in the manual. When the unit/you aren't calling for heat it's very unlikely that stove is gonna overheat your house in "idle" mode and therefore you really aren't gonna benefit from having auto ignite because it's not going to be cycling on and off. If you're only looking to supplement yer oil heat there is NO WAY you'll need a bigger stove unless you leave the windows open. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't need to use your oil heat at all, particularly if it's a well insulated house.
Neither of my stoves have needed a single dime put into them, though one is still an infant, so to speak.

Dealer support is very important if you needed service down the road so do yer homework in that dept.

kinsmanstoves said:

It is always best to stay away from bad pellets but things happen.

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I have seen even the best pellets have some oops here and there. All it takes is a bad load of fiber to give a stove the fits. Ya just never know. Not to mention the temptation of the cheap deals boxstores are peddling. Some decent, some no so good!

All very good advice.

We have been using pellet stoves for 100% of our household heat since 1992
I am a believer in getting all the goody out of things and have opted for used stoves except for a Quadrafire 1000 that we bought new in 1993.

We currently run a Whitfield Advantage 2 and a Whitfield Prodigy 2 and our Quad is the backup as it is an auto run unit.

We use the two Whits either alone or in combination depending on the weather to do the heating.

If you are into dealing with mechanical things, a used stove can really offer substantial cost savings.

Our two Whits were each $200 and the Prodigy came with the floor pad too.

The pellet stove is a pretty simple device really, with a couple fans, an auger motor, a controller box/board and the chassis (fire box)

Condition is everything , age means little. (unless the thing is a dynasour)

So many people do not understand the need to clean the inner ash traps regularly and soon the stove starts giving trouble or refuses to run properly.

Many folks become disenchanted with the thing and sell it off cheap.

Both our Whits are 1991 models, but are in perfect shape.


An older stove, even if it's sat idle for years can be a great buy. Again condition is everything.

Paying big bucks for a new unit can really slow the payback process.

We have less than $1000 invested in the two Whits, so the payback was fast.


The stoves mentioned by others are certainly good units, and I would love to have a Harman, but the upfront cash outlay is pretty steep.

With oil heat costs where it is, the pellet stove starts to look very good.
If you can get into a good used stove in the $200-$600 range the savings really looks good, and fast.

Now if you are not into mechanical stuff, then the new stove, and the assistance of the retail stove shop may well be the best bet.

I question the advice on the hardwood pellets, they certainly may be fine, but soft wood stuff like Pine and Fir are far more prevalent and I would imagine cheaper too.

Your seeking out the good advice from this forum is a step in the right direction, beware of salesmen, as they can steer you for their own gain and not yours.

Here at the forum we are going to share our experiences, the ups and downs and all around.
We have nothing to gain financially from offering advice, only sharing how it all works for us.

Do not overlook alternative fuels. We use hazelnut shells in our stoves, and this was the reason for getting them in the first place. Cost savings.



Good luck in your quest

Ms Snowy

I am new to the pellet life too only had my stove a year and was very limited to the stoves i could use because i needed an insert and needed a zero clearance box. i also did alot of research on here and received alot of help from the people on this forum everyone is here to help I went with the harman and love it I would go with the auto ignite its only a 2-3 hundred more but you dont have to buy the starting fuel and its easier just turn a knob and your stove starts. Harmans are very easy to clean i do a total cleaning every week takes me 30 minutes and i am back up and running. but you do need to check with your dealer about service and see how busy they are this time of year and also how many techs they have just incase something does go wrong. I liked the bottom feed because you can feed any grade pellet incase you get in a bind and cant find or did not stock up good luck and let us know what you decide on then post pictures and welcome if you have any questions just ask someone here will know the answer

monkers said:

Hello guys, I just found this group and have started reading up on pellet stoves. We are currently beginning to look for a pellet stove to assist heating the house (it has oil heat). We would like it downstairs in the living room, the downstairs is somewhat "open" design. The kitchen/dining/ living area is fairly open. The downstairs has hardwood and tile floors.
We have gone to two of the local places (thats all there really is, other than Tractor Supply and Home Depot) we would prefer not to buy from them. The two stores we looked at were helpful, but being new to all this I need to do some research. I grew up with wood stoves, never had a pellet stove. The one store "steered" us towards Harman, P43 I think it was, they had other brands, but he pushed this one.
The next store sold only St.Croix stoves. They seem comparable, though the Harman dealer kept talking up the Harman bottom feed, though he couldnt tell me why I would want this feature.
So, what I guess Im asking is, does anyone have experience with these brands, and can give me some first hand info on them. Both were about the same price, and about the same number of features.
Im gonna go check out their web sites to see if I can find out more info on them.Thank you for your help,
Craig

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Welcome. Really this is all about how much can you afford in upfront investment and get a stove that makes you and your wife happy. Not sure where in the catskills you are but I'm up here at the top close to Albany and can recomend 2 dealers I have had great luck with.

