New owner with some quick questions

Hey all, I've been reading here for quite some time and I finally lit the fire. My wife and I moved into our new house earlier this month and promptly burned through a whole tank of oil. I've been wanting a pellet stove for a long time so I pulled the trigger on a Harman P61A.

The Harman dealer couldnt do the install for nearly 3 weeks after delivery so I called my buddy who has done a couple and we got everything up and running safely. The P61A has an ignitor so I didn't have to do much other than load some pellets and cut a whole. I was told I needed the Direct Vent Passthrough kit by the dealer due to the proximity to a window.

I've got the stove running and I notice a slight odor of pellets while its burning. Not offensive, but noticable. No perceptiable smoke at all in the room and the area behind the stove smells of fresh air. So far the stove is heating up the family room nicely. We have an open concept colonial so I'm hoping this stove will heat the whole house.

I've included a number of pictures of the mock up, install and with her lit. Any help with the odor would be great. I've verified all connections were sealed very well with high temp silicone and secured with screws. The only area that is not screwed together is the exhaust pipe and the stove junction (couldn't see drilling through the heavy duty steel).

-Chris

Thanks for the warm welcome and the tons of replies! The odor has left, I called the shop I ordered it from and they assured me it was the curing of the stove. No more odor in the house! As for the install. We placed the stove in the corner since it directs the heat most efficiantly accross the house. The room is a large family room with vaulted ceilings. The proximity from the stove to the drapes is about 24" plenty of space and they dont even get warm. The piping coming off the stove IS a stove adapter sandwiched into a 45, then run 3 feet out of the house and terminates to a jet cap pointed down. I may modify this and run it up the side of the house in the summer but it looks fine for now and 2 different shops reccomended this type of install. Regarding the proximity to the window: harman reccomends 4 feet unless you have an outside air draw, in that case only 18" is needed. All piping is 3" double walled approved for pellet stoves specifically.

I let it run all night and it kept the first floor above 74. The flame remains big, I'll turn the feed rate down a bit and see how that works out. The stove didn't really heat the second floor much which kind of worries me. However, I have not heard the furnace turn on now in quite some time.

we just moved into the house so I know I have a surge protector in a box somewhere. Seems everyday I need another thing for the stove. Last night I ran out and bought a carbon monoxide monitor for the room and today I really need a couple of fire extinguishers in the house.

Quick question: how safe are these really? I work 13 hours a day and my wife is gone about 8. I'd love to leave the stove on low so my dogs can stay warm but I don't know if I trust a fire source going in my living room.

Also, a picture of my pellet supply. I bought 2 tons and the shop messed up a bunch of things for me so they gave me a free ton of pellets too. Should be good for the season at 80 degrees!

Thanks for the advice! I'm loving how warm it is finally in this house. I bought a huge stove because our house is 2400 sqr feet. I know I cant heat the WHOLE thing but I really wanted to offset the tank of oil per 3 weeks I was burning when we first moved in. I expect next year I will burn 4-5 tons of pellets. My wife wants the house at 75 all the time. This may be my own fault since our old house never went above 65.

Oh yeah. The rest of the house is warm. Basement is a little cooler since the furnace isn't running like it used to (every minute of every day) but the second floor is well over 65. No threat of freezing here.