Santa Fe

[Vinelife]

Since this coming winter will be my first full burn winter I was wondering if any of you Santa Fe owners out there can give me any advice ? Or anything I should look for, the good and bad. I spent alot of time shopping and found that the Sante Fe would meet my meager 900-1000 square foot needs. One thing I am going to do is change the thermostat that came with it. Its a spring thermostat. I'm going to get a mercury one installed by fall instead, much better. I dont plan running it on low very much. Medium or high. Mostly high up here in Northern Michigan.

 

[geek]

good stove, just watchout for the holes in the pot to get plugged, check them every other day to make sure.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

check first, mercury switches and rapidly becoming illegal. ive been running a digital and have been quite happy with it, the smaller space you are looking to heat make sure the one you select allows you to set the "drop" so that the unit isnt just starting and stopping all the time if the house isnt holding heat very well 2-4 degrees drop depending on the situation, may extend the life of your igniter as well

 

[Vinelife]

I dont know about yours, but mine came with a tool with a tipped end. It goes into the holes only a centimeter etc...would you recommend something else and how often ?

 

[www_godzilla]

I have a digital thermostat and it is awesome. I love my Sante Fe. I've had for 2 winter. I have an OLD house(over 100 years old) and low isn't enough for the Sante Fe. I run my stove on medium moswt of the time. The stove burns cleaner on medium and high. Low burns dirtier. My biggest complaint with the Sante Fe is the gasket on the front door wears out easy. You'll love the stove.

 

[magellan900]

I've had a Santa Fe for two winters now in upstate NY (Schoharie). I've learned a bunch here lurking for as long. The primary rule is keep it clean. Burns like chit when it's dirty (Lazy flame, long heat-up to the blower, burn pot over-fills, etc.) The first year I burned chitty pellets due to my ignorance (Maeder Bros), then Dry Creek mixed with corn (farm a quarter mile down the road) with better, though not optimal results. I have a wood-burning insert (Quad 3100) in the fireplace, which does a nice job on my 1000sq ft shack, but unattended pellet stove burning the first year was a disaster. Came home to many 47 degree nights from work. The insert within an hour had the place up to 70, but the routine got old.

The second year I discovered Barefoot pellets and burned them exclusively. Set the digital stat to 60 and only had a couple nights where something bad happened, all due to lazy hygiene on my part. The shack is a sieve and I burned about 2.25 tons along with about a cord of nicely seasoned hardwood. (I clean my own liner...barely any creosote). Mom's house has an adjacent lot with locust that can be regularly harvested. Great firewood, locust. I've bought two cords in three years, but my semi-active scrounging will get me through this winter w/o buying any.

Bottom line, clean the stove regularly and burn quality pellets. Can't go wrong. As for cleaning the burnpot holes, I found the best solution was appropriately sized rifle/shotgun brushes. Real cheap at Walmart. Experiment.

Skip

 

[Vinelife]

I use to do the wood stove thing exclusively here in Northern Michigan. I would go through 10 cords of wood a season. We get about 12 feet of snow total all season or more. And we see nights around here that can get as low as 20 below. I didn't get rid of my wood stove, but decided to get a pellet stove. Because its so hard every season to get wood around here. Everyone lies about the quality of the wood or size. And the wood stove you would have to replace wood every 4 hours or less. So i was up at night filling it up. And stacking wood is no fun. We kept the wood stove incase there is a power outage. I kept a cord in the garage in case. Up here in Northern Michigan most of the people I know who have pellet stoves go through around 5-6 tons in between Oct-April. So I plan on getting 5 tons to start.

I was always really good about keeping up with my wood stove as far as keeping it clean. When I was using my pellet stove this last Feb when I got it I would clean out the burn pot everyday and then the ash area every few days. I would use a wooster fine 2 inch brush and brush the ashes down to the drawer below. And then once a week pull on the heat exchanger rods.

I'm thinking though at the end of a season about cleaning it the best I know how and then sometime in summer having the company I bought it from come out and do a professional cleaning before the next season just in case I missed stuff.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

there is no greater friend to a pellet stove than faithful cleaning, speaking from experience (inspecting returned units from big box stores, (my summer vocation) there is no greater disappointment than the output from a neglected pellet stove.

its just like anything else that has moving parts, Preventative Maintenance is the key to success, follow your cleaning instructions in your manual or dvd, replace gaskets (like changing the oil in your car) is key to optimal performance in the long run. pellet stoves aint cheap (especially if its a high end model) protect your investment , abused pellet stoves not only do not burn as well or as efficiently , they can be severely damaged by neglect. ash formation channels exhaust heat into narrower spaces which concentrates that heat on smaller area. this can cause warpage and degradation of the steel or cast parts of the firebox and heat exchangers. well maintained stoves generally do not have as many expensive component issues either, a 30 % blockage of a heat exchange area of a pellet stove can result in as much as a 30% loss of heat through exhaust, ash insulates, it also can dramatically increase the heat exposure to the exhaust blower as well as the walls of the heat exchangers in the areas which are clear of ash due to velocity of the exhaust in a smaller path.

ok rant over, but trust me guys , ive seen what neglect can do to a pellet stove , it aint pretty. keep em clean and they will be there for you when you need them , abuse them , they will let you down at the worst possible moment.

 

[imacman]

there is no greater friend to a pellet stove than faithful cleaning, speaking from experience (inspecting returned units from big box stores, (my summer vocation) there is no greater disappointment than the output from a neglected pellet stove.

its just like anything else that has moving parts, Preventative Maintenance is the key to success, follow your cleaning instructions in your manual or dvd, replace gaskets (like changing the oil in your car) is key to optimal performance in the long run. pellet stoves aint cheap (especially if its a high end model) protect your investment , abused pellet stoves not only do not burn as well or as efficiently , they can be severely damaged by neglect. ash formation channels exhaust heat into narrower spaces which concentrates that heat on smaller area. this can cause warpage and degradation of the steel or cast parts of the firebox and heat exchangers. well maintained stoves generally do not have as many expensive component issues either, a 30 % blockage of a heat exchange area of a pellet stove can result in as much as a 30% loss of heat through exhaust, ash insulates, it also can dramatically increase the heat exposure to the exhaust blower as well as the walls of the heat exchangers in the areas which are clear of ash due to velocity of the exhaust in a smaller path.

ok rant over, but trust me guys , ive seen what neglect can do to a pellet stove , it aint pretty. keep em clean and they will be there for you when you need them , abuse them , they will let you down at the worst possible moment.

Amen to that Mike.

BTW, are you "officially" back to using the summer email addy now?

 

[stoveguy2esw]

[Amen to that Mike.

BTW, are you "officially" back to using the summer email addy now?

yes, have been for about a month , my "winter" email at my desk is actually redirected to one of my techs who works year round in the service office so general questions will end up going to him , for contact with me personally use the summer "yahoo" email or just drop me a PM