Installed a new stove in my home Wednesday....

[CladMaster]

Ashley 5660, and it's working very well.

It kicks out some nice heat too ! Setting 2 or 3 and the ground floor is at 74.3 - 77.8F with the outside temp in the evenings / night at 25 - 28F.

It seems to be easier to clean as well, I like the ash pan that's under the burn chamber. I also like the two cleanout covers on the sides of the stove, easy to get to with the side panels that open for easy access to the stoves motors.

The stove is burning clean on all heat settings, no black soot on the glass or the back wall of the stove. Nice clean grey ash.

One small complaint, the manual that comes with the stove sucks, not even close with the instructions on how to use the controls, the manual for the Vogelzang VG5790 is more precise with details on how to use the control board.

Oh, forgot to mention, it's much quieter than the stove it's replaced (25-PDVC), I don't have to raise the volume on the TV anymore ! The 25-PDVC is going to be installed in the cellar in the new year, just got to work out how I am going to vent the exhaust / OAK.

 

[John Fortier]

Very nice looking stove. Great you are happy with it.

 

[alternativeheat]

Ashley 5660, and it's working very well.

It kicks out some nice heat too ! Setting 2 or 3 and the ground floor is at 74.3 - 77.8F with the outside temp in the evenings / night at 25 - 28F.

It seems to be easier to clean as well, I like the ash pan that's under the burn chamber. I also like the two cleanout covers on the sides of the stove, easy to get to with the side panels that open for easy access to the stoves motors.

The stove is burning clean on all heat settings, no black soot on the glass or the back wall of the stove. Nice clean grey ash.

One small complaint, the manual that comes with the stove sucks, not even close with the instructions on how to use the controls, the manual for the Vogelzang VG5790 is more precise with details on how to use the control board.

Oh, forgot to mention, it's much quieter than the stove it's replaced (25-PDVC), I don't have to raise the volume on the TV anymore ! The 25-PDVC is going to be installed in the cellar in the new year, just got to work out how I am going to vent the exhaust / OAK.

Nice stove ! Where did you buy it from ? And do get back in a few weeks with progress reports. One of these could be my new basement stove if it keeps kicking out heat for ya.

 

[Dpopps]

Looks nice.What size hopper, 40 or the 80?

 

[titanracer]

I have the exact same stove that I got hocked up a week ago. It does run good and heats my living areas nicely in the house. Been running on 3 and keeps house about 75 degrees. I did have 2 year old hamer pellets and somerset pellets in garage that I started with. They burn nice in the stove. I have a ton mix of both them from 2 years ago. Wanted to hold on to them till it gets a lot colder, they are good heat pellets. Have tried a few different brands so far. If you get a brand of pellet that has length to them, like over a 1" long, good luck' this stove seems to like the shorter length pellets. I got 5 bags of a pellet from my brother inlaw, they were eco blazers. There are long pellets of about 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 " long thru out the bag and the stove does not like them. Auger would moan a few times when it ate a long pellet and stove would pop, breaking that pellet in half. I tried them for 3 nights and every morning when I got up, stove was not running. It either throwed a E2 error or just shut down for no reason, with no error codes to investigate. So went back to hamer till I picked a bag or 2 of something else to try. Been using shorter length pellets under 1" in length, and have had no problems. Long pellets haven't worked for me. Trying some Nation's choice right know from lowe's, stove seems to burn them ok. Atleast the bags I opened, they are a short length pellet. Heat is not horrible, it is 73 degrees in house right know, which isn't bad. Just put them in today, so don't know how ash will be, but don't seem any worse then the eco blazers, as of right now. A few post on this board says, nations choices are terrible, well I'm a guessing I'm going to fined out. Tomorrow will tell.

 

[titanracer]

Looks nice.What size hopper, 40 or the 80?

Hopper will hold 40lb, 1 bag. I thought manual said a 50lb hopper, but it just holds 1 bag.

 

[CladMaster]

Looks nice.What size hopper, 40 or the 80?

