just got my stove a few weeks ago, new to burning pellets

[ad356]

i recently bought my first home. its an old farm house, 1450 sq ft home. its not very well insulated as of yet and still has the old fashoned windows. it has a dinosaur POS natural gas furance in the basement. its an old oil burning hallmark forced air furance converted over to natural gas. its a real peace of junk, not effiecient in the slightest degree. so bought a pellet stove a few weeks ago, since i'm not a big fan of natural gas/national fuel to begin with. i dont much care for national fuel and their high rates, surcharges, and crazy stupid fees. i bought a US stove company "KING" model 5510 available at tractor supply for $999. im fairly happy with the unit. it has been heating the whole house with the old natural gas furance remaining idle so far since i bought the stove. im even considering shutting off the pilot on the furance so im not using that gas either. the stove heats fairly well, the only thing i can find wrong with the US stove models is that they are slightly louder than the more expensive units. however at $999 it is an excellent value. it has a 140 hopper and a 45,000 BTU heat rating, so it cranks out some serous heat. what do you guys think of this stove model?

the only problem i have had so far is that the burn pot likes to fill up with ash after about 10 hours of run time. when that happens, the unit must be shut down and the burn pot must be scrapped out. if i dont do this, the pellets will not receive enough air from the bottom of the burn pot, and the result is a lesser performing fire. the stove has the ability to adjust feed rates of the pellet and make custom adjustments on the draft fan. i tried turning down the feed rates and turning up the draft fan. i got better results, but the problem still exists. how often should a pellet stove have to be shut down and have the ash removed from the burn pot? i really cant complain about this stove since a $1,000 stove has completely replaced my furance, which i dont want to use anyways.

pellets are juniata premium pellets by energex.

ps
my orginal plan was to install a new wood burning stove, since the house has a wood burning chimney. i was going to have the chimney inspected and swept so i could use it. the inspector said no way, its not safe. so i gave up on it and went with a pellet stove and i used a duravent pellet vent system. i like the pellets and now that im using them, i think they are much more conventent.

 

[imacman]

ad356, welcome to the forum.

There's not too many forum members that have your brand of stove, and the ones that do have mixed results.

It seems, though, that yours seems to be working pretty well. It sounds like just some "tweaking" is needed of the draft air & pellet feed. In general, you want just enough air to make the pellets "dance" a little while they burn in the bottom of the pot. Flame should be bright yellow, active, and maybe a hint of blue at the base.

Obviously, the more pellets you feed in, the more air they need. If the draft is right, most of the ash should be blown out of the pot when new pellets hit (flying sparks). I'm on my 2nd stove, and haven't had to clean the burn pot more often than about every 3-4 days minimum. I once went about a week with my Astoria.

if you have to scrape your pot of ash every 10 hours, then i'd say there isn't enough draft air going through.

 

[daydreamer]

Some brands of pellets will produce more ash than others. Maybe you could try a different brand of pellets?

 

[ad356]

i looked at several different brands of stoves when i bought my stove. the austoria is a nice stove, but $3,700 is way too much to spend on a pellet stove. if i was going to spend that much, i would buy something like a hotblast furance that goes in the basement. a furance like that replaces your natural gas furance with something that burns coal/wood. it hooks up to the forced air vents and DOES NOT use natural gas. US stove company does seem to have good products, my neighbor uses the same model of stove that i bought( one of the reasons i bought it is becuase he recommended it). he has used his stove for 2 years now, the only issues he has had so far is a failed ignitor

here are the pellets that i use
http://www.energex.com/common/product_residential.php

they do heat fairly well, but maybe they have a high ash content. package says that they are low ash content, but who really knows? im going to try to continue to tweak it a little and see if i can eliminate the ash build up.

whats the story on softwood vs. hardwood pellets? right now im using hardwood pellets

 

[imacman]

......whats the story on softwood vs. hardwood pellets? right now im using hardwood pellets

There are good pellets of both types. In general, the softwood tend to burn a little hotter, and have finer ash, but the real good hardwood pellets aren't far behind, if at all. It really comes down to what pellets you have available in your area, and the price.

I'd suggest buying a few bags of each type that fit your budget, and do some test burning.

 

[urkiddin]

i have the same stove and have only been burning pellets now for a little over a month.i've been burning Bayou pellets because that's what the HD in Bennington is carrying.what i find is you have to do a lot of tweeking.it seems like some will burn nice with little ash but than the next bag will burn with more ash.sometimes i get 2 days without having to clean the pot.other bags require cleaning every day.i guess pellets can make a big difference and even with the same brand.but heck,it still beats seeing the oil truck come.

 

[imacman]

......but heck,it still beats seeing the oil truck come.

Maybe, maybe not. With the price of HHO fairly low right now, you really need to determine the cost per btu for each. This calculator will tell you which is cheaper to burn right now based on what you paid for the pellets and oil....just input what your costs were for both, and hit calculate:

www.pelletheat.org/3/residential/compareFuel.cfm

 

[urkiddin]

i may not be saving bundles of money but one thing about the pellet stove is my arthuritise(can't spell it) doesn't seem to hurt as much.