Wow, I'm happy to have found this forum with active users and folks that own Evolutions!
I've been doing a bunch of work lately just trying to find some basic answers regarding our stove but without much luck. I'm hoping you can share your insights.
We put a Evolution in 4 years ago and we just can't seem to get any heat out of it. This has been the case since Day One. I've been wondering if it's the stove or the pellets. I haven't been able to find anyone else who has owned this stove to find out if the problem is our stove, this model stove or the pellets. Here's what I do know:
Our house is very small by US standards: 700 sq. ft. The room that the stove sits in is 270 sq. ft.(12x23) but is open to the kitchen which is 170 sq. ft. So, the area we're talking is pretty small. I've insulated the house myself and have maxed out the insulation in the floor and walls and have more than doubled the recommended amount in the ceiling. The windows are all double glazed. I still need to do some work on air diffusion (We bought a fixer-upper and stripped it down to the studs, redoing the interior and exterior). But, things are pretty well insulated. The thing is, we have to run the Evolution at max and even after a couple hours, it only takes the chill out of the far side of the living room. It comes as a surprise because the stove is rated at 45,000 BTU's and the installers said that it was going to blow us out of the place with heat. We're located in Christchurch, New Zealand which has winters with temps in the mid 30's and 40's (F) at night and high 40's-low 50's during the day. So, it's not really cold outside but the stove will only heat the house up to low 60's. My flame output looks the same as videos I've found online of properly operating Evolutions. The photo is taken from the far side of the room I'm expecting it to heat. This is a photo from when it was installed. Everything has been insulated and sheet rocked since then and the windows have all been replaced with more efficient ones. The gray in the walls is wool insulation, a really cool alternative to fiberglass (a story for another post...)
It's been this way all along so, it's not a maintenance or cleaning issue. I've read from some of you that your Evolutions are putting out some serious heat. Well, I can sit on mine when it's on high and can have bare skin 1" away from the vents without being forced to take them away. I know that it heats via convection versus radiation but the heat coming out of it still seems tepid. We keep hearing stories of how a lot of people in our area jumped in and bought pellet stoves at the same time when there were big incentives to buy them but have since torn them out of their house and replaced them with electric heat. This is all hearsay, tho.
I just fired it up last week for our first cool day of the fall (seasons are reversed in the S. hemisphere) and the temp outside was low 50's and again,after a couple hours the temp was in the low 60's at the far end of the living room.The air was still with not a breath of air moving outside...
I'm trying to narrow things down and hopefully can, with your help:
For folks that have or sell the Evolution, is it doing the job? This will tell me if it's our stove or the model. I'm assuming the Evolution is a good stove since it's been sold for awhile...
The flip side of the coin are the pellets. In our part of NZ, there is only one supplier of pellets. They are the biggest supplier in NZ and they also supply Europe so, it's not a small operation. They indicated on their site that they create the pellets following European guidelines so it would seem that they are reputable. They do have a monopoly which means that they can do whatever they want but I would think the NZ stove manufacturers and resellers would be on their case if the pellets were poor quality and made pellet stove heating look bad (The benefits of a small country). I've posted on an active NZ forum to see how are people are doing with their pellet stoves and these pellets but not hearing much back.
I just figured all of this was the norm until I came back to southeastern NH this week and a friend of mine just put in a Harman and it just puts out massive heat! I'd like to bring some pellets from here back to NZ with me but NZ has very strict rules on the importation of wood products that it would be too much work for testing purposes only...
So, that's what I know, any thoughts???
Thanks in advance,
-bob
I've been doing a bunch of work lately just trying to find some basic answers regarding our stove but without much luck. I'm hoping you can share your insights.
We put a Evolution in 4 years ago and we just can't seem to get any heat out of it. This has been the case since Day One. I've been wondering if it's the stove or the pellets. I haven't been able to find anyone else who has owned this stove to find out if the problem is our stove, this model stove or the pellets. Here's what I do know:
Our house is very small by US standards: 700 sq. ft. The room that the stove sits in is 270 sq. ft.(12x23) but is open to the kitchen which is 170 sq. ft. So, the area we're talking is pretty small. I've insulated the house myself and have maxed out the insulation in the floor and walls and have more than doubled the recommended amount in the ceiling. The windows are all double glazed. I still need to do some work on air diffusion (We bought a fixer-upper and stripped it down to the studs, redoing the interior and exterior). But, things are pretty well insulated. The thing is, we have to run the Evolution at max and even after a couple hours, it only takes the chill out of the far side of the living room. It comes as a surprise because the stove is rated at 45,000 BTU's and the installers said that it was going to blow us out of the place with heat. We're located in Christchurch, New Zealand which has winters with temps in the mid 30's and 40's (F) at night and high 40's-low 50's during the day. So, it's not really cold outside but the stove will only heat the house up to low 60's. My flame output looks the same as videos I've found online of properly operating Evolutions. The photo is taken from the far side of the room I'm expecting it to heat. This is a photo from when it was installed. Everything has been insulated and sheet rocked since then and the windows have all been replaced with more efficient ones. The gray in the walls is wool insulation, a really cool alternative to fiberglass (a story for another post...)
It's been this way all along so, it's not a maintenance or cleaning issue. I've read from some of you that your Evolutions are putting out some serious heat. Well, I can sit on mine when it's on high and can have bare skin 1" away from the vents without being forced to take them away. I know that it heats via convection versus radiation but the heat coming out of it still seems tepid. We keep hearing stories of how a lot of people in our area jumped in and bought pellet stoves at the same time when there were big incentives to buy them but have since torn them out of their house and replaced them with electric heat. This is all hearsay, tho.
I just fired it up last week for our first cool day of the fall (seasons are reversed in the S. hemisphere) and the temp outside was low 50's and again,after a couple hours the temp was in the low 60's at the far end of the living room.The air was still with not a breath of air moving outside...
I'm trying to narrow things down and hopefully can, with your help:
For folks that have or sell the Evolution, is it doing the job? This will tell me if it's our stove or the model. I'm assuming the Evolution is a good stove since it's been sold for awhile...
The flip side of the coin are the pellets. In our part of NZ, there is only one supplier of pellets. They are the biggest supplier in NZ and they also supply Europe so, it's not a small operation. They indicated on their site that they create the pellets following European guidelines so it would seem that they are reputable. They do have a monopoly which means that they can do whatever they want but I would think the NZ stove manufacturers and resellers would be on their case if the pellets were poor quality and made pellet stove heating look bad (The benefits of a small country). I've posted on an active NZ forum to see how are people are doing with their pellet stoves and these pellets but not hearing much back.
I just figured all of this was the norm until I came back to southeastern NH this week and a friend of mine just put in a Harman and it just puts out massive heat! I'd like to bring some pellets from here back to NZ with me but NZ has very strict rules on the importation of wood products that it would be too much work for testing purposes only...
So, that's what I know, any thoughts???
Thanks in advance,
-bob