Buying first pellet stove
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I think you are on the right track; read the reviews and the forums and decide what you want to spend to do what job. One of the other posters is correct: I was thinking P61 until the wife "suggested" that she liked the XXV. I contacted a forum member that had recently experienced the P series and the XXV and that info was helpful in deciding which I will go with next purchase. He said the XXV was quieter and that is a big plus for us since the stove sits in the dining room and faces our living space. We have had Whitfields for 25 - 30 years, current one is 15 years old so we are getting prepared and that is why I was doing the research. He also said the P series had a hotter exterior than the XXV so if you have children you may have to factor that in.
Pennsylvania > coal at $170/ton > coal = 150% heat output of pellets > coal stoker less $$ than Harman pellet > coal stoker = 90,000 btu/hr + > DUH.
Your original post said saving money was paramount. www.nepacrossroads.com
www.keystoker.com
www.leisurelinestove.com
www.readingstove.com
Your original post said saving money was paramount. www.nepacrossroads.com
www.keystoker.com
www.leisurelinestove.com
www.readingstove.com
Bioburner
Moderator
Didn't want to rub any more salt into the wounds.That would be meThe Harman is on the way as I type. Delayed by one day. Soo looking forward to watching the Thelin go out the door. Will post photo later...just hope Im not dreaming and this all goes down without a hitch.
bcarton
Feeling the Heat
Wow - 1100 gallons is a lot of fuel! You said that you want your pellet stove to take some of the load off your oil furnace - hopefully some folks here can advise you about making sure that your pellet burner and your oil system coordinate so your whole house stays warm, none of your rooms are roasting and none of your pipes are freezing. That's a lot to consider in and of itself. You're not just facing which brand of stove to buy, but the larger question is how to get it arranged so it meets your goals. I guess that all I got to offer here is: don't jump too fast, do a lot of learning and thinking before you spend thousands of dollars on anything!
jzm2cc
Minister of Fire
I'm guessing that you would have plenty of opportunities to buy a nice used Harman in PA since they are made there. Comb the Craigslist ads daily for a P61A, P43, PC-45, etc. Hard to be dissatisfied with one in my experience, very low maintenance, no heat exchanger rods to pull, large ash pan, glass stays clean for a long time, scrape burn pot once or twice a week in my case. Fun to try different settings (manual, auto, etc).
Running 100% cherry pits in the PC45 right now just to try it. Lots of heat with a bit more ash but stove performs great with same setup as pellets.
I guess the worse thing is they tend to be a bit louder than other top feed stoves I've experienced.
Running 100% cherry pits in the PC45 right now just to try it. Lots of heat with a bit more ash but stove performs great with same setup as pellets.
I guess the worse thing is they tend to be a bit louder than other top feed stoves I've experienced.
F4jock
Minister of Fire
jzm2cc
Minister of Fire
Yes. The P61A for $1250 for example Use it for several years and then get your money back if desired which is hard to do with a new big box stove.
To each their own. Some value new stove warranties more than attributes. Personally i appreciate the added engineering or fine cast iron style but on a shoestring budget.
F4jock
Minister of Fire
jzm2cc
Minister of Fire
I've had a few stoves that nearly resulted in a trip to the metal scrapper. King 5510 comes to mind, very frustrating experience but it was used and i had to save it (shorted igniter triac, sheared auger end, burned up igniter, warped front panel so door didnt seal properly.... and this thing was only 1 year old. Love a challenge i guess but trading a Whitfield for it was a big mistake.
I have zero regrets shelling out the extra cash and after owning the Harmans. It is extra money well spent. It is all up to you and your budget for a stove though. Very dependable, very easy cleaning, very well made units and very important to me was the no worries Harmans offer. If you can swing the extra cash it is money well spent in my opinion. There are other good options out there but it is what will fit your lifestyle and budget. Other options besides pellet stoves too.
The biggest favor you can do yourself is a lot of reading here and elsewhere, research, and think it thru so you spend your money wisely. Good Luck!
