Advice for a pellet stove use in a small intermittent used area

Your 600 sq ft plus room would easily be handled by many smaller stoves and may even want a mid size stove as who wants to wait for hours for a space to heat up and need to think about the mass heating up as well. Most stoves have no issue sitting unused. A lot of us have a shop heater or two. Can always fire the stove up late evening and enjoy warm shop in the morning and set the stove on a lower setting. Many good used manual ignite stoves would work well and be pretty cheap. Seems the stove market is taking a hit right now in some areas with the heating fuels coming down at least for the short term. Illinois is a major corn producer as well so may think about a multifuel like the St.Croix Auburn or the smaller Quadrafire Santa Fe. A few more inches insulation in the ceiling would help too.

JKC said:

Hi,

I am new to this forum and pellet stoves in general. I would like to buy and install one in my barn this summer. I have been doing research for awhile now on heating my barn. I installed a propane gas line when I built the barn but last year propane shot through the roof and I decided to try and find something more reasonable. I have an area 20 x 30 with 9 foot ceilings and I have r 19 in the walls and ceilings. One big concern is that I am only in the barn on weekend so what ever I use will be shut down completely during the week. This concerned me since it will be off more than on. I have done some research on the Wiseway stove since it dose not have any motors to worry about with the up and down time .I have looked at the Englander for the price and it seems easy to get the stove since I do not have a local dealer of any kind. I have been also looking at the used market since it would not be for the house. I can see a huge amount of knowledge on this form so I was hopping I could get some of these question answers.

• Would the stove setting in a shut down state for 1 or 2 weeks at a time matter?

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Extended off times shouldn't be a problem at all. If doing that I'd work on getting in the habit of cleaning up when you're "parking" it for several days - that way it's good to go when you need it. Make sure your intake and exhaust vents are setup in such a way as to deny critters from building nests that might cause you issues.

• What stove would be good for 600 to 1000 square feet?

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They do make some smaller stoves, but I think you'll find most are rated for at least 1,500sq feet. Your first response has really good advise, if this is an intermittent used space, that's going be let to cool down all the way to ambient, you're going to want some decent "firepower" to heat that back up in a reasonable amount of time. Something with a rating of at least 20,000BTU output (read manufacturers specifications carefully, a lot of stove manufacturers try to sell stuff based on their input BTU, which is a factor of how much fuel they burn, not how much heat that put out - which is typically 20-30% less.) A stove "rated" for 1,500 sq ft usually has an output BTU of around 20,000. In your case, that should give you a good recovery factor, so you don't have to spend 4 hours just getting your stone cold space back up to temp.

• Would Wiseway be an option or is it to new to tell?

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That stove is really intriguing to me. Based on their burn times and given efficiency rating it looks like that thing puts out around 20-22,000 BTUs, which sounds like plenty for your space. I'm not sure what the start up time is like compared to a traditional pellet stove, but I'd guess it probably takes a bit longer to start throwing it's heat. It's a little untested to me - I haven't seen much about it on the forum, and we have heard about some early issues that the manufacturer was working to resolve. If one had a local dealer to provide lots of support in the event of issues, it might be a consideration.

• It looks like most stoves are 1500 to 2000 square feet heating. Would this work in a smaller space?

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Yes, see above. If throttling back to minimum power still produced to much heat, you might have to cycle the stove a bit, which I would try to avoid. I definitely wouldn't look for anything rated to do more than 2000sq/ft.

• Is their a stove anyone would recommended?

Thank you in advance and I would appreciate any advice.

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I'm a big fan of the value I'm getting from my refurbished Timber Ridge (one of Englander's aliases.) 55-TRPAH. I bought the stove new (refurbished) from AMFMEnergy.com. It's simple, it's got a big hopper, it's very efficient, it's easy to clean/maintain, it has some nice features for controls (mainly thermostatic operation) and it's very easy to get parts for and work on should it become necessary. Did I mention it was cheap - $1,000, and it's got a standard warranty. For basic heating power, it was the best value I could find. I'm about 2 months into my ownership and I still feel that way. You'll get all kinds of recommendations, it's really up to you to decide how much money you want to spend, and what you need out of your stove.

One other thought for you that might be a big winner in your situation. I'm not sure if you have access to wifi at your barn, but if you do, a wifi t-stat might be really nice. You can kick the stove on remotely a few hours before heading to the barn, and get everything nice and toasty. Just a thought.

JKC said:

Thanks for the help. I am glad to here that the stove sitting would not effect the stove. I have found several stoves in the 2000 square foot range at big box store. One that I was looking at to catch on sale in the spring is the Englander model # 25-PAH. I did not know if it would be to big but I liked because it has a ash pan. I am with you on the Wiseway but I have no support in this area so I do not think it is a candidate. I liked the idea of the used market but I do not want to buy something that I would have intern put allot of money in unless I got it cheep. I looked at the site on refurbished stoves and that is something I will check into further.