55lbs hopper

Rated btu - 48,000

I have the exact same stove that I got hocked up a week ago. It does run good and heats my living areas nicely in the house. Been running on 3 and keeps house about 75 degrees. I did have 2 year old hamer pellets and somerset pellets in garage that I started with. They burn nice in the stove. I have a ton mix of both them from 2 years ago. Wanted to hold on to them till it gets a lot colder, they are good heat pellets. Have tried a few different brands so far. If you get a brand of pellet that has length to them, like over a 1" long, good luck' this stove seems to like the shorter length pellets. I got 5 bags of a pellet from my brother inlaw, they were eco blazers. There are long pellets of about 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 " long thru out the bag and the stove does not like them. Auger would moan a few times when it ate a long pellet and stove would pop, breaking that pellet in half. I tried them for 3 nights and every morning when I got up, stove was not running. It either throwed a E2 error or just shut down for no reason, with no error codes to investigate. So went back to hamer till I picked a bag or 2 of something else to try. Been using shorter length pellets under 1" in length, and have had no problems. Long pellets haven't worked for me. Trying some Nation's choice right know from lowe's, stove seems to burn them ok. Atleast the bags I opened, they are a short length pellet. Heat is not horrible, it is 73 degrees in house right know, which isn't bad. Just put them in today, so don't know how ash will be, but don't seem any worse then the eco blazers, as of right now. A few post on this board says, nations choices are terrible, well I'm a guessing I'm going to fined out. Tomorrow will tell.

In the last two days I've burned Maine's Choice, MWP and Nature's Own, all seem to burn well in the stove. The Nature's Own and Maine's Choice burn hot, and the MWP's are what I call shoulder pellets as they don't seem to give off as much heat as the other two brands.

 

[CladMaster]

Nice stove ! Where did you buy it from ?

TSC, $1399.99 + tax

I was looking at the Vogelzang VG5790, but decided that the 65,000 btu's would be overkill for the area that I wanted to heat, not only that, it would chew pellets in no time even tho it's got an 80lbs hopper.

 

[CladMaster]

I left the stove on setting 2 overnight, at 11pm the room that has the stove in it was at 80F with the next room at 74.4F, this morning at 5am the room with the stove was at 75F and the other room at 70.6F, the temp outside the house is 20F (-7C). The 25-PDVC would have been struggling to keep the house above 68F with it at full bore.
The rated output of the 25-PDVC is 22,416 Btu's, while the Ashley is rated at 48,000 Btu's, that is over twice the power in heat terms.

 

[bags]

I think those are good looking stoves. Congrats and enjoy! Price point is good too. Getcha some Somersets if you can. They are not real long and consistent in size from what I've experienced so far. That is a slight difference I've noticed with the ProPellets. Some of those can be a little longer. Not many but maybe 20% of a bag.

 

[alternativeheat]

I left the stove on setting 2 overnight, at 11pm the room that has the stove in it was at 80F with the next room at 74.4F, this morning at 5am the room with the stove was at 75F and the other room at 70.6F, the temp outside the house is 20F (-7C). The 25-PDVC would have been struggling to keep the house above 68F with it at full bore.
The rated output of the 25-PDVC is 22,416 Btu's, while the Ashley is rated at 48,000 Btu's, that is over twice the power in heat terms.

I'm interested in how this Ashley is still running after a few cleanings. In a month or two from now, if it's still great that will be wonderful. I like that it has an ash pan, some lower cost stoves do not. Does it have a manual damper or is this one totally electronic ? I see that it has electronic controls and a panel on top, so curious ? The stove actually looks a bit fancy to be in my basement work shop ! Someone should come up with a pellet burning pot belly or one like the Chubby coal stove.

 

[Doug Doty]

I looked at those as well. I think it and my USSC 5660 are the same stove with some tweaks. and both are made by USSC and labeled differently maybe others too. The ashley has the top mounted controls and legs instead of my box bottom and side controls. I like the looks of yours better.

 

[titanracer]

I'm interested in how this Ashley is still running after a few cleanings. In a month or two from now, if it's still great that will be wonderful. I like that it has an ash pan, some lower cost stoves do not. Does it have a manual damper or is this one totally electronic ? I see that it has electronic controls and a panel on top, so curious ? The stove actually looks a bit fancy to be in my basement work shop ! Someone should come up with a pellet burning pot belly or one like the Chubby coal stove.

