King 5510 Review

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crisfrazer

New Member
Nov 17, 2009
1
Gridley, CA
Last year my wife and I bought a new home with a very ancient wall heater. Not wanting to use it we installed a pellet stove that we bought used from a company in our small town who builds them (the company is Heat Tech). This year we paid the owner to do a service on the stove to make sure it was ready for the season, which he did and declared it in perfect working order. A week later the blower fan died. It took two weeks to get him back out to replace the control panel which fixed the blower fan but killed the auger. He said he would come and fix it again in a couple weeks. We have a newborn in the house so we couldn't wait for heat so we ran down to the local Tractor Supply and bought the King 5510 because it was on sale. Later that day I read a couple reviews on Amazon that didn't paint the stove in a very flattering light and I got nervous but not having any other options we stuck with it...and we're so glad we did!

The reviews I read addressed many problems which I'll try to outline:

1. The Stove Doesn't Output Heat

We didn't find this to be true at all, in fact quite the opposite is true. Not having any source of heat in our house when I installed the stove it was 60 degrees in the room we installed it in. Upon installing it and letting the start-up go through its proceedure (which took all of about 3 minutes) it took only about 45 minutes for the house to get up to about 80 on setting 3. The instructions are very clear that the stove must be left on setting 3 for no less than 4 hours in order to let the paint set. Needless to say within an hour and a half of starting the stove we were opening windows.


2. The Seal Around the Door is Poor

I performed the "dollar test" on the stove to check for this. I simply slid a dollar bill into the door way and closed it to see how hard it was to pull the bill out. It wasn't budging. I checked every inch of the door and found the seal to be perfect all the way around.

3. It's Noisy!

Well, its not quiet but I wouldn't call it noisy. It's no louder than say a box fan on high. Mostly what you hear is the sound of the air being blown out and mild hum of the motor. The auger is completly inaudable. So does it make noise? Yeah, it does. Is it unbearable? No, not at all.

4. It Produces Way Too Much Ash

After a day of running there was a light dusting of ash inside the burn chamber and a few flakes on the ash chamber below it, certainly not what I would call excessive by any means. Thing is people will buy cheap pellets and then complain that they get no heat and tons of ash but with this stove, just like any other, if you put quality into it you'll get quality out of it.

What really impressed me about this stove is that its not only made in the USA but the instructions are written in the USA in plain English that is easy to read and understand.

The hopper is very large. We got 4 40lb bags into the hopper easily but without a hairs width to spare. Our old stove had a 45 pound capacity which meant waiting until the stove was almost empty before it could be refilled and to make matters more complicated was that the opening to fill the stove was only 6" by 16" where as this stove has an opening of almost 28" by 28". Its so easy to fill and with our fairly mild Northern California winters we only have to fill it once a week or so.

The only "WTF" moment was that the entire stove came fully assembled except for the two little knobs on the ash pulls and they were a real pain to get on however a little Pam Spray and a pair of pliers fixed the problem really quickly. I just can't for the life of me figure out why they didn't just install them at the factory.

We love this stove, we couldn't be happier. The only thing I would change is the burn chamber door handle. It sticks straight out from door by about 8". If this stove was installed in an area where you're going to walk directly in front of it often then this might be a problem but for me its no biggie.

If you're looking for a good stove for a great price (we paid $1099 out the door) I highly reccomend this stove.
 
Well, that`s refreshing to hear it`s good from the start. We certainly wish you all the best with your new stove and many happy , trouble free years with it. That`s really a great price on a new pellet stove.
 
I have a 5510, and burned about 25 bags of pellets in it sofar. Seems like a real great stove for the price. Just got 2tons of green teams from lowes delivered. now just waiting for cooler weather. I think you will like that stove alot.
 
Ditto on what Gio said. Good luck, and enjoy the heat!

Oh, btw, we love pics of new stove installs....especially ones with the stove burning (hint, hint). or as we like to say here, "no pics=it really didn't happen!"
 
