Well Got the Accentra freestanding mid Feb. I will try and post a pic or two of it.
My thoughts on pellet stoves (none of this is a surprise it all tracks pretty closely with what I have read on this board)
1. Glad I can finally burn those pellets that I had been storing in the bulkhead since June. (By the way barefoots and so far no punky or puffed pellets so they stored OK)
2. It is louder than I thought - but after a while it fades to background noise and if I set it so fan speed is low you hardly notice it at all
3. It looks great, especially at night with the fire going but the unit looks like it belongs in our house
4. Boy those bags of pellets are a pain to haul up and cut and pour into the hopper without melting them to the top of the stove
5. Dogs love stoves/fires....must be something genetic in them going this is why we decided to get domesticated. Our big shaggy house beast took one look and now all he does is curl up in front of it
6. It takes a long time to really heat up the room and even longer to heat up the bottom floor. We use it intermittently switching it on in the evening when we get home from work
7. As good as the stove looks the vent is butt ugly. We had to vent out the wall to the porch and then over the railing in order to get the stove into the most advantageous corner of the house for heating
8. It really doesn't heat the bottom of the house (we purchased it for supplemental heat but we were still hoping!) The kitchen which is furthest away from the stove and uninsulated is still cold (might be my imagination but it seems to not be as freezing as before but it is no tropical paradise either).
9. Heat rises....we are noticing about a 10 degree increase in heat in our bedroom which is up the stairs this was a bonus that we hoped for and it did work out
10. I am burning a bag of pellets a day on those cold ones (and we have had some pretty good cold days here in Boston since Feb) I was hoping to be more the 1/3 to 1/2 bag a day but we are cranking it up on the stove.
11. Nothing better than warming your buns right in front of the stove after shoveling snow
Bottom line would I do it again
On the whole yes. It's not a slam dunk decision and financially is probably a wash but it alleviates long term risk by tying me to one heating source (oil) and the inherent risk of macro economic pricing affecting supply and demand on that commodity. So I am insuring myself against the risk of future price spikes and it looks and feels great (apart from that damn vent but I have plans to hide it with strategically placed plants during the summer). So in our cases buying it for supplemetal heat has worked out just as advertized in this forum, not more and not less.
My thoughts on pellet stoves (none of this is a surprise it all tracks pretty closely with what I have read on this board)
1. Glad I can finally burn those pellets that I had been storing in the bulkhead since June. (By the way barefoots and so far no punky or puffed pellets so they stored OK)
2. It is louder than I thought - but after a while it fades to background noise and if I set it so fan speed is low you hardly notice it at all
3. It looks great, especially at night with the fire going but the unit looks like it belongs in our house
4. Boy those bags of pellets are a pain to haul up and cut and pour into the hopper without melting them to the top of the stove
5. Dogs love stoves/fires....must be something genetic in them going this is why we decided to get domesticated. Our big shaggy house beast took one look and now all he does is curl up in front of it
6. It takes a long time to really heat up the room and even longer to heat up the bottom floor. We use it intermittently switching it on in the evening when we get home from work
7. As good as the stove looks the vent is butt ugly. We had to vent out the wall to the porch and then over the railing in order to get the stove into the most advantageous corner of the house for heating
8. It really doesn't heat the bottom of the house (we purchased it for supplemental heat but we were still hoping!) The kitchen which is furthest away from the stove and uninsulated is still cold (might be my imagination but it seems to not be as freezing as before but it is no tropical paradise either).
9. Heat rises....we are noticing about a 10 degree increase in heat in our bedroom which is up the stairs this was a bonus that we hoped for and it did work out
10. I am burning a bag of pellets a day on those cold ones (and we have had some pretty good cold days here in Boston since Feb) I was hoping to be more the 1/3 to 1/2 bag a day but we are cranking it up on the stove.
11. Nothing better than warming your buns right in front of the stove after shoveling snow
Bottom line would I do it again
On the whole yes. It's not a slam dunk decision and financially is probably a wash but it alleviates long term risk by tying me to one heating source (oil) and the inherent risk of macro economic pricing affecting supply and demand on that commodity. So I am insuring myself against the risk of future price spikes and it looks and feels great (apart from that damn vent but I have plans to hide it with strategically placed plants during the summer). So in our cases buying it for supplemetal heat has worked out just as advertized in this forum, not more and not less.