The biggest favor you can do yourself is a lot of reading here and elsewhere, research, and think it thru so you spend your money wisely. Good Luck!
Mysticenchantment
Member
In January, 2013 I bought an Englander 25 PDVC to replace a Whitfield stove that came with my house and finally died (when it was freezing, right). Part of that decision was because it was readily available and the exhaust was the exact height as the Whitfield (and looking to avoid using the electric heat), I ran to Home Depot and picked one up. We ran it as much as we could until I was able to get it adjusted correctly (Initially the Englander on its lowest settings would cook us and ate copious amounts of pellets; and the top auger would jam constantly (almost daily)). That and 80% of the time the damn thing wouldn't light on the first or sometimes even the second try. What a pain in the cushion.
The summer passes. In the fall we started using it again, with only a few hiccups and far less aggravation. Get to mid November and I come home from work to find my wife had turned the thing off. She eventually told me that she was "watching it burn" and noticed that more often than not, that while the fire was burning exclusively on the wear plate, the flame at the rear would curl back and burn into the auger tube. I wasn't exactly thrilled, but didn't think it was really much of a problem as long as we monitored it. From that day forward she insisted that it only be ran when we were home, and mostly in the room. She was terrified that the thing was going to burst into flames and kill us all. I didn't either agree or disagree with her (I've learned when to keep my mouth shut). From mid November to the beginning of March we only used 5 bags of pellets and paid RG&E a ton of money for electricity (she kept the electric heat at 73). Sigh.
Skip forward to September, 2014 and she tells me she wants to get a new pellet stove. Ok. So the following Saturday its off to stove shops we go. She eyeballed Lopi, Avalon, Harman, Quadrafire, Kozi, Napoleon, Enviro, Breckwell, and probably 10 others I can't remember. She asked the poor man at the stove store a quarter of a million questions a minute and wanted to see all of them in operation. Of course they couldn't possibly run all of them in the store, she settled to only look at what was running. Lopi, Harman, and Quadrafire. He had to shut them all down (we had lunch while they were shutting down) and return to the store so he could turn them all on while she squatted in front of each one and stared like a demented lunatic while each started up and stabilized. She watched, and watched, and watched. I wanted to gouge my eyes out. Then we had to go through the daily, weekly, monthly, etc. maintenance. Then she wanted to leave and "think". Fine. She did some online reading, asked everyone with a pulse if they had a pellet stove, what kind, if they liked it, and anything else she could think of. Most of them were happy to brag, others looked as if they might call the cops. Or run like hell.
The following Saturday morning we stepped into the stove store promptly at 9:00 when they opened. I expected the guy working there to lock himself in the bathroom refusing to come out until she left. But he didn't. Like a trooper he smiled. He must have had a really good time the night before to be that cheerful. Especially after being interrogated for several hours the week before. Of course we had to watch them all start up again. Finally she stood in front of the Lopi stove an announced she liked that one the best. I was standing in front of the Harman. We had reached an impasse, sort of. She chose the Lopi because she said she refused to take the side of the stove apart to empty the "dust box". As if she ever cleaned either of them before. Well, the dust box thing on the Harman and the rotary disk on the Lopi that guarantees there is no chance of a burn back. Right. So I relented and let her have what she wanted. Again.
So far we've burned nearly a ton of pellets. She's comfortable leaving it on when we're sleeping, and when we're not home, but not all day when we're at work. Yet. She cleans it too!
At the end of the day (here comes the real answer) she's thrilled with not doing much with it all week other than feeding it and the 10 minutes it takes on Saturday to clean it a bit better. The Englander had to be cleaned almost daily, except for the time we never used it.
I strongly urge anyone considering buying a pellet stove to give it serious thought. In the beginning everyone says "oh, I won't mind having to clean it more often" (lies) and for the first couple weeks that might be true. But eventually you'll want to step away knowing that if you're busy every now and then that the thing isn't going to pile ashes up to its nostrils.
