Ugly rear ends

[hossthehermit]

Everytime I see the thread title....'ugly rear ends' I think of a fat girl's rear view.....

Well, unlike some here, ........... I wouldn't know .............

 

[Ashful]

can't speak for anyone else, but my stove only produces dust when the front door is open. Since I do 90% of my loading thru the top-load door, there is virtually no dust produced by the stove. Hauling wood thru the house does leave some dirt on occasion, but I use a satchel that catches 99% of that. A stove should be under negative pressure, relative to your room, so there's no opportunity for dust to come out thru un-silicon'd gaps. Instead, room air gets sucked in, cooling your flue and creating other headaches. The only time a stove is under positive pressure, and able to blow dust out, is during a back-puff.

 

[Snowy Rivers]

Another easy "butt fix" would be to get to little wrought iron (steel) panels made up to fasten between the stove and the wall to cover the BUTT ugly backside of the stove.

 

[BronxBoy]

The basement is 800 square feet, half garage/half family room. The house is insulated as well as a 1940-built house can be: new windows, new doors, plenty of blown in insulation.

BTW, when this thread started I was considering buying the Mt. Vernon AE which has a beautiful front but an ugly rear end IMO. I settled on the Comfortbilt HP22 which is industrial chic all around. No problem now with an ugly rear end.

Last night I loaded the stove with hardwood (PA Pellets) for the first time. It does not burn as hot as soft wood but there are fewer clinkers. I see I am going to have to adjust the flow rate. 1 is fine but with 2 it is feeding too fast causing the pellets to overflow into the ash bin.

 

[bags]

So in reality you have 1,200 + 400 below of conditioned living space = 1,600 SQ FT total. Now it's making more sense. It is hard to get warm air heading down hill so you will likely have to use other heat sources for that area. Either way with a pellet stove you are saving some cash by letting it become the larger producer of your heat which is not all that bad. Work on getting it dialed in and running as well as possible and that is what you will have. You are the only Comfort Built stove I've seen here thus far so you will have to pioneer it a bit on your own.

On the other hand there are many long time and very experienced pellet stove owners / operators that can offer help and suggestions. Most pellet stoves are alike in many regards so you are not totally alone in figuring things out. Chickenman seems to be fairly familiar with your stove's manufacturer so he will be a big help I'd say. Also every situation is different and that again leaves it for you to figure out to a larger degree. Good Luck!

 

[SESZOO]

Hoss is righter than you realise.
As a seller I come across this phenomenon quite regularly. You are walking on eggshells here buddy

My advice to you is not buy anything. Let the missus make the entire decision or you will pay for the life of the appliance. It may sound simplistic but just say,"get whatever you want" because whatever you spend hours researching it will eventually end up in the bin replaced by what she wanted anyway.
If she does not know what she wants; give her at least 10 options and make no recommendation WHATSOEVER

You are walking into an ambush, maintain eye contact, back away slowly, then run like hell.

As a long time married person ,Have to say Your 100 % Absolutely Right , If mama ain't happy no ones happy

 

[BronxBoy]

Just received our oil delivery yesterday. We used only 91 gallons (compared to the usual 225-250) this winter--and part of this was before the stove was installed! Mind you, we still heat water with the oil burner and use it when we turn off the stove. At chickenman's suggestion we letting the oil burner doing some of the heating. Very pleased.

 

[Ashful]

Just received our oil delivery yesterday. We used only 91 gallons (compared to the usual 225-250) this winter...

You've won when the oil man gives you a dirty look, as he pulls away from the filler neck.

I've used 91 gallons in a single weekend.

 

[BronxBoy]

Thanks, chickenman. I've been working with the dealer trying to fine tune the feed but still not hitting the sweet spot. The problem is that I get a few hours of excellent functioning and then pellets back up in the burning pot. The traffic jam backs up into the pellet chute. Fresh pellets have no room in the burning pot and they spill over into the ash pan.

I don't know whether the problem is being caused by a feed which is too fast, a burn which is too slow resulting in backup, or clinker formation on the bottom which leads to the backup.

We tried switching from softwood to hardwood pellets but that did not make a difference.

Next we tried switching settings: exhaust, auto clean, feeder. As I said, still no sweet spot.

I will put down all the current settings for the record but we have moderate weather this week so I'd be extremely grateful to just get Stall #1 working right:

Stall #1:
Blower: 115V
Exhaust: 95
Auto Clean: 120 min/15 sec
Feeder: off-4.3/on-1.7

Stall #2:
Blower: 115V
Exhaust: 95
Auto Clean: 120 min/15 sec
Feeder: off-3.7/on-2.3

Stall #3:
Blower: 115V
Exhaust: 110
Auto Clean: 120 min/15 sec
Feeder: off-3/on-3

Stall #4:
Blower: 115V
Exhaust: 110
Auto Clean: 120 min/15 sec
Feeder: off-2.2/on-3.8

Stall #5:
Blower: 105V
Exhaust: 95
Auto Clean: 120 min/15 sec
Feeder: off-1.4/on-4.6

Thanks so much!

 

[BronxBoy]

Today very good day. Kept it on Manual #1. No overloading, no need for a burn pot clean before bed. Only on bag of hardwood. Happy camper.

 

[BronxBoy]

Awwww, thanks so much! I appreciate your taking so much time.

I have the last of the hardwood in the stove now. I will let them burn out then clean out the stove. Then the new adventure starts with the new settings.

 

[BronxBoy]

I have OAK.

Tried the new setting in #1 and switched to softwood. Flame died in abt 20 mins.

what adjustment shld I try? Thnx.

 

[BronxBoy]

Just a holler and shoutout from the Bronx.

All is well here. I found a very good fuel for the stove, American Wood Fibers Ultra White Pine. Burns slow, no clinker, no overspill, no odor. Don't know whether this is an exceptional fuel or whether it just nicely fits with the HP22 settings. But who cares?

I just bought a couple of loose bags but this is the fuel I will order by the ton next year.

 

[BronxBoy]

Just an update. This is the second winter using the stove and we are still very pleased. Over the summer we had the installer come to do an annual cleaning but he left in five minutes saying the stove is very clean and doesn't need any servicing. No charge. The oil company send me a $2500 refund check because my monthly budget plan was exceeding the usage.

Because I was able to plan ahead I was able to order two pellets of Okanagan Platinum and it's burning much better than the pellets from the blue big box store.

December was very mild in the Northeast so the stove has just been on stall one manual. Today is the first cold day and I moved the feed to stall two. I had to increase the exhaust voltage to 100V because I could see the pellets were starting to back up. My project for 2016 is to figure out the ideal blower and exhaust voltage settings and feed rates.

Thanks to everyone for your help last year.

 

[Lake Girl]

Glad to hear your stove is treating you well ... The Okanagans are a decent pellet and are generally a reasonable price. Take the time to learn how to tweak your stove!

 

[Pascal_Maertens]

I love my stove !