PE Alderlea T6 comes home

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begreen

Mooderator
Staff member
Nov 18, 2005
104,656
South Puget Sound, WA
Here's some shots of the final installation of the new Alderlea. We're liking the new stove a lot. With all this mass, it takes a bit longer to come up to temps, but once there, it holds the heat for a long time. Sonny, there's a shot in there just for you with the ecofan spinning it's heart out.

April08-013web.jpg April08-020web.jpg April08-015web.jpg
 
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BeGreen said:
Here's some shots of the final installation of the new Alderlea. We're liking the new stove a lot. With all this mass, it takes a bit longer to come up to temps, but once there, it holds the heat for a long time. Sonny, there's a shot in there just for you with the ecofan spinning it's heart out.

Beautiful stove and great looking fire! Those fans are fascinating, do they move a lot of air?

Ray
 
Thanks. The large one is rated at about 150 cfm I think. Not a giant volume of air, more of a gentle push.
 
BeGreen said:
Thanks. The large one is rated at about 150 cfm I think. Not a giant volume of air, more of a gentle push.

how was your wood stacked/placed in the stove looks like a pile but it is flaming!!.... and does thst fan really work?
 
I have one of those fans also, puts out a pretty good breeze 150 cfm.
But you do you to watch your stove top temps, it is only rated for around 650.
Get it over 650 for an extended period of time then it burns out the motor and it slows the unit down.

A better one would be the Heat Wave http://www.northlineexpress.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=5HW-HEATWAVE
It's max temp is 1,000 and distributes air at 300 CFM.

The reason why I went with the Eco Fan was I got the 3 blade one for < 90 at Home Depot.
Originaly sells for 149.
 
AHHHHH, I just creamed my jeans.
Now you know why most PE owners are so enthusiastic about their stoves.
Shes gorgeous bro.
 
Yes, it really is. And you are so right, I love this stove. It's one of the best behaved woodburners I've ever owned. Last night at 9:30 I built a good sized fire, knowing we would be below freezing in the morning. (It's the fire you see in the pictures.) This morning at 6:30 I had enough coals to start right up again. Life is good.
 
A softwood burner getting overnight burns in the spring with a big steel beast, without being "blasted out of the room" imagine that...

All HAIL PE ;-P


PS. Nice magazine clippings BG
 
Beautiful, elegant, durable, most importantly......... SIMPLE & SIMPLE to operate.
Nuff said.

Put 3 splits in last night, woke up 23 outside, 73 inside this morning. OH I forgot to mention these beasts heat.
I am curious as to how much I can heat this place come next year with the Summit & the 30 going ;)
 
BeGreen said:
Here's some shots of the final installation of the new Alderlea. We're liking the new stove a lot. With all this mass, it takes a bit longer to come up to temps, but once there, it holds the heat for a long time. Sonny, there's a shot in there just for you with the ecofan spinning it's heart out.

BG, How close to the wall is your double-wall? I know the pic looks deceiving.
 
Yes, the shadow from the flash is really deceiving. The double-wall flue is 11" from the walls.
 
BeGreen said:
Yes, it really is. And you are so right, I love this stove. It's one of the best behaved woodburners I've ever owned. Last night at 9:30 I built a good sized fire, knowing we would be below freezing in the morning. (It's the fire you see in the pictures.) This morning at 6:30 I had enough coals to start right up again. Life is good.

wait , wait , wait, this is your first summit?..(i mean pe)???
so can you compare what you like abiut pe vs jotul?
 
I hope to post a review this weekend. At twice the capacity of the F400, a steel, brick-lined box, etc., there are a lot of differences. In some ways it's not even a fair comparison. It would be much more appropriate to compare the T6 to an F600. That said, as much as I like the Castine, I am very pleased with how the T6 is performing so far. As Gunner noted, a big box, in the Pac NW getting overnight burns and not driving us out of the house. That's a real good thing.
 