NOTE my signature so upfront I'm partial but J has a great stove and had the wife liked their insert more (Looks) we would have gone that route.

One thing Pellet stoves use fans/blowers. They create more noise than a wood stove. Do yourself a favor and do not put this in the same room as you watch TV.

One thing from your Original Post is that it appears you are writing off Home Depot and TSC right away. Not sure about TSC but my understanding is that Home Depot sells Englander Stoves, and from reading posts on this board for a couple years now I have come to realize that people seem to be very happy with these stoves (almost cult-like). You won't get any support from the big box stores but the tech support from these stoves appears to be high quality with good customer satisfaction. Many people on this board appear to be experts in them and there is also somebody (technical) from the company that is on this board and seems very helpful.

As you can see from my sig I own an eviro and am very happy with the unit, but just want to make sure you look at all your options. Good luck in your search and enjoy!

monkers said:

Thank you for all the tips, both shops did say to buy quality hardwood pellets.

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Demand indoor storage.

Eric

we bought our St Croix Afton Bay used off of craigslist. had a few problems with it, but installed it ourselves and thanks to the great people on our website, we fixed it outselves too.

Love the stove. We heat our entire house with it. no more oil man. takes about 30 minutes cleaning weekly.

I thought softwoods got you more BTU for the money?

DAKSY said:

How many Harmans was your dealer burning? If you take a ride up to Best Fire on Central Ave in Albany, he's a Harman platinum dealer, meaning he's got AT LEAST 5 units burning on the showroom floor. He's been a Harman dealer almost as long as they've been around & they won't steer you wrong as far as which model will suit your needs...You don't have to buy from him, but you can get enough ideas to make an informed purchase...

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Wear shorts and t shirt

bbfarm said:

I thought softwoods got you more BTU for the money?

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Not usually the case when you compare the BTU/$....

bbfarm said:

I thought softwoods got you more BTU for the money?

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BTU per pound not for the money that will depend upon the local costs of the different kinds of pellets. It my be that in your area a blend might produce the most BTUs per dollar or it could be that they all tie.

i also thought that a soft wood produced more btu's per lb then hard and blended. Cost aside per lb i know they cost more

I have a St. Croix Pellet Furnace, its not a stove, but I understand the stoves have alot of the same feature. They can burn wood pellets, corn, rye, wheat, cherry pits...so it might not be a bad idea to look into fuels in your area before you buy as well. If one is really cheap it might be worth looking at a stove that can burn it. Also, If your first floor is wide open, and approx 1,100 sq. ft, then just about any stove is going to heat that just fine. It might be worth it to move your thermostat for the oil furnace upstairs, close off the registers on the first floor and only heat the second floor with the oil. (dont put the thermostat in the hall where the stairs are, you will get too much heat up the stairs and the 'stat will never call for heat == cold upstairs) If you have a few cold areas in the downstairs, you can get fans to move the air around....if your really handy, there are some articles I have found that will tell you how to use a programmable fan and tie it into the stove and it will come on when the furnace fan does and go off when the furnace fan goes off...

Another feature on the St. Croix that is nice is that there are 3 settings, Manual, Stat and SmartStat....which runs on manual, when a 'stat calls for heat, or in the early fall and spring the smartstat feature will turn the stove off after 1 hour of no call for heat, then when it calls for heat again, it will restart the stove. and its pretty easy to use....just set it and forget it. Works decently with a programmable t'stat....although you cant do quite the temp. swing you can with the oil, because of the lag time on the pellet furnace.

Also, You might look at NYSERDA because I believe they are still giving Tax Credits on 'alternate fuel heat sources' in NYS....but I could be wrong. http://www.nyserda.ny.gov They gave me a nice 1500 tax credit the year I put my pellet furnace in...

Snowy Rivers said:

I question the advice on the hardwood pellets, they certainly may be fine, but soft wood stuff like Pine and Fir are far more prevalent and I would imagine cheaper too.

Do not overlook alternative fuels.

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I too question the advice on the hardwoods. Softies are usually hotter and much cleaner burning. They used to be cheaper, But these days they cost as much or more than a comparable hardwood pellet.

Alternative fuels haven't progressed as much as I thought they would, But still something to look a head to. I try to suggest multifuel units that handle higher ash content fuels even if its just for the affordable not so topshelf brands that are readily available. A multifueler with a self cleaning burnpot will run easily for a solid week even with a high ash fuel with much less tending to the stove.

Good to see your checking in snowy, Hope all is well for you!