Controller on top is factory set to run auger on so many seconds, off so many seconds. It changes different amounts by the 5 different settings. You control how it burns by putting more air to it by a manual air damper mounted inside stove on the air intake tube. I been keeping mine damn near completely closed, but as you open it up, you can see the burn change within inside the stove because your flame height will get taller when opening. I mean, you can get the flame to reach the top of stove if opened the whole way. With opening the damper, it burns the pellet up quicker, you have to throw more pellets to her, or I will burn itself out.

 

[Mealie38]

I looked at those as well. I think it and my USSC 5660 are the same stove with some tweaks. and both are made by USSC and labeled differently maybe others too. The ashley has the top mounted controls and legs instead of my box bottom and side controls. I like the looks of yours better.

 

[Mealie38]

This is USSC AP5660 date on back is 7/3/14.

I looked at those as well. I think it and my USSC 5660 are the same stove with some tweaks. and both are made by USSC and labeled differently maybe others too. The ashley has the top mounted controls and legs instead of my box bottom and side controls. I like the looks of yours better.

 

[Mealie38]

This is USSC AP5660 date on back is 7/3/14.

 

[Doug Doty]

I just added a Dwyer Magnehelic meter wall mounted behind the stove and a couple of toggle switches on the back of the unit to bypass the vacuum switch safety when I have the door open scraping around in the burn pot, it will keep me from being rushed. I also added a switch to bypass the pellet loading door if so desired. Some might not agree with the mods but I find all our new dust in the house is coming from the time the hopper lid is open and we are pouring pellets in so with a switch to keep the auger running we can slow down and place the pellets in a little easier with out the dust plum before it burns down. The later is not necessary cause it don't burn down and go out all that fast but I just wanted it that way. I also had to pull my igniter assy out of the stove, remove the cal rod heater and trim about 3/32" off the end of the air tube as it was sticking out too far and dis-allowing the burn pot to sit down flat and I was leaking some air in the front where it was kicking up.

I timed all of my auger on and auger off timers and found them to differ from the manual a good bit but still a good semi linear slope in terms of dumping pellets from 1 thru 5. Setting 5 was correct at on 10 and off 3 I'll post my own stove porn after the sun goes down and I can get a decent picture with the window behind it.

 

[CladMaster]

You control how it burns by putting more air to it by a manual air damper mounted inside stove on the air intake tube. I been keeping mine damn near completely closed, but as you open it up, you can see the burn change within inside the stove because your flame height will get taller when opening. I mean, you can get the flame to reach the top of stove if opened the whole way. With opening the damper, it burns the pellet up quicker, you have to throw more pellets to her, or I will burn itself out.

Oh my, never noticed this hidden away in the stove behind the room blower !

I have mine set at one quarter open at the moment, will see how it goes. It was set at half way.

This is USSC AP5660 date on back is 7/3/14.

The date on mine is -- 05/23/14

 

[island wood junkie]

very nice, glad you're happy

 

[Doug Doty]

Edit: Newer info in the below post was more accurate after additional observation. Did not want to post inaccurate info.

Since pellet consumption is tied only to heat settings I am going to see how much effect the combustion air adjuster has on heat output.




Doug...

 

[Doug Doty]

More details after watching the stove start up and run tonight with the Dwyer meter in line full time.

Tonight is my first night with the Dwyer meter running continuously and I have noticed that the stove pulls .4" WC on start up and then when the flames light up it drops to .36 or so and then settles into .3 ish on lower heat settings and about .22 on high settings. The blower does not change but the vacuum goes down as the fire builds hotter and higher, seemingly because the bigger fire promotes more and more natural draft and the blower ends up providing less motor provided vacuum. i am sure this is obvious to the old pros but might be of interest to the other new guys like me. Having the Dwyer plumbed in and mounted on the wall is enlightening. I am going to do a test by opening the door just slightly tomorrow so I can use a fluke meter to see where my vacuum switch is calibrated to open at.