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The Englander 25-PAH is exactly the same as my Timber Ridge 55-TRPAH - I think it's excellent value for the money. Mine's a refurb and I can see on one side where they touched something up and repainted, but it works fine and that's all that matters to me. New stove with a warranty for a used stove price. The big ash pan is nice - your results will very greatly depending on what type of pellets you burn - but I typically can go 5+ bags on mine without having to even consider the ash pan - I just keep the burn pot nice and clean and it burns clean. Used is always worth watching, some deals are worth taking a risk on.

From the stove specs the stove has a 120 hopper that can run up to 80 hours or if figuring 8k btu/lb pellets is 12,ooo input or around 10,ooo output is a nice low burn IMO. Wish I could throttle down the Hestia to burn that low in the shop.

Think about this, you already have a propane heater, the cost of the stove and then the pellet's and ALL the work involved maintaining the stove far offset's the cost of propane which at least you might be able to shop around for lower cost....I wouldn't bother, use what you have, also your going to have to add a exhaust pipe out the roof or side of building, which once you cut a hole, It's never going to be covered up the same...My advice...dont do it, If you have the bucks to blow on a stove you got money for a few hour's of instant clean heat my friend, gas heat is ZERO maintainence

Pellet-King said:

Think about this, you already have a propane heater, the cost of the stove and then the pellet's and ALL the work involved maintaining the stove far offset's the cost of propane which at least you might be able to shop around for lower cost....I wouldn't bother, use what you have, also your going to have to add a exhaust pipe out the roof or side of building, which once you cut a hole, It's never going to be covered up the same...My advice...dont do it, If you have the bucks to blow on a stove you got money for a few hour's of instant clean heat my friend, gas heat is ZERO maintainence

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12-1300 bucks is a lot of gas!

JKC said:

Acammer ,from your experience do you think it would be to big for the area I described? Could it be turned down to work in this area?

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I think it's on the large size for that area, but it does scale back down at it's minimum burn setting to something like 11,000BTU which is pretty low. The manual lists it as being ok down to 800sqft. When mine throttles down to the lowest setting once my thermostat upstairs thermostat is satisfied my 600sqft of finished basement starts cooling down and usually settles around 74*F. Now, its bleeding off a fair amount of heat upstairs, but that's just to show it's not roasting out my 600sqft area on low. And really, there is no reason you can't cycle it a little bit as needed. It's not ideal as lots of cycles wear out igniters faster, but I can't imagine it's that big a deal to cycle it a little bit - they have a thermostat mode that turns it on and off so it's inherent to the design to some extent.

I hope that helps - I'm happy to answer any questions I can about that particular model as it's what keeping my toasty day in and day out. With regards to the gas - if it was natural gas and not propane this wouldn't be a conversation, you'd be putting in a small furnace and calling it a day. But I think you're right to consider options against LP as it is so expensive. Right now we're in a peaceful little propane price lull, but that won't last and it'll be back through the roof in no time.

Pellet-King said:

Think about this, you already have a propane heater, the cost of the stove and then the pellet's and ALL the work involved maintaining the stove far offset's the cost of propane which at least you might be able to shop around for lower cost....I wouldn't bother, use what you have, also your going to have to add a exhaust pipe out the roof or side of building, which once you cut a hole, It's never going to be covered up the same...My advice...dont do it, If you have the bucks to blow on a stove you got money for a few hour's of instant clean heat my friend, gas heat is ZERO maintainence

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I agree with Pellet King.Plus you would have a heating unit that would have 2-4 motors to maintain.But the main reason I would give a lot of thought would be mice and rodents .Being not used much they could build nest in blowers and chew your wires up.You would have to keep traps and bait out at all times in a barn...
Tony

If you are using it just on the weekends I would stick with propane. What do you heat your house with?

If it were me, I would watch Craigslist for a good, used Whitfield Quest. 20 year old stove but parts are easy to get new. They were the original mfr of pellet stoves, and were reliable little beasts, with many here still using them. The Quest avoided the photoeye introduced in later models, which is less reliable. This is a manual start, no thermostat stove but for what you describe it should be great. Easy to service. I have one in my basement office and it should heat your space easily. You can find a well-cared-for one for $500 or so. People want a thermostat and ignitor so they sell them. Heck, I'm on the lookout for a newer stove because it's a pain to light the stove each morning, but will move it to a little-used fireplace. For weekend only use, I doubt you can beat a Quest.