Don't get me wrong. The Englander stove was great at heating, but a super pain in the ass. As far as their customer service, its great that they're available, but honestly I just wanted something that worked with little hassle.
With the Lopi, I push the "start" button and walk away knowing it will light every time without fail, and that the ash pan only needs to be emptied every 3 weeks. Not bad eh. I've never had to call customer service and have them help me adjust anything. It just works and is very "plug and play". And really good at throwing out heat too. Lots of it, without chewing 40 pounds of pellets in 12 hours. As an afterthought, this one makes 200% less noise. No more blasting the television. I'm surprised we didn't get brochures for free hearing tests or cheap hearing aids.
If you can, spend the extra dollars and get something that's more user friendly and reliable. If you don't, chances are in a couple years or less you'll be on the hunt for something more user friendly anyhow.
As with everything else, you absolutely do get what you pay for.
Sorry for the really long post. I'll do my best to not let it happen again.
The summer passes. In the fall we started using it again, with only a few hiccups and far less aggravation. Get to mid November and I come home from work to find my wife had turned the thing off. She eventually told me that she was "watching it burn" and noticed that more often than not, that while the fire was burning exclusively on the wear plate, the flame at the rear would curl back and burn into the auger tube. I wasn't exactly thrilled, but didn't think it was really much of a problem as long as we monitored it. From that day forward she insisted that it only be ran when we were home, and mostly in the room. She was terrified that the thing was going to burst into flames and kill us all. I didn't either agree or disagree with her (I've learned when to keep my mouth shut). From mid November to the beginning of March we only used 5 bags of pellets and paid RG&E a ton of money for electricity (she kept the electric heat at 73). Sigh.
Skip forward to September, 2014 and she tells me she wants to get a new pellet stove. Ok. So the following Saturday its off to stove shops we go. She eyeballed Lopi, Avalon, Harman, Quadrafire, Kozi, Napoleon, Enviro, Breckwell, and probably 10 others I can't remember. She asked the poor man at the stove store a quarter of a million questions a minute and wanted to see all of them in operation. Of course they couldn't possibly run all of them in the store, she settled to only look at what was running. Lopi, Harman, and Quadrafire. He had to shut them all down (we had lunch while they were shutting down) and return to the store so he could turn them all on while she squatted in front of each one and stared like a demented lunatic while each started up and stabilized. She watched, and watched, and watched. I wanted to gouge my eyes out. Then we had to go through the daily, weekly, monthly, etc. maintenance. Then she wanted to leave and "think". Fine. She did some online reading, asked everyone with a pulse if they had a pellet stove, what kind, if they liked it, and anything else she could think of. Most of them were happy to brag, others looked as if they might call the cops. Or run like hell.
The following Saturday morning we stepped into the stove store promptly at 9:00 when they opened. I expected the guy working there to lock himself in the bathroom refusing to come out until she left. But he didn't. Like a trooper he smiled. He must have had a really good time the night before to be that cheerful. Especially after being interrogated for several hours the week before. Of course we had to watch them all start up again. Finally she stood in front of the Lopi stove an announced she liked that one the best. I was standing in front of the Harman. We had reached an impasse, sort of. She chose the Lopi because she said she refused to take the side of the stove apart to empty the "dust box". As if she ever cleaned either of them before. Well, the dust box thing on the Harman and the rotary disk on the Lopi that guarantees there is no chance of a burn back. Right. So I relented and let her have what she wanted. Again.
So far we've burned nearly a ton of pellets. She's comfortable leaving it on when we're sleeping, and when we're not home, but not all day when we're at work. Yet. She cleans it too!
At the end of the day (here comes the real answer) she's thrilled with not doing much with it all week other than feeding it and the 10 minutes it takes on Saturday to clean it a bit better. The Englander had to be cleaned almost daily, except for the time we never used it.
