Pellet Stove insert questions

[jc8367]

I would like to purchase a pellet insert for my fireplace. I have an "L" shaped house, the insert would located on the small lower part of the "L" while my bedrooms and bathrooms are on the complete opposite side. They are also on a slab. My house is about 1600sq ft, how well heated will my b&b;'s get? What's the best way to distribute the heat? Also which models are the "most quiet" and require the least cleaning? What's better, top or bottom fed? I'm located on Long Island. Cheers

 

[jtp10181]

Mt Vernon AE is nearly silent and has an auto-clean burn pot. Would just need to scrape it out every once and a while and clean the heat exchanger every couple months. You could probably run it on Medium most of the time and crank it up to HI when it gets really cold out.

How well insulated is your house?

 

[lpgreg]

My guess is they would be warmed but not the same temp. as in the small (L). Our main rooms are 5-6degrees warmer then the back bedrooms. I have a whitfield profile 30 insert, we clean it every evening and there is some noise but not real bad. We only had to use the propane boiler twice so far when the temps hit below 0.

 

[CygnusX1]

I would like to purchase a pellet insert for my fireplace. I have an "L" shaped house, the insert would located on the small lower part of the "L" while my bedrooms and bathrooms are on the complete opposite side. They are also on a slab. My house is about 1600sq ft, how well heated will my b&b;'s get? What's the best way to distribute the heat? Also which models are the "most quiet" and require the least cleaning? What's better, top or bottom fed? I'm located on Long Island. Cheers

You shouldn't notice more than a 5-10 degree difference in the back side of the house.

The better insulated your house is, the better the stove will heat your house. My stove performs much better now that I put new windows in.

I would suggest using muffin fans to blow the colder air to the stove (Yes, I know there's a great debate about this, but it works for me).

I have an Enviro Meridian insert the heats my house efficiently.

As for quietest, that's debatable, all stoves make noise (mostly blower noise). To be honest, I'm so used to my stoves noise that I don't really pay attention to it. I don't think it's loud anyway.

The amount of cleaning you'll have to do is dependent on the quality of the pellets you burn. Plan on cleaning your stove out once a week.
Others do it less often, but my belief is that a cleaner stove runs better, just like any other machine.
It really only takes me maybe 20 minutes to clean it out really good, less if I don't take off the firebacking and vac that out.

 

[jc8367]

I think I'm going to avoid the insert and go with a pellet stand alone in another room that's centrally located. Dealing near me quote $2599 for a Quadra-fire Castile. Not sure is that's normal. My wife will probably push for the Classic Bay, more her type.
Also looking at the Harman's. Thx for the input.