I'm the kinda guy who run's from any product that gets great reviews from places like Consumer Reports, Amazon, etc.

Good luck and welcome aboard.
 
we also bought one of these stoves about 3 weeks ago. Same deal you got at TSC. Had it installed just a couple of hours after getting it home. not a bad stove i guess, it is our first one. The manual isn't all that great and there doesn't seem to be many people with them on here but so far so good. We installed the OAK last weekend although not sure if it helped much, but at least its not sucking cold air from all the gaps and cracks from our 100 year old house. i'm still trying to get the draft and pellet feed to just the right spot. Hopefully it all works out and we can say goodbye to oil!
 
If I set mine on feed#2 I run the draft at #4, feed #3 turn draft #5, seems to keep the burn pot dark to light gray and alot cleaner. With the lower draft settings my window would get brown quick and harder to clean. The burn pot would be black and caked with ash.
 
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I myself bought a 5510 about 6 weeks ago and I love it. Had a few issues with it: 1) pellets would sometimes bounce out of burn pot, called US stove they said they are aware of the issue and are working on a revised burn pot assembly. 2) room blower is noisy, noisiest at startup, but seems to quiet dramatically after it gets warmed up. I love this thing, the style, the simple control, ease of use.etc. MADE IN THE U.S.A., would recommend it for the $1100 i spent on it it seems to be well worth it.
I also wired in a thermostat, which is great, set the stove on any heat range setting 2-5, once the room is up to preset temp it automatically turns down to heat range #1.
 
Got ours working well now. Took Burnpot's advice for the draft fan and no more smoldering mess on shutdown. If you're looking to put an OAK on your stove and can run direct out the wall from the stove then I reccomend using 1 7/8 exhaust pipe. Cheap and easy. We're using New England pellets from the Schuyler plant and they seem to be ok for now.
 
C'mon you US Stove people...we need to see PICS!!! Preferably of the stove burning...we LOVE pics!!!

No pic = it really didn't happen
 
here it is

100_3801.png
 
ke5hde

Nice looking install. Thanks for sharing. we love to look at stoves. Expecially when there burning.

By the way Welcome to the forums, We are very glad you could come and join us.

Stay warm
jay
 
Jay,

You must have Superman eyes. I can hardly make out a thing in the picture. Know its a stove burning but thats all.

David
 
sorry it was way too bright with the flash. I'll get up a better one.
 
macman said:
Gio said:
How`s this?

Nice! Thanks for the pic.

Hey, wait a minute.......is that stove ke5hde's, or Gio's???????? :wow:

All it needed was just a little (actually a lot ) brightening of the shadows in Photoshop.
 
There is a store in my area going out of business, they are offering the model 5510 and 5500 for the same price, any advice on which would be a better unit?
 
Firestarter have you gone to the us stove.com. You might get a better idea from their site. I like my king 5510, it seems to do a great job.
 
Couldn't tell from the company website. I have seen good reviews on the 5510, but nothing on the 5500. I think that i will just go with the 5510
 
I bought a USSC 5510 2 weeks ago and have been running it since. A lot of problems. The burn pot fills with ash and can't run it much more than 24 hours without shutting it down to clean it out. If I run it longer, the pellets spill out of the pot and things start to smoke. I'm running the feed rate at 2, and that is all I can do or else it will plug the pot sooner. I changed pellets and no difference. Both pellet types were certified per the manual in terms of quality and rating. I leave it on automatic. Have reset the stove to factory settings to see if that will make a difference. Tried it at 3, 4 and 5. It will burn well for 8 hours, then start to plug. The entire pot will be caked full of ash. The flame is osciliating, which does not seem right, even after I clean it well.

Can anyone advise me as to the settings you put your 5510 on? I'm going to try the ones suggested earlier on this forum to see what that does.

Newft 27 in Michigan.
 
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