BeGreen said:
I hope to post a review this weekend. At twice the capacity of the F400, a steel, brick-lined box, etc., there are a lot of differences. In some ways it's not even a fair comparison. It would be much more appropriate to compare the T6 to an F600. That said, as much as I like the Castine, I am very pleased with how the T6 is performing so far. As Gunner noted, a big box, in the Pac NW getting overnight burns and not driving us out of the house. That's a real good thing.

ok,ok, i know its not fair but jotul is a big name name lexus type stove...talk about workmanship of the stoves, which one was easier to operate...would you prefer the 600 over the t6..sorry to beat you up but my friend just picked up 2 jotuls 500,600 no excuse me, 2 600s
he has never used one before, he was a vc guy but the rep the jotul has is what made him buy them..just wondering what your thoughts were ... i tried to talk him into pe but there was no big display store of them around here for him to see them....
i know jotul has a good rep but just curious how pe stands up to them
 
very very nice.

man! wish I could have a wood stove :down:
 
BG very nice stove,I'm glad to hear that your enjoying it.Tom and his gang are very nice, as I have talked to them before,and very knowagable to boot,just as you stated!
If you dont mind could I ask you what size room you have your new beast in,and how much area do you believe is being heated by it?Do you also just have the typical 8 ft. ceilings or do you have 10 ft. or cathedrial ceilings?
If your house is sized similar to mine and your burning in 40 deg. temps(I think you said) with out problem,then the T-6 might work.I will tell you my house is a 2000 sq.ft. cape but I think I will only be heating about 1500-1600 sq.ft. of that area with the stove?I'm not sure if it would be to big and run me out of the room ,which is 350 sq.ft.(that is where stove will be)or maybe the T-5 would better suit me.
I also just read in another thread that supposdelly the T-5 has been having problems with the door hinge or support ,first I heard of it how about you?Take care ,and keep enjoying that new beauty!!
 
Our house is 2000 sq ft, mostly open floorplan on the first floor. The living room is about 15 x 20, but with very large openings to the dining room/kitchen area and to the hallway, staircase area. Ceilings on the first floor are 9'6" high. We are heating the whole house with the stove.

My biggest worry was the size of the stove overheating the house in fall and spring. That concern appears to be unfounded and not an issue. The T6 is easy to regulate and gives off more of a nice warmth, than a blazing furnace kind of heat. The stove has a lot of cast iron surrounding the inner steel core. This acts like a giant heat sink. It takes a while to that mass get warm, but holds the heat for a long time. In this way the stove behaves more like a soapstone stove than a steel stove. I don't think you would do wrong if you choose this stove. And you are right, Tom and company are first rate and a credit to the business.
 
iceman said:
ok,ok, i know its not fair but jotul is a big name name lexus type stove...talk about workmanship of the stoves, which one was easier to operate...would you prefer the 600 over the t6.
i know jotul has a good rep but just curious how pe stands up to them


I'm more familiar with Jotuls, so it's a bit unfair for me to directly compare a stove I have had for a week. It will take time for me to really appreciate the details that PE has put into the stove. For fit and finish I would give Jotul a nod. But for function, this Alderlea is doing very well and we are quite happy with it. I'll post more details in a full review, but really both stoves are winners. If Tom had a store model F600 in blue black enamel, I might be chirping about it right now.

It's hard to comment on the F600 as I've never owned one. Every stove model has a distinct personality, even from the same company. What I can say is that both have a similar commitment to quality with a simple design. I like the Jotuls and PEs a lot because of their clean simple designs. Morso stoves show a similar design philosophy. When I get a stove, the last thing I want is one that is fussy or requires a lot of maintenance over the years. When I read about tearing down panels and blowing out ash out of air passages, I wonder, why did the stove designer come up with something that let the ash get in there in the first place? Jotuls and PEs don't have this issue. To me that is a sign of good design. I like that thee Jotul F400 doesn't use air tubes, but instead has a formed stainless manifold. The PE stoves also have a stainless, box manifold. Jotul gets a few steps up on the Alderlea for finish, and is available with an excellent, durable porcelain enamel which isn't an option on the Alderleas. Jotul's latches and controls are smoother and easier. (When they don't stick - an issue I haven't run into, but some have.) That said, corner clearances with a highly radiant stove like the F600 would have been an issue in our installation. The sides of the T6 are much cooler and the convective design seems to work well for our house.

This is the first steel/firebrick stove I've owned so it's teaching me right now. But so far the lessons are fun and quite pleasurable.
 
Looks very nice. Glad you found your camera. Always exciting to get a new stove.

Your concern of overheating the house with a larger stove was one I had so purchased the smaller quadrafire yosemite
to replace our Jotul 3. For us, not much difference except the yosemite has air tubes instead of a baffle for secondary burn.

Maybe someday when (not if) we upgrade again we could go for a little larger stove. Will have to see how this one
behaves next winter to know for sure.
 
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