feeling down, need a pep talk.

[dhungy]

this will be my third season burning pellets. Today for some reason I feel really down about my overall experience. I am usually very pleased with my decision to but a stove but today it just feels like a let down. Yesterday I started smelling some "combustion smell" and i thought here we go again the other stove I have i installed myself and I have been battling a poor install and pipe sealing since the beginning. But my astoria has been professionally installed. So last night i thought I have to tighten the door and make sure its good, i can do that when I pull everything apart for a good cleaning. Then i started remembering how hard it is to move heat in my house... I can try to move the heat from my living room with three fans and it never quite makes it, thus the second stove. wich i mentioned before has been nothing but trouble since the beginning, smoke leaks, ignitor problems, loudest thing in the world. Overall i guess i need a pep talk... sorry to be a downer

 

[jimbom]

It is always darkest before the dawn. A good solid week of winter weather will make that stove feel mighty good. You will feel great soon.

 

[btuser]

Paraphrasing my favorite philosopher: Spend a season with wet cord wood and a poor draft. You'll feel pretty good about burning pellets.

 

[Roadstar]

I cried because I had no shoes,
then I met a man who had no pellet stove.

 

[jtakeman]

Your a member of the best forum on earth! There are some talented people hear begging to assist you and guild you through any sort of issue you can imagine! With guidence from the group you will master these here stove gremlins( :ahhh: )!

Don't make us start cracking the stove fix it whip! Get you can in gear, And ask away! Pictures will also help us guide you. Chin up! chest out! move out!

(now you say- "Yes Sir") ;-)

 

[nate379]

I hear you bud. Probably some of it is just the change in weather and all that.

Lately it feels like no matter how hard I work, I end up being 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

 

[sinnian]

If you have issues, this is the place to get them resolved.

------------

I knew my house was not properly designed for a stove, therefore I went with a pellet boiler. Too late for you now I know, but for others on the fence reading this..............

 

[nate379]

No not really, I would need to go see my doc and get back on my meds.

 

[kykel]

im not sure what you use for heat (oil gas or electric) with out a pellet stove but if I ever feel down I just call the oil company and find out 200 gal will cost me $600 plus
and its only october.

 

[nate379]

I wish! I just bought 235 gals last week and it cost me $900... though I was still pretty happy cause diesel is $4.25/gal. I use the fuel oil for gen set, tractor, salamander heaters, etc.

 

[flynfrfun]

Don't feel bad about getting the warm air circulated around your house. We all have that problem. I'm sure you have seen some of the posts where guys do some pretty involved duct work on their stoves, cutting holes in floors and walls and etc. trying to get the air moved around. You would be having the same problem with a wood stove too.

I've been reading a book about the Pioneer days when they had no insulation in their cabins and they huddled around the stove with it going full blast. They had to constantly turn to heat their freezing backsides. Then when they went to bed, they could see frost INSIDE the house on the nails sticking thru the ceiling and walls. When it snowed, the snow would blow in thru the cracks in the walls and sometimes they would wake up in the morning with 12" of snow on top of their blankets. :bug: This makes me sort of "chill out" when it comes to moving air around my house. If it's 10F different from my bedroom to my stove room...so be it.

 

[Don2222]

this will be my third season burning pellets. Today for some reason I feel really down about my overall experience. I am usually very pleased with my decision to but a stove but today it just feels like a let down. Yesterday I started smelling some "combustion smell" and i thought here we go again the other stove I have i installed myself and I have been battling a poor install and pipe sealing since the beginning. But my astoria has been professionally installed. So last night i thought I have to tighten the door and make sure its good, i can do that when I pull everything apart for a good cleaning. Then i started remembering how hard it is to move heat in my house... I can try to move the heat from my living room with three fans and it never quite makes it, thus the second stove. wich i mentioned before has been nothing but trouble since the beginning, smoke leaks, ignitor problems, loudest thing in the world. Overall i guess i need a pep talk... sorry to be a downer

Do you have pics on the install? Sounds like the venting maybe an issue there. The venting should have some vertical rise. Does it?

 

[nate379]

That thing looks like it should be a prop in a haunted house!

 

[Pellet-King]

What happens here is newbies come here and read about all the great heat our stoves put out and think hey, I'll get one and start saving money!!, well guess what, the cost of the stove to start with can buy a new furnace thats alot more effiecent then your old one, and then you have to buy pellet's which isn't sometimes any lower than say gas is right now, and then you have to deal with all the mess, cleaning the stove which 99% of us never knew about before we bought our stoves and stacking/loading pellet's
And to deal with the hot in one room cold in the next problems, if my stove goes i'll switch to NG before i spent 3-4k on another stove.

