Pellet stove noise question

joeiii · Sep 11, 2007

I have a Harman accentra insert for my home and am very pleased with the unit. Built like a tank, good looks, reliable heat, diverse and flexible heating controls. My only knock on it is that the blower is noisy when the unit is heating at full blast in the cold of the winter.

I am now looking for a pellet stove for my 2 season cabin. Since this is a 1 room cabin, I am looking for a quieter model that won't keep us up with its blower noise all night. I have a buddy who has a 1 year old Breckwell that amazed me at its quietness. I don't know how reliable they are though.

I also am looking at a Quadrafire Contour. It doesn't seem to have as many bells and whistles, and I'm not sure how loud it is.

Anybody care to compare the two????

I have read on this forum that some other inexpensive stoves are Timberridge and Englander. Since this will be used maybe 10 times a year tops, I'd rather reliable value stove thats quiet. Is that asking too much?

jtp10181 · Sep 11, 2007

Quad Castile? If you want reliable, you want simple. The Quad Castile is fairly simple. We just had our going in the showroom today, and the only noise coming out of it was the whoosh or air moving through the heat exchangers. Its got a Low/Med/Hi toggle one the back and on Low and Med it is very quite. Hi, you just hear a lot of air moving but that's pretty unavoidable.

If you want something is simpler, you could find something without auto ignition, one less part to break. You do have to get the fire going yourself though and if you expect it to be turned on and off a lot this is a pain.

Sorry but I can't comment on any of the other brands.

joeiii · Sep 11, 2007

Castille hugh.... I should check that one out.

I suppose I should mention that the cabin is just under 1000 sq feet.

KeithO · Sep 11, 2007

Joe

It will depend a lot on your tolerance level to perculiar sounds at night. My St Croix corn stove makes a variety of irritating sounds to the point that I can't tolerate it on the main floor of my house anymore. It has an auger that kicks in and out. Occasionally it will "crack" a piece of corn which is quite loud and unpredictable in timing. I find the combustion blower to make objectionable noises / resonances particularly at the slower speeds/ feed rates. The combustion blower noise also changes (gets worse) through the season as soot accumulates in the blower and on the blower blades from use. When the auger feeds corn, it makes a tinkling sound as it slides down the chute into the burn pot. This is also intermittant. I'm sure it would be a lot less objectionable if the auger could simply run continuously instead of turning on and off. The manufacturers saved themselves a few $ on electronics for varying the auger motor speed instead of using a switch.

Now I paid $3600 for that stove because I thought it was the best in the market at the time. So it goes to show that it is not easy to get a subjective impression on the sound quality, particularly when you only get to see it in the showroom next to 2 dozen other stoves. Its also a noisy place and my stove sounded silent at the dealer. Since your place is pretty small, you need to be sure about how you will react to the noise or else you will be very disapointed with your purchase. My wife on the other hand, would turn the ceiling fan on at night so that it wouldn't be so quiet.... It takes all types to make the world go around....

kinsmanstoves · Sep 11, 2007

Breckwell has very good stoves. Please do not get the wrong idea, I am not trying to make a sale. Please look at my site and it will link to Breckwell's. If you have questions, please call me. 330-876-0200 or 440-536-0198 Eric

elkimmeg · Sep 11, 2007

I know Shane speaks highly of Travis industries stoves I think part of the situation was in 2005 all manufactures sold out inventory by late Sept. and were over booking orders to be met daily in a rush to market new subcontractors and different manufactures supplied parts such as blower motors. quality control was a bit jagged to say because it was learn as one found out.

I think the number#1 complaint was noise. It might not be fair to Judge any stove bought and manufactured during the rush to market time, to any being sold today.

That time period was a unique on to its self. I mean stove arrived at dealers not even painted. The dealers used spray cans to paint them before deliveries.

Now that the rush is over and parts ant normal manufacturing time has been restored quality control should be better.

Keith and others mentioned go visit dealers and listen to the stoves in action at all speeds and make your decision

jtp10181 · Sep 11, 2007

joeiii said:
Castille hugh.... I should check that one out.

