Does anyone know what the approximate lb/hour of pellet burn rate are for each of the 3 heat settings of a Quadra-Fire Santa Fe? I looked in the documents and specs on the Quad web site but could not find any info on this.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Those feed rates, of course, assume that you have the feed gate set properly to result in the average height of the flame on HIGH to be 4-6" above the burn pot. If that isn't set properly for 'today's' load of pellets in the hopper then all bets are off as to the lbs/hour.
Excellent! Thanks for all the information.
Dexter, how do I get a copy of that document you have in your post? I can't read it with they way you attached it to the thread.
Just for some enlightenment on why I am asking about feed rate..... I am looking at putting this stove on the second floor of our house. It will be located in a 24' x 24' room that is above an attached 3 car garage and will be at the end of the hallway opposite of the occupied bedrooms. Last winter this room was heated with a zone off of the oil furnace and considering that the base board is as far as possibly could be from the boiler, it was very very inefficient (prior to last winter the room was unfinished and was sealed up during the winter). The heat coming out of the based boards was not very impressive and the boiler was running for a long time to get the room up to temp. The room is very well insulated so it wasn't as if the zone was coming on a lot, it was just the time to take the furnace to satisfy the t-stat. And the t-stat was set for a 2* drop.
I did an experiment in which I shut off the t-stat for this room and left the door open and the upstairs would go down to <60* within a day. If the door to the room was closed the upstairs would maintain 65-67*. I have the M55 on the first floor on a t-stat set at 68* with a 1.5* swing set to HI/LOW operation and this has always kept the downstairs and upstairs comfortable. I didn't want to set the t-stat any higher than that since it would take a significant increase to keep the upstairs in the 65* range with the addition of new room.
So..... my idea is to put a smaller stove (30k-40k output) in this room. If this stove can be controlled by a t-stat in such a manner that it will turn off when the t-stat is satisfied and auto light when the t-stat calls for heat, I think that it will be much more efficient then the oil burner zone. I would set the t-stat controlling the stove somewhere in the range of 65-68* and just let it do it's thing. With the stove in this new room, it would also be adding some nice extra heat to the upstairs which would also take some of the load off of the M55. So a certain small percentage of extra pellets used to run this stove would have been put in the M55 anyway.
The top 4 stove on my list at this point are:
1. Enviro Empress (~$3k)
2. Quadra-Fire Santa-Fe (~$2k)
3. Quadra-Fire Castile (~$3k)
3. St. Croix Hastings (~$3k)
I'm starting to lean towards the Santa-Fe because of it's simplicity and much lower price. I don't think that I need all of the fancy controls that come with the Enviro or St. Croix and I don't need the fancy cast iron look that all the other stoves have. With the Santa-Fe (and Castile) I can set the heat output to low and the let the t-stat control it. This would be similar to the Auto/Off mode of the Empress and Hastings.
Any thoughts from the experts???
I have a Filtrete 3M-30 (http://www.radiothermostat.com/filtrete/products/3M-30/) in the room now and will just disconnect the boiler from it and connect the stove.
I guess my only concern with running the stove in an Auto-ON/OFF mode is the abuse that the ignitor will take. Is the ignitor in the Santa-Fe the same as in the CB1200?
That is good to know about the durability of ignitor. I'm trying to learn as much as I can about the Quad before I make a decision. I'm not looking to cheap out on a stove, in fact, I'm still considering the Empress to be my first choice. I want to make sure that I am getting the right stove for the job though, and if that means a cheaper stove then the Enviro, then all the better. Everyone that has a Quad seems to really like them. All stoves can have issues so I try to stay away from "product review" web sites and get as much info as I can here at Hearth.
Hi Don, Thanks again for the info.
I'm pretty familiar with the Enviro operations, having an M55 insert, and yes, I am thinking that letting the stove run for an extra 30 minutes after the t-stat is satisfied could potentially make the room a bit warmer then I would want. I guess I could reduce the t-stat settings by a couple of degrees though. However, I don't believe that the Ignitor in the Enviro will be a durable as the one in the Quad.
Ok, so I have another question..... I have heard a lot of issues about misfires with the Quads because the burn pots fill up with ash/pellets and then they can't auto light. Is this due to a design issue, pellet issue or lazy owner not cleaning the stove issue? Or maybe a combination of all 3? I pretty good about cleaning my M55, pretty much 2 twice a week when it is running 24/7. I will be burning MWP blend and LG Granules (ordering next week) this season, so decent pellets will be going into the hopper.
I'm wondering if I should start a new thread..... "I need to know everything there is to know about a Quad Santa-Fe"
Thanks again for all the help!
Nice, thanks Dexter,
Do the Santa-Fe and Castile share the same guts and just have a different shell?
Sounds like a good deal. You'll be happy with it, for sure!More good info, thanks again.
I looked at a used Castile this past Saturday and ended up buying it. It was used for just one season and then the owner switched to propane and put the stove in the basement for two years. Just needs a little cleaning on the inside to take care of some surface rust.
Paid $1,500 for it. I believe it was a fair deal.
I will post some pics tonight.