Biggest savings is using a wood stove if you can get free wood.

 

[rickwa]

Unless you are a city dweller you dont have the luxury of NG. Us country folk have the choice of oil or LP. Pellets are a cost savings overall if you are on oil or LP. My stoves hyave payed for themselves more than once.

 

[Eatonpcat]

Unless you are a city dweller you dont have the luxury of NG. Us country folk have the choice of oil or LP. Pellets are a cost savings overall if you are on oil or LP. My stoves hyave payed for themselves more than once.

Well said...

 

[IHATEPROPANE]

What happens here is newbies come here and read about all the great heat our stoves put out and think hey, I'll get one and start saving money!!, well guess what, the cost of the stove to start with can buy a new furnace thats alot more effiecent then your old one, and then you have to buy pellet's which isn't sometimes any lower than say gas is right now, and then you have to deal with all the mess, cleaning the stove which 99% of us never knew about before we bought our stoves and stacking/loading pellet's
And to deal with the hot in one room cold in the next problems, if my stove goes i'll switch to NG before i spent 3-4k on another stove.

Biggest savings is using a wood stove if you can get free wood.

Having propane I could buy a new stove every other year and still be ahead.

 

[jtakeman]

What happens here is newbies come here and read about all the great heat our stoves put out and think hey, I'll get one and start saving money!!, well guess what, the cost of the stove to start with can buy a new furnace thats alot more effiecent then your old one, and then you have to buy pellet's which isn't sometimes any lower than say gas is right now, and then you have to deal with all the mess, cleaning the stove which 99% of us never knew about before we bought our stoves and stacking/loading pellet's
And to deal with the hot in one room cold in the next problems, if my stove goes i'll switch to NG before i spent 3-4k on another stove.

Biggest savings is using a wood stove if you can get free wood.

Having propane I could buy a new stove every other year and still be ahead.

Having all electric, I could buy one every 2 - 3 seasons! Love my pellet stove! ;-)

 

[bonesy]

I'll take my geothermal over any other fuel any day Unless, of course, the fuel is FREE!


Just got this new Big E for my garage, at no cost to me, I might add. Except for the pellets and vent pipe. Good thing the In-laws went 50/50 for Christmas for me and the wife Replacing the 5000w electric ceiling mount unit that produced $200-250/mo extra on the electric bill.

 

[Eatonpcat]

I'll take my geothermal over any other fuel any day Unless, of course, the fuel is FREE!


Just got this new Big E for my garage, at no cost to me, I might add. Except for the pellets and vent pipe. Good thing the In-laws went 50/50 for Christmas for me and the wife Replacing the 5000w electric ceiling mount unit that produced $200-250/mo extra on the electric bill.

I think if I built another house today, I would take a serious look at Geothermal... Probably a lot of cost up front, but I'm sure it would pay for itself in the long haul!!

 

[Smellsey]

I have all electric baseboard heat, and I'm glad I added the pellet stove. I'm already seeing that savings comparing my power bills from this month to October of 2010.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

At the moment pellets would have to be about $398/ton to be at the break even point for fuel compared to oil for me. Current payback period for my stove set up is about 3.5 seasons, the stove has already paid for itself. The entire installation shortly. I have over 2 seasons of $1.72/gal oil equivalent in pellets in the bunker, someone wake me up when oil crashes by about 50%.

I don't even want to think about propane. I haven't looked at coal prices around this area in ages but it is possible that they might be a bit better, however that would mean adding a class A chimney. NG is almost 1.5 miles from the house and with the housing density here I wouldn't expect to see it go by the lot in my lifetime, even then a tap line would be quite expensive. I've started looking at split heat pumps, but the last thing I'd want to do is use electricity to be part of the heat pump system. Too much time on the low efficiency end of the heat pump, haven't gotten around to figuring out the cost for a vertical coil for a water loop based heat pump.

 

[bonesy]

I think if I built another house today, I would take a serious look at Geothermal... Probably a lot of cost up front, but I'm sure it would pay for itself in the long haul!!

Big cost up front, but we put ours in the mortgage so it really isn't "up front". In a new construction, it pays for itself very quickly. I like to use a direct quote from the WaterFurnace site:

"The increases in mortgage costs are typically offset by the decreased operating costs of our geothermal systems — providing a net positive cashflow. "

The first winter my most expensive electric bill (includes elec hotwater, elec well pump, all normal other electric appliances) was $199. This includes everything electric, including the geothermal heat. We have the Waterfurnace Envision (best brand in my mind) 4 ton unit. It also preheats our hotwater as a by-product of the heat created from the compressor.