I suppose I should mention that the cabin is just under 1000 sq feet.

I was not really suggesting it... there is no such thing as a "Contour" like you said in your first post, thats a car. The only Quadrafire pellet units that starts with a C are the "Castile" and "Classic Bay". Both are about the same as far as operation, just a different look and size.

GVA · Sep 12, 2007

The Accentra also has the High- Low toggle switch for the blower, and they really shouldn't make much noise, maybe there is a loose shroud...

joeiii · Sep 12, 2007

Keith,

I've heard that corn makes more nois than wood pellets and I know how the noise can be annoying.

I checked my buddies P23 Breckwell tonite. It seems like a real nice designed unit but he couldn't fire it up because the control panel wasn't working. hmmm.

I see that Quad no longer has a stove called the Contour. Has it changed its name? or has it been discontinued?

Kinda looks like the Sante Fe from pix

KeithO said:
Joe

It will depend a lot on your tolerance level to perculiar sounds at night. My St Croix corn stove makes a variety of irritating sounds to the point that I can't tolerate it on the main floor of my house anymore. It has an auger that kicks in and out. Occasionally it will "crack" a piece of corn which is quite loud and unpredictable in timing. I find the combustion blower to make objectionable noises / resonances particularly at the slower speeds/ feed rates. The combustion blower noise also changes (gets worse) through the season as soot accumulates in the blower and on the blower blades from use. When the auger feeds corn, it makes a tinkling sound as it slides down the chute into the burn pot. This is also intermittant. I'm sure it would be a lot less objectionable if the auger could simply run continuously instead of turning on and off. The manufacturers saved themselves a few $ on electronics for varying the auger motor speed instead of using a switch.

Now I paid $3600 for that stove because I thought it was the best in the market at the time. So it goes to show that it is not easy to get a subjective impression on the sound quality, particularly when you only get to see it in the showroom next to 2 dozen other stoves. Its also a noisy place and my stove sounded silent at the dealer. Since your place is pretty small, you need to be sure about how you will react to the noise or else you will be very disapointed with your purchase. My wife on the other hand, would turn the ceiling fan on at night so that it wouldn't be so quiet.... It takes all types to make the world go around....

KeithO · Sep 12, 2007

Joe, why are you favoring a pellet stove in the first place ? I think the attraction of pellet or corn stoves lie primarily in their "semi automatic" operation. They are totally vulnerable to power loss and basically useless in emergency conditions. I found out the hard way last year with the ice storm with power out for a few days. If you have one of the nice inverter style generators that can reduce speed and fuel consumption when the load is low it may be OK, but having a generator run 3600rpm all day long (and keeping all those jerry cans filled 24/7) wears on the nerves quite a bit.

For your 1000sqft you could get a really nice soapstone stove that will be essentially silent, provide real nice soft radiant heat and particularly with the Woodstock stoves with the cat, they will give you a nice slow burn. And when the ice storms come you can be smug in your cabin like the original pioneers (except that they din't have it nearly so cushy).

joeiii · Sep 12, 2007

I favor Pellet because we usually get up to the cabin late in the eve and want/need relatibvely instant heat. We're never there during ice or snow so poweroutages are not an issue. LP gas is $ 450 per gallon which is a major rip off in my book.

Gooserider · Sep 14, 2007

Well I would avoid soapstone if you need fast heat, but I would still consider a cordwood stove as opposed to pellets. In terms of "instant heat" the plate steel smoke dragon we were using would go from cold stove to blower on (about 150*F stove surface temp) in about 20 minutes, the first five of which was building the fire. Maybe 30 minutes to meaningful heat. I would say that a small to medium size plate steel stove such as an Englander should be able to deliver heat at speeds rivaling pellets, w/o noise (other than possibly a blower, which I find is "white noise" that isn't as distracting as other sorts...) and probably at considerably lower cost.

Another factor is that pellet stoves do have more potential failure modes, and it would sound like if the stove broke it would be a major hassle to get it fixed - A wood stove essentially is going to be "failure proof" as there is very lttle that can fail, and most of that you could fake it to get through a weekend...

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