Need stove advice

Waylap1 said:

My wife and I just purchased a home in Northern New Hampshire and wood/pellet heating is new to us. The home came with a nice Harman Accentra in one living room at one end of the house and we would like to put another pellet stove on the other end in a smaller living room that has 3 bedrooms upstairs above it. The Harman is outstanding and very simple. I would love to have another one just like it but I think it would cost $4k! We just don't have that kind of budget. I see stoves for sale on Homedepot and Lowes for $1100 to $1600, pleasant hearth, volgelzang etc. are these stoves not worth looking at or would that work alright? The house is only 2200 sq ft total and my main concerns are ease of use for my wife and putting out enough heat to make it upstairs too.
There's already a brick hearth and chimney from an old wood burning stove where we would like to install it. Can I install a pellet stove pretty easily without major concerns of carbon monoxide? I'm pretty handy but never dealt with stoves.

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Personally I would save for the Harman and at that put in a P43 ( easiest stove on the market to run, clean and maintain). The others work though, yes. A lot of people here use them and I'll let them answer your questions. I passed on those brands after comparison shopping and speaking with people about cleanings etc... It was easy for me though, the wife already had her mind set on a Harman stove of one variety or another. We just waited for the cash and did it, where we could have done the other brands right away. So it took about 3 months for the difference to take place without robbing the piggy bank, retirement fund etc.... Worth the wait, the P61 ( big brother to the P43) runs flawlessly and takes about 10-15 minutes to clean.

Install is pretty straight forward assuming you have a fairly open smoke shelf and damper situation, if that masonry hearth was ever a fireplace. Run a 4" liner to the top. T at the bottom, hook the stove up. Cap the top and put a rain lid on. Seal all your pipe joints with silicone on assembly. Additionally I would run a bead around any swivel joints once install is complete as they tend to be a little leaky on start up in shoulder season, or at least mine is. Not enough to set off any alarms though. You should have a smoke and MOX sensor within about 15 ft of the stove anyway. Sleep tight !

Your early enough in the season to possibly hook a nice used stove! Going this AM to pickup a Whitfield for less than $100. Still seeing a used Harman or two for under $1000. Might be selling a Harman pc45 that I picked up for spare parts when I got a nice Harman to do the major work in the house. Was unsure of the reliability of the Harman but no more after two hard heating seasons. Winter in MN was 8 months and horrifically cold.

http://www.amfmenergy.com/

Refurbished Englanders. May not be the most pretty but they'll heat your home.

Bear in mind you'll need to do something to convert the vent for pellet use, and that can cost as much or more than one of the cheap stoves.

If budget is a prime concern, I might put a small wood stove there. Then you're covered with two fuels, if you can store them.

Best,
- Jeff

What about waiting till winter to see how the current stove does? How do you know that one stove won't be enough? If it worked for the previous owner, it might work for you. Then you can spend that money on air sealing, insulation, etc.