I don't want to get this thread too far off track from what I've already done so anyone can PM me if they want more details.

 

[dhungy]

My story...
I bought my house 3 years ago complete with a 60's era propane forced air furnace. With the thermostat set at 65 during the months of sept and oct I went through 600 gals of propane. After calling out a furnace guy for a cleaning he took one look and set what a cluster F####. Basically said that my venting needs to be completely redone and a new furnace. So I had heard some good things about pellet stoves so without much research (not like me at all) i purchased an Avalon Astoria. After install I had put over 4k on credit with plans to pay it off once i got my taxes back taxes were lower then estimated did not get back as much as i thought for stove so no tax refund towards stove. After the install was complete i found this forum and started reading about OAK. Mine didn't have one and I was told by the dealer, "you don't need one" so that was my first frustration. Also that year pellets in my area were in the $250 range. I failed to keep track of how many tons I used so I was not able to see the proof of my heat savings. Not to mention the constant reminder from my wife that the rest of house is fairly cool and only the living room is warm well.. hot. We have yet to open the upstairs its was down to the studs with plans to remodel. her concern was how are we gonna heat the upstairs if we can heat the first floor.

In the second year after a botched attempt at cleaning the fans myself ( hard to explain but stove was out of commission for a few weeks) then a problem with the combustion fan (documented on this forum) dealer replaced the control board. later in the season the igniter went. I purchased a used Englander to help balance out the heat in the house. Self install poorly done.. many problems with smoke (also documented on this forum) pipes froze in the basement several times, with no source of heat down there this lead me to research a pellet furnace with according to another dealer would have been a better choice for my situation at half the cost. Season 2 ends with no real data on how many tons I burned and a very dirty leaf vac cleaning on the Astoria.

This season I have burned two bags and have yet to do a thorough cleaning. My englander wont self ignite even though the ignitor gets hot enough it just fills with pellets before it ignites. the Avalon has a slight smoke smell might be the door or a bad seal in the pipe. Ordering an OAK tomorrow and doing my cleaning and installing that. englander... hopefully i will have time to clean that. Going to keep careful track of my pellet purchase and use this season. Thanks for your words of encouragement.. just feeling defeated...

 

[Eatonpcat]

My story...
I bought my house 3 years ago complete with a 60's era propane forced air furnace. With the thermostat set at 65 during the months of sept and oct I went through 600 gals of propane. After calling out a furnace guy for a cleaning he took one look and set what a cluster F####. Basically said that my venting needs to be completely redone and a new furnace. So I had heard some good things about pellet stoves so without much research (not like me at all) i purchased an Avalon Astoria. After install I had put over 4k on credit with plans to pay it off once i got my taxes back taxes were lower then estimated did not get back as much as i thought for stove so no tax refund towards stove. After the install was complete i found this forum and started reading about OAK. Mine didn't have one and I was told by the dealer, "you don't need one" so that was my first frustration. Also that year pellets in my area were in the $250 range. I failed to keep track of how many tons I used so I was not able to see the proof of my heat savings. Not to mention the constant reminder from my wife that the rest of house is fairly cool and only the living room is warm well.. hot. We have yet to open the upstairs its was down to the studs with plans to remodel. her concern was how are we gonna heat the upstairs if we can heat the first floor.

In the second year after a botched attempt at cleaning the fans myself ( hard to explain but stove was out of commission for a few weeks) then a problem with the combustion fan (documented on this forum) dealer replaced the control board. later in the season the igniter went. I purchased a used Englander to help balance out the heat in the house. Self install poorly done.. many problems with smoke (also documented on this forum) pipes froze in the basement several times, with no source of heat down there this lead me to research a pellet furnace with according to another dealer would have been a better choice for my situation at half the cost. Season 2 ends with no real data on how many tons I burned and a very dirty leaf vac cleaning on the Astoria.

This season I have burned two bags and have yet to do a thorough cleaning. My englander wont self ignite even though the ignitor gets hot enough it just fills with pellets before it ignites. the Avalon has a slight smoke smell might be the door or a bad seal in the pipe. Ordering an OAK tomorrow and doing my cleaning and installing that. englander... hopefully i will have time to clean that. Going to keep careful track of my pellet purchase and use this season. Thanks for your words of encouragement.. just feeling defeated...

OUCH...Sounds painful, But seems like you need to put more effort into keeping your stove running properly. Do you buy your pellets by the ton?? If so it should be relatively easy to keep track of usage.

Good Luck, Hope things get better...You could always relocate to Florida!! LOL