I strongly urge anyone considering buying a pellet stove to give it serious thought. In the beginning everyone says "oh, I won't mind having to clean it more often" (lies) and for the first couple weeks that might be true. But eventually you'll want to step away knowing that if you're busy every now and then that the thing isn't going to pile ashes up to its nostrils.
Don't get me wrong. The Englander stove was great at heating, but a super pain in the ass. As far as their customer service, its great that they're available, but honestly I just wanted something that worked with little hassle.
With the Lopi, I push the "start" button and walk away knowing it will light every time without fail, and that the ash pan only needs to be emptied every 3 weeks. Not bad eh. I've never had to call customer service and have them help me adjust anything. It just works and is very "plug and play". And really good at throwing out heat too. Lots of it, without chewing 40 pounds of pellets in 12 hours. As an afterthought, this one makes 200% less noise. No more blasting the television. I'm surprised we didn't get brochures for free hearing tests or cheap hearing aids.
If you can, spend the extra dollars and get something that's more user friendly and reliable. If you don't, chances are in a couple years or less you'll be on the hunt for something more user friendly anyhow.
As with everything else, you absolutely do get what you pay for.
Sorry for the really long post. I'll do my best to not let it happen again.
Peterfield
Minister of Fire
I was initially looking for a used stove on Craigslist and by reading posts here, the advice was to make sure you found a good pellet stove technician where you live who could work on it because many dealers will not work on stoves they don't sell. I found a good technician and in our conversations, he basically said he installed and worked on most brands of stoves and he could rehab any of them and have them running like new. He also told me in the past he was affiliated with a Harman dealership and offered that Harman's are built different and better than most other stoves and in his experience, required less service. I ended up with a new Harman Accentra 52i because my wife took one look at a floor model Majorca Brown Enamel model and told me that I could buy any stove I wanted as long as it was that one. I have absolutely no regrets plunking down some pesos for the 52i and am thoroughly enjoying it, as is my wife (most important). Two major considerations here; you will get your money back from oil consumption savings so in that respect, it's an investment that will pay you back over time, and second, how much value do you and your wife place on your time. If you like tinkering all the time and massaging your stove almost every day, the Englander will serve you well and has excellent customer service. If you are a "set it and forget it" kind of guy, Harman will serve you very well and you'll soon understand why folks say they are built like tanks.
There is a reason that the harman costs thousands more to purchase and it ain't just looks. My family and I are always on the go it's nothing for us to leave are harman for 12-13 hours to come home and find it doing the same thing it was when we left. It's very easy to maintain except for cleaning week I spend maybe 5 min a day filling hopper scraping pot other than that we just enjoy it. Now if your able to afford a higher priced stove I would recommend you do for reliability,ease of use,warranty,and the help from a dealer. These things don't come with all stoves. I know the price seems high on some of these stoves but read some reviews and you will see some of the reasons why cheap isn't always the way to go. A higher priced stove will still pay for itself it just takes a little longer than a cheap one.
Luv2burnPellets
Member
From what you posted, you need to buy a P68 Harman. The Englander will never keep up with 3000+ sq ft house in Massachussetts weather. The Harman will do a good job for 3000+ sq ft decently insulated New England home. Your decision is a no brainier.
xSpecBx
Member
thanks for the advice (along with all the others), weekly cleaning and being able to run overnight comfortably sounds pretty great compared to what is going on now. Found a dealer that sells Harman & Enviro, so I'll check out the MAXX-M too. Will get through the season with my Thelin. Also looking at improving airflow through the house now to better move the air up, will post about that separately when I finish up some drawings.
Sounds like a plan! The two choices you are thinking are the very same two stoves I had it narrowed down to. If you are needing to heat the space you are then you will need to go BIG or go to a two stove set up if you only want to use pellet stoves for your main heat source. I am truly happy with mine for various and multiple reasons but everyone's needs and requirements vary. Along with budget and many factors.