 

[LordmetalZ28]

I'm interested in how this Ashley is still running after a few cleanings. In a month or two from now, if it's still great that will be wonderful. I like that it has an ash pan, some lower cost stoves do not. Does it have a manual damper or is this one totally electronic ? I see that it has electronic controls and a panel on top, so curious ? The stove actually looks a bit fancy to be in my basement work shop ! Someone should come up with a pellet burning pot belly or one like the Chubby coal stove.

Over 2 months In. One complete cleaning half a ton of green supremes and not one hiccup. Seems to be a great stove

 

[LordmetalZ28]

Over 2 months In. One complete cleaning half a ton of green supremes and not one hiccup. Seems to be a great stove

Over 2 months In. One complete cleaning half a ton of green supremes and not one hiccup. Seems to be a great stove

Also I do a daily cleaning of the burn pot and exchanger tubes since Im in there for the burn pot anyway

 

[CladMaster]

So far my stove is holding up well, not had any major issues with it burning so far, it gets cleaned every 3 - 4 days, pot gets checked for ash / clinkers every 6 - 8 hours and cleaned out if needed (very rarely needs it, can go 14 - 18 hours before it needs a stir / cleaning out).
I've been giving the flue a complete brush out every 7 - 8 days to see how much ash is collecting, it looks like I will need to be cleaning the exhaust out every 50ish bags as the fly ash buildup in the horizontal section is a little high, will monitor this just to make sure.

Seems to burn any brand of pellet that I feed it. Produces nice heat, keeps the rooms downstairs at 74 - 86F when the temp outside was at 12F over the last day or two.
With the IR gun pointed into the stove in the center of the drop chute to measure the temp, I have got readings over 600F on settings 4 and 5.
The flue on the back of the stove has never got above 130F so far.

With the Dwyer liquid manometer hooked up the stove pulls .30" at startup, once it's up and running it drops to .22" - .18" depending on the heat setting, but most of the time it's a steady .20" pull.

This stove is easy to clean compared to the 25-PDVC that I have, when cleaning out the 25-PDVC my hands would be black, with the 5660 I barely get black / dirty hands, and it takes less time too.

To get the most heat out of this stove, the 14 heat tubes at the top of the stove inside must be kept clean, I have noticed that the heat output will drop if these are not kept free of ash buildup.

The ash pan, this needs to be emptied every 3 - 4 days.

The side cleanout squares, these need to be removed and checked for ash buildup every 3 / 4 days and cleaned out.

Every two weeks, remove the brick panels and the two metal plates, and clean the V channel that leads to the exhaust blower.

Overall I am very pleased with this stove, just wish the two self tapping screws had not sheared that hold the two brick panels in place in the stove, new parts are on the way from US Stove.

One thing that need to be addressed by US Stove is the burn pot, it seems to be made with cheap metal, mine has warped on the back edge near the brick panel, a replacement is being sent by US Stove, I hope to get this soon.

 

[Doug Doty]

I have had a duplicate experience with the same stove only last years model, made 09/23/13, mechanically the same inside. No real issues other than my second week where I was burning through what turned out to be some damp pellets. Just almost to finish my first ton of pellets. I do daily the cleanings also, without the daily attention it will ash up in the pot and start to loose air flow, flame height, and heat output at about 36 hours with my current Easy Heat pellets. TSC pellets burned cleaner during experiments. No problems otherwise. My daily cleanings have turned out to be the following. Hit the shutdown, reduce to #1 setting, cycle the heat exchanger slide cleaning knob, wait till all visible embers and dust is evacuated, open the door and pull the burn pot out with pliers and dump into a metal bucket, 1 minute scrape and vacuum, vacuum out the stove interior, about weekly I dump my ash pan but it will hold a lot more. Put it back together and I am done before the combustion blower stops. I cannot remember if the Comb. blower stop with door open during a shut down cycle or not. I have added a toggle switch on the back to bypass the vacuum safety switch when cleaning or scraping around in the pot with the door open so I flip it each time. I have ran past 48 hours by opening the door a couple of times and doing a light scraping around in the pot, kind of one 1/2 at a time to help the ashes fall through the holes to prolong cleaning intervals.

EDIT: Not had my bricks out yet but I did pull the side cover plates off and vacuumed some minimal ash from that area on time.