Accentra 52i Just not putting out in cold weather

Get on a ladder and see how warm it is up high at your ceiling. We have a room at my work that is 15' high and its absurd how warm it is up there. Heat rises and you need the air movement. After you check it out, let us know.

What kind of windows are they? Single pane, old double pane, or newer every efficient?

We have a 3200 sq ft home and one stove can hold it at 65-66 okay with temps in the 10-15/degree range. But I'd need the furnace on if I wanted it as warm as yours is set. Got any sweaters?

Executivedefense said:

Thanks for the input. I am going to max it out and forget about it.

Click to expand...

Another vote for run it wide open - I have the hammer down on my PAH pretty much all day every day and it runs just fine. You'll definitely get a cleaner burn the hotter it is. And these guys are right, you're asking a lot to have that stove provide everything you need on cold days - I would just supplement with your other heat source - it's not going to need to run much, to make up the difference.

Jocko1 said:

The only thing ceiling fans do is waste electricity. It's very very hard to move warm air.

Click to expand...

I run a 52" ceiling fan in the high (for my house @ 11') part of my home. Standing under the fan with it in "summer" AKA blowing down mode, you can feel warm air streaming over you. Not so sure it's a total waste. In the OPs setup though, you would need 2 52" fans to get the job done with ceilings that high and a room that size.

My house is the same sq footage but the ceilings aren't as tall as yours; I also have the 52i and the stove heats the house sufficiently. I agree with the others that your stove appears to be running fine. I would try going with the LaCretes only during the colder spells, your propane heat shouldnt work too hard at picking up the slack.

It is not always about the SQ FT of the house at all. Most of these SQ FT coverage in houses are based on very standard construction methods like 8' ceilings. When you have higher ceilings those estimates are almost worthless. For example a room that is 12' x 12' with 8' ceilings has 1,152 cubic feet of air to heat. The same size room with 16 ft. ceilings has 2,304 cubic ft. of air to heat. Twice as much! So a heating device rated to heat 144 SQ FT (12 x 12) will have a problem heating said size room with twice the air volume.

Simply put and as suggested above the OP is asking too much out of a 52i. The 2,800 SQ FT is lot of space to heat no matter how you cut it. Then when you throw in the high ceilings and vast amounts of glass, which is BTU killer, the work a 52i can do in that a situation and amount of space gets seriously crippled. It's like pulling a 32' boat with a small 6 cylinder truck. Plain and simple. It will pull it barely, but wait until you hit the long hills or colder outside temps. You will be maxed out and barely doing it.

Given your situation it's not bad to be in at all. For starters the 52i will reduce propane use drastically and make up for a lot of the heat so it was still a very good and wise investment and will also save a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. I also feel adding another stove would be what is needed to accomplish no propane use. Comparing a free standing P series of any size to an insert is comparing apples and oranges. The free standing units put out a tremendous amount of radiant heat which helps very much.

That said a P68 might heat the OP's home. Depending, it could also struggle to keep it at their desired temp when the real nasty cold stuff hits. The P68 is rated up to 3,900 SQ FT and there is no way it would do that size home in almost every scenario. Including low ceilings and exceptional insulation. In the extreme colder temps pellet consumption is going to go way up no matter which or what. If you want to get off of the propane you will have to add another pellet stove without a doubt. If you can live with some propane use then you're still ahead of the game with just the 52i. My P68 does my 2,350 two levels well and when it gets into the teens and single digits it still works but harder. Once the temps drop into the twenties it is noticeable. It doing the rated 3,900 SQ FT in these conditions....... No way! That's like it heating two homes.

We all seem to forget.. It's a space heater, some get away with heating there house with out any issues. Others have a harder time.

When it gets in single digits I turn on oil. And all is well...what's a few gallons anyways still saving money.

Cheer!

My Accentra insert heats the living spaces of my 2500 sq foot home to 69-70f which us where we have it set on room temp. We use a split system with baseboard hot water oil for the bedrooms that we keep at 66 to 68f. Got down to 8f the other night and there were no problems. We have a total window wall in the living room and a bay window in the dining room. Standard height ceilings. Bags is correct about cubic feet being the true determiner of the load on your stove, that and the glass. Take a look at the BTU output of your central heating system and you will see just how undersized your insert probably is. You'll either need to upgrade, get a second stove, or supplement when the temp drops.

You sound like your in the same boat as me. We have a new 52i as well in a great room, 20ft ceilings, but with 2 window walls and a constant northerly wind. Upstairs is exposed to great room. I wonder if your house is like ours in that the 2 of the upstairs bedroom walls are shared with the upper portion of the great room wall? I am considering wall mounted registers with built in fans supplied by juice from the the attic blowing warm air into the bedrooms. You can find conversations on these fans on here. If you dont have an infered temp gun, would suggest getting one. Very helpful in determining where the heat is going. One last thought is attic insulation. Although our house is only 10 years old, I think it could use some additional insulation. On a recent day with mid 30's temp outside and stove on full blast, 76 deg on great room ceiling I measured the temp via IR gun on the cold side of attic insulation and got around 40 to 42 deg. I'm not sure if that is good or bad, but bet it could be improved.

Good points Randy!
Executive you do have other options too. One is you mentioned only one ceiling fan pulling warm air up. Warm air is going up no matter what you do. Have you tried moving the air with more fans. Bottom line, keeping a house to a controlled or set temp is all about moving air around.

Just throwing out some other things you can try. Myself, I use a few ceiling and a few box fans. What I found to work best for me was to push the warm air down from the ceilings at each location. The box fans are used to move or push / pull the air around. Everyone's homes and situations are different so there is nothing set in stone or a well developed best case of what to do where. If you play around you might get better results but I still think there is only so much you can do with one stove in such a large foot print and two levels.

BTW, Welcome!

One other thing to consider is the placement of the room sensor. As I described above, our house configuration sounds similar to yours. When I discussed the placement of the sensor with our installer, I thought he made a good point in saying that with a big, non enclosed room, your better off having the sensor located under the stove so that it can sample the average room air being sucked under the stove. He thought that in our case having it on a wall would make it a little cooler that the average room air. After saying all that, when it's really cold out, the stove never throttles down anyway, so might be a moot point. Just a thought.....

You have two choices, Lower your ceiling or raise your living space 9 ft. That is where the heat is. You are asking to much,

Yes, you are right. Thats not bad for what your trying to heat.

Randy Fischer said:

You sound like your in the same boat as me. We have a new 52i as well in a great room, 20ft ceilings, but with 2 window walls and a constant northerly wind. Upstairs is exposed to great room. I wonder if your house is like ours in that the 2 of the upstairs bedroom walls are shared with the upper portion of the great room wall? I am considering wall mounted registers with built in fans supplied by juice from the the attic blowing warm air into the bedrooms. You can find conversations on these fans on here. If you dont have an infered temp gun, would suggest getting one. Very helpful in determining where the heat is going. One last thought is attic insulation. Although our house is only 10 years old, I think it could use some additional insulation. On a recent day with mid 30's temp outside and stove on full blast, 76 deg on great room ceiling I measured the temp via IR gun on the cold side of attic insulation and got around 40 to 42 deg. I'm not sure if that is good or bad, but bet it could be improved.

Click to expand...

My house is about 7 years old and only had R-30 in the attic when it calls for between 49 and 60 for my area. Age of the house doesn't always mean much. Newer houses will have thicker walls and should be tighter.

The rolls of insulation are cheap and would be the easiest place to start for anyone. A couple hundred bucks in insulation will pay for itself in a couple years.