Complete Newbie-Just Found This Forum!

Hello everyone. I'm brand new here as well as a new owner of a new pellet furnace. My DH and I bought our farm about 2 1/2 yrs ago. When we moved in, we used the propane furnace but quickly decided to use the wood add-on furnace in the basement after we got our first propane bill! It's an old one and didn't really heat the house very well. Additionally, DH HATES cutting wood and we were feeding that beast every 3-4 hrs to keep the temp at least 62! We decided to buy an add-on pellet furnace from TSC. It's a US Stove Company American Harvest 6500. Before purchasing it, I heard pellet furnaces take quite a while to learn how to adjust to burn correctly. You ain't just a kiddin'! DH and BIL installed it Friday and we finally got it somewhat adjusted. We finally have a comfortable temperature and are even able to keep the door to the upstairs open without the first floor of the house freezing! With our old wood furnace, we could seldom get it above 62 degrees in the house without firing up the wood stove in the LR. I'm so happy with the new furnace and am so glad to finally have heat! Winter in Michigan will never be the same and thank God for that! My only regret is that we didn't get one sooner. Now to figure out which pellets to buy. I know they vary widely and am not fond of wasting our money so need to start researching pellets! We got some cheap ones from TSC to start out but before we purchase by the ton, will have to get my head full of info.
Nice to be here and any info/help on adjusting the settings on a pellet furnace is quite welcome! Thanks.
-Laurie

Thank you all for the warm welcome (pun intended). What a great forum! I know we should have done more research on pellet furnaces first but honestly, we got such an amazing deal on the furnace we chose, we couldn't pass it up. It was almost $1000 off the original price.
I know the quotes say the same time for everyone. I didn't know how to change the time without each one being a separate post.

Phatty said:

welcome this is a great place to read and learn

here is one https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/50101/

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Thanks for the link Phatty! Looks like some good information here!

drtnshtr said:

Laurie, I am in Ohio and we have American Wood Fibers pellets down here and I wouldn't doubt it if you have them up there too. There is a plant down here and they go out for distribution all around from Circleville Ohio. These pellets burn great for me and have very little ash build up. They are selling for $190-200/ ton around here right now.

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I will look into those. Thanks bunches!

macman said:

Welcome to the forum Laurie. Glad to hear you’re getting some heat. If you post a list of the pellets that you have available in your area, the members here will give you opinions on how they burn.

Oh, BTW, we’d LOVE to see some pics of the furnace installation!

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So far we have only tried Maeder Brothers pellets that we bought from TSC. This morning the house is 64 degrees, not nearly as warm as last night! I'm thinking that we need to adjust the furnace to a higher heat setting for overnight. The overnight outside temp was in the mid teens.

You mean I was supposed to take pictures of the installation??? Umm, I was watching my BIL's kids while he helped DH with the install and also making homemade pizzas for dinner for the 'crew'. lol Sorry. It didn't cross my mind. Oops.

hossthehermit said:

Welcome aboard. As Smokey said, pellet furnaces seem to be more forgiving, perhaps, than stoves as far as pellet quality. Is that model multi - fuel? Happy burnin’.

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Yes, it's a multi-fuel. Can burn corn and cherry pits as well. I heard corn burns hotter but we don't know a thing about burning corn. I'd probably like to start with a mixture of corn/wood pellets before we go straight to corn. I'm pretty scared of getting corn that's too wet and glugging things up.

I'm not new to forums on the net. I created/am the admin for Michigan Horse Chat. And I thought horse people were passionate! Who knew this forum would be just as passionate! lol

**Edited to say that the furnace shut itself off because the hopper was out of pellets. Now you see how completely new we are to this! LOL

Good to know. Thank you! The hopper was full but apparently once it gets to a certain level, you have to move them around to be able to get into the feed chute. I'm not sure if that's the correct terminology. The hopper holds 320 lbs of pellets.
I called Menards today and they have the following three pellet brands in stock:
Ozark Hardwood
Marth Wood Shavings Supply Co.
Rocky Mountain Pellet Co.
They are all $3.97/bag right now.
I'll have to check the chart on here to see what pellet would be the best to purchase. I think I remember Ozark being the best of the three with Rocky Mnt coming in a close second.

We bought a few bags of the Ozarks and added them yesterday. Not sure if they're burning yet as we had some of the Maeder in the hopper already. House stayed a blamy 71 degrees last night. I don't even know how to deal with the heat after freezing my ass off for the past 2 1/2 years! I'm just LOVING it! I used to huddle under the covers with full set of PJ's on, socks and hands between my legs to stay warm until I could fall asleep and not care. Now I can get in bed without looking like Nanook of the North! lol Will let you know how the Ozarks work. We'll try out all three brands before purchasing a ton or two. Don't know how much we're going to use in a winter so probably won't be considered a pellet pig for a while.

We're out of the Maeder's. I'm from Gobles, MI near Kalamazoo and DH stands for dear husband but could stand for several other 'd' words depending on the day. lol

No, they didn't have any in stock. I called Menards to see what was in stock first as I wanted a quality pellet and didn't want to run around SW MI looking for a highly rated pellet off the chart posted elsewhere on the forum. I sent DH to get the pellets and asked him to get the Ozarks. They sounded like the best choice out of the three. From what I read our furnace should be more forgiving than a stove. DH is still tweaking it and planning ot call customer service today for some tips. One person told us (who has a couple stoves) that there should be no flame, just red glowing pellets. In the manual, it says flames should be 4-6 inches from the burn pot. DH is still figuring out the draft fan, room fan, auger, and such. There's a digital control panel on the side of the furnace. I'm glad I'm not in control of that thing! All I want to know is what the settings are once it's going real good in case I'm home alone when he's gone hunting out of state. That's when things usually go haywire i.e. power goes out. lol I heard we night be able to hook the blower up to a car battery in the event of a power outage. We do have a wood stove in the LR to use for a short time but running the furnace off a car battery sounds toasty to me! lol

SmokeyTheBear said:

Yikes, no flame?

Darn then most of us must be doing something really really wrong.

I think we should all go out and buy some of those electric pellets that glow in the dark

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Okay, so obviously that guy's suggestion was wrong. How should the flame look? The instructions say 4-6" with yellow or white tips depending on what we're burning. Is that right?