Read up extensively because that is free and can save you in the long run. Everyone has brand bias like rooting for a sports team. One big reason I forgot about the Enviro which is also a good stove was the fact the closest dealer was not up to speed and parts could be hard to get without a nice waiting period. This may differ depending on dealer and location. One thing is certain though. Basically Harman parts are made and or available in the US. Enviro's come from another country. Plain and simple, although it is Canada and no disrespect there but they do have to cross the border and in this day and age it can be problematic. Food for thought.
Read up extensively because that is free and can save you in the long run. Everyone has brand bias like rooting for a sports team. One big reason I forgot about the Enviro which is also a good stove was the fact the closest dealer was not up to speed and parts could be hard to get without a nice waiting period. This may differ depending on dealer and location. One thing is certain though. Basically Harman parts are made and or available in the US. Enviro's come from another country. Plain and simple, although it is Canada and no disrespect there but they do have to cross the border and in this day and age it can be problematic. Food for thought.
Except the OP is not in MASS, he's in PA. Somehow (no big surprise) the thread got hijacked by the Harman Klan.
no, I'm in Mass. I hi-jacked an old thread from someone in PA who had the similar question I did, to see what decision he made. Which is good forum etiquette, but probably slightly confusing.
And you are not the Original Poster, who lives in PA and was asking about Englander stoves versus other brands. He's the one who started the thread and was looking for advice. It would have been much less confusing if you started a new thread. The OP never answered you so he is long gone.
I've seen that scenario 100s of times in the showroom. Guy walks in with all his freakin questions written down, charts, printed stuff from websites and starts asking why the Heritage is .01 grams per hour different than the left handed cork changer..the whole time the wife is looking at a completely different stove.
It is so heartbreaking to see the guy struggle to maintain control..keep asking questions he worked so hard to prepare, trying not to glance over at the wifes object of affection.
Not to be sexist, of course...its just happens all the time.
It normally comes down to "what colors does it come in and when can I get it?"
Not to say there are no exceptions. I have been flat out stumped by more than a couple lady shoppers. I have also seen salespeople that worked for me make the fatal mistake of asking the husband how much he is looking to heat and glancing at the wife and asking in a polite tone "so, do you think that stove is pretty?" I've run a 4.4 second 40 yard dash in order to try to stop that before it happens.
bogieb
Minister of Fire
When I was married, a lot of people lost a lot of sales because either they refused to answer my questions (until the hubby repeated it), would not talk to ME - instead of directing everything to hubby, them saying that I just wouldn't understand if they tried to explain, or telling me to go get a catalog and spend my time picking out the color.
Since I was the main decision maker (did the most research) and ran the finances (he wasn't interested as long as he could get money from the ATM and buy just about anything he wanted), they wouldn't last two seconds after they set foot on the property. It wasn't my imagination either as hubby would comment about how they ignored me before I could say anything to him. In fact, he would give them the warning, "talk to her, not to me", and I don't think any one of them ever took his advise.
Yup, happened to my wife and I as well. Lucky for the salespeople, she was truly only concerned with style. I just shook my head and wondered how many sales have walked out the door simply because the salesperson wouldn't at least look the wife in the eye. Its not the freakin 1800's any more.
I had the pleasure, as a buyer, of doing the research and having all my hopes and dreams squashed because my wife didn't like the look. So I do get a little kick out of it when it happens when I am doing the selling.
I had the pleasure, as a buyer, of doing the research and having all my hopes and dreams squashed because my wife didn't like the look. So I do get a little kick out of it when it happens when I am doing the selling.
HP52NOVA
Member
I would recommend a Harman. However, make sure you either get a top notch installer/dealer and that you have a good dealer in your area. The installation part, as I have learned the hard way, is just as important (if not more) as the stove type. it has to be done well in terms of venting, OAK placement, backup up power, etc. And since you are buying a product that you plan to serve for years to come, I would make sure I could get good service for it when in need. Because when the 3#%%@ hits the fan and your stove is down, you will need it.
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