New Stove P43

New on the forum, but a long time pellet burner. I purchased a new P43 on Thursday.

I had an Lopi Firefox circa 1998 before this. This was a used showroom model, and I have been running it since 1999. The stove stopped with 3 bags left last spring, so I just did a quick clean and left it. Did a deep clean last week-end, lubed the motors, etc;, but when I tried to start, the auger would not run. After much troubleshooting I have determined that the auger is messed up and the controller was only sending 20vac to the motor. I connected the feed motor directly to 120vac, and the auger would turn but make a grinding noise. I pulled the motor and the auger was turning very hard with a pipe wrench, so I suspect bearings in the auger, and I would have also needed a new controller, so I decided to bite the bullet and purchase a new stove.

The Lopi worked good, went through 2 exhaust blowers and a circulation blower as well as a snap disc or two, had it set to burn a bag a day and it ran pretty much for 150 days straight each year, so no complaints.

I spent many hours on the web and visiting stores, and settled on the P43. Compared to the manual Lopi, this is like a Cadillac! I look forwards to many years of trouble free heat.

I have used various pellets, used Pennington last two years (Home Depot), and purchased Freedom Fuel this year. I have used Energex in the past as well. The Pennington did have a lot of fines. The Stove dealer gave me a few bags of Okanagan, these seem to be great pellets.

If anyone has a Lopi Firefox and is interested in picking up my old one for parts, I am sure we can work out a good deal. Blower motor is only 1 year old, exhaust blower 2 years old, and the door and glass good.

I have a raised ranch, and the P43 is in the basement, blowing the heat directly up the stairs, so technically I am heating about 1600 sq ft. I do heat the whole house. The basement is half finished, but I usually leave the doors open to the unfinished part. The house is extra insulated, and originally had electric heat.

With my old Lopi I set the oil furnace at 60 and the pellet stove kept the house between 65 and 75. Took a lot of tweaking to keep the heat constant, due to the temperature differences between night and day, and I am still going down every hour or so to check the P43, a habit I will soon lose I hope.

I purchased mine at Rockie's Rt 3 in Augusta. I purchased my original one from Rockie, and he is a great dealer. I have been able to order parts with a phone call. I paid $2518 total with tax. He gave me a discount for picking it up and installing it myself. It was just plug and play for me since I put in in the same place as my old one. He does have some other models, and has a few used units.

I had to redo the opening, will finish later

Just fired mine up for another season! Son -in-law picked one up at Rockies as well this year...he was going to go wood, but is glad now he went pellets!