England 25-PDVC - 3 Months of Use

[workinprogress]

I have been using my PDVC for about three months now and wanted to write done some of my observations.

Installation - 3" pipe - 4 ft vertical with 90 deg then 2 ft horizontal and cap. OAK - few feet long with intake at roughly same level as the OAK connection on the stove.

House Primary Heat - Wood stove and oil boiler using hot water baseboard. Pellet stove for family room.

Heating Area - 450-500 sq ft with overflow into kitchen - I am using the stove to heat a family room connected to the kitchen through a mud room. The room is newer construction and very well insulated and sealed tight. I have two fans moving air. One fan is near the floor pushing cool air into the room and a fan in the corner of the door is pushing hot air into the kitchen.

Stove Settings -
Most of the time the stove is running on the lowest settings (1-1 or 2-2) and I have adjusted two of the three magic buttons to help control pellet usage.

The default 6-4-1 worked well but was using more pellets than I wanted and putting out more heat then I needed for my application. I found that by adjusting the things to 5-4-1, 4-3-1 or 3-2-1 depending on weather I was able to fine tune the heat output and get lower pellet consumption. In my installation the stove seems to run fine in any of those settings. At these settings I am using roughly a bag of pellets a day. At some point I may try hooking the stove up to a thermostat which could help reduce the manual adjustments I have been making. On a night when temperatures went down to -14 degrees I ran a 2-2 with a 6-4-1 setting and the room was 68 degrees in the morning.

Stove Cleaning -
I have been doing a basic ash/burn pot cleaning twice a day using a 3" putty knife and then I refill the hopper. At that time I use a flashlight to check around the auger/feeder tube for carbon buildup and scrap as needed. So far a small harbor freight pry bar has worked really well to remove the carbon (http://www.harborfreight.com/4-piece-heavy-duty-pry-bar-set-1654.html ). The ash cleaning and carbon scraping takes just a couple minutes and the stove is back up and running. After 3 days or so I vacuum out the ash and clean the stove. It seems that keeping the stove clean helps keep the heat output constant.

Pellet Brands -
I have tried multiple brands and really have not seen large differences. Maybe I am expecting a dramatic differences. Yes, some produce slightly more ash and some have a little more heat. Are they worth the extra $? I am not sure but I have only been at this for a few months.

Heating -
Running the pellet stove has helped smooth out the temperature fluctuations in other areas of the house. For example the kitchen is warmer in the morning, even with the wood stove almost out. The heat from the pellets stove helps keep the kitchen warm. Hopefully the pellet stove will also reduce my limited oil usage by my boiler. Warmer house means wife doesn't turn up the thermostats on the oil boiler.

Power outage -
I have experienced two power outages with the stove running. In both situations the stove seems to have enough natural draft to get the smoke out the vent. Little smoke smell in the room.

Electric usage -
I have gotten two electric bills since starting to run the stove. For the most part my electric consumption hasn't really changed. Maybe $5 more a month with the stove running.

Good Points -
Lots of control over the stove.
Reasonable pellet usage.
Just seems to work.
Price was right - Factory second from AMFM
Clean takes few minutes a day - Less than wood stove

Minor problems -

Igniters adjustment - Either during shipping or my cleaning the igniter somehow shifted to one side. I found that a slight adjustment improved the startup. After adjustment pellets start burning within 5-7 minutes.

E2 Error - When I first installed the stove I would often shut it down for the day. When I start the stove backup it would take 5-7 minutes for the pellets to start burning but the stove would still give an E2 error. I suspect it has something to do with the cold temperature of the stove when I started it. Since I have been running the stove 24/7 it does not have this problem.

Hopper size - I wish the hopper was bigger. I can't seem to ever get a full bag into the hopper which is why I have started to top off the hopper twice a day.

Vent Pipe - I had lots of problems sealing the vent pipes but that is what I get for buying the cheapest approved pipe.

 

[flybmw02]

On a night when temperatures went down to -14 degrees I ran a 2-2 with a 6-4-1 setting and the room was 68 degrees in the morning.

Why do you run the room blower at such a slow speed? I would run the blower at least 5 or higher just to get the heat to dissipate. Its good to see that you use the lower buttons lbf I run my pdv from 1 to 6 one level 1 heat level for low heat. I do have a gate valve to adjust the air intake on the OAK very helpful at low burns.
John

http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Hopper-...162?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item415f416baa

 

[Jackfire]

Explain need of gate

 

[flybmw02]

I installed a gate valve for low burn I close it down to reduce the amount of air entering the burn pot it allows the heat to stay in the stove instead of just up the exhaust pipe. Also when the stove is on high these pdv25s huff or reverberate from getting to much air so I can reduce air with valve. Many other stove have air control so I thought it was a good idea. I call Englander about the huffing noise and they said to put a piece of tape over part of the air intake to reduce air I did and then I latter did the valve. It work for me I got the valve on eBay for cheep got a 1/2" stub pipe and a rubber coupler that's it.
John
http://www.ebay.com/itm/B-K-100-007...059?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3ceb76a14b

 

[festerw]

Hopper size - I wish the hopper was bigger. I can't seem to ever get a full bag into the hopper which is why I have started to top off the hopper twice a day.

I bought one of these. I can fit almost 3 bags in at once, nice if we're gone for the weekend not having to worry about a cold house.

http://www.amazon.com/1500-Pellet-S...xtension&pebp=1421855424567&peasin=B005O8F5MQ

 

[johnboy89]

Pellet Brands -
I have tried multiple brands and really have not seen large differences. Maybe I am expecting a dramatic differences. Yes, some produce slightly more ash and some have a little more heat. Are they worth the extra $? I am not sure but I have only been at this for a few months.

I've been using my 25-PDV for about the same amount of time and my observations are about the same with everything. I have also tried multiple brands of pellets and really haven't noticed much of a difference either. Unless I see a brand with a big difference I will most likely be using the cheaper ones next year also.

Good Idea on that carbon removal with the pry bar, screwdriver doesn't work that great.

 

[Chrisnow86]

I've had mine for the same time and I'm impressed with this thing... I notice a big difference with pellets tho. Ash and heat.. So far softies are the best choise really low ash and good heat and green supremes with ok heat and tons of ash, the worst was North Americans lots of ash and almost no heat

 

[Dr.Faustus]

I've been using my 25pdvc for many years as my primary source of heat in NY. 1500 sq ft poorly insulated home. It has done an excellent job and never left me up the creek. It handles temps down to 0 nicely. When its lower than that or very windy, periodically I will use my backup kerosene heater to give it a little help. I keep it very clean.

In order to do this, I absolutely had to install a 3rd party hopper extension. During the coldest spells, even if i topped it off at 11 pm, it was out or nearly out in the morning. now it holds 2.5 bags topped off and lasts roughly 24 hrs. The extension was very well built, easy to install (although i am not a novice by any means with tools). The extension sealed and bolted to the stove and the original lid was moved and is now the top of the hopper extension. Seals up very nicely, the latches still work and is gasketed. without the extension i would have definitely moved on to a bigger stove by now.

my dislikes about this model is lack of ash drawer, and its prone to clinkers/burn pot buildup. I feel a stirrer would have helped with this - or some other burnpot design. However, shes been a great reliable low maintenance stove since 2008. No motors have ever died on mine. Its only repairs so far have been replacement of gaskets (normal maintenance) and 2 auger bearings which were cheap enough not to complain.

I run the stove every winter 24/7 and only shutdown to clean, and sometimes just clean it while still lit! No metal warpage, no bad welds, but it is starting to get a bit rusty inside, and looks like it could use a new impingment plate soon, possibly next season.