Will a Harman Accentra really heat 2,000 sq feet?

I found a Harman Accentra FS for sale two hours away. I went to the Harman website & they claim the stove will do 2200 square feet but I also see other documents that say 1450 sq ft. The 40k btu seems a little low to heat 2000 square feet. Will it do it? Is there a new version vs an old one that would explain the two ratings?

It depends upon your particular house and location. Can it ? Yes. Will it? Not likely unless you have a well sealed and insulated house. Oh, what a lot of people consider as well sealed and insulated my be neither.

What are you burning now and what do you want to accomplish

I am heating a 2000 sq ft cape on propane with 2 propane stoves rated at 30k each. The home is extremely tight & efficient. Both stoves are never run over 2 on the dial that goes up to 10. I am going to keep one of the stoves & replace the one at the far end of the house with the pellet stove.

The Accentra is a great stove. Do you have any previous experience with wood/pellet stoves for supplemental heating?

No, I don't but I have been researching & reading as much as I can to be as prepared as possible. A good friend of mine has an Accentra insert that he loves but he is heating a smaller ranch.

The Accentra insert is one of the best, you should talk with him or do more research on pellet purchasing/usage and storage. If your only experience is gas you are either rich, old, or lazy, sorry to put it that way.

I am not looking at the insert, I am looking at the free standing (FS) stove. I have been researching which is why I am asking users on this forum who may have a similar size home in my geographic area for honest feedback. Sorry if that somehow comes across as lazy or rich?

If you are willing to do some work and you keep one of the propane stoves you should be way warmer than last year.

Did not mean to imply rich or lazy, love the FS Accentra, had one before I got a great deal on a new XV, where are you located?

I am in the seacoast of NH

Go to Home and Hearth in Hampton and check one out first hand. They usually have some burning outside and will have some of the answers for you as well.

What is the price on a good deal FS Accentra? A great stove easy to maintain.

You should ask the real question here....

He had a previous thread asking what stove he should buy. The Englander CPM, Quad CB 1200, or Heatilator CAB-50 (and PS-50).

If you want to know if the Harman will do a better job than any of those 3 stoves???? Yes. It will. Harman is the Cadillac of stoves. Has all the nice features. Will do auto On/Off and High/Low (they refer to it as Room Temp or Stove Temp and Manual and Auto, but if your not familiar, then maybe those terms ring a bell ).

The others are good units. All have there attributes. The Classic Bay will always have a place in my heart. It was my 1st and been a trooper heating this place on Low (90% of the time).

Whats the price??

It is listed for $1500 firm

Snag it.... Period. You will not be disappointed.

Lots of stoves are rated around 40,000 BTU's. You must remember, that these are normally "Input" #'s.

The stoves "BTU Output" is based on how well it exchanges that heat. Harman has one the Best Exchange Systems out there. Period.

Plus.... Its a Harman.

Ask if he will take $1,300 "Cash" (or $1,400, but I know that I always leave "wiggle room" when I sell something. Lets the buyer think they "Got me"! But I include it in the asking price and I always put FIRM).

At what temperature were you keeping your house at when running on propane?

On average I would say 70 degree's on the main floor & 68 upstairs.

Pics would help a lot in this situation. But if you are set on a Pellet stove and need to stay within a certain budget. Then that stove should be fine.

Unless your heating a Super Large area, and need a 70,000 BTU stove?? It will serve you well.

Because you are already heating with 2 stoves downstairs and you are only running them at Low settings. That leaves a lot of room for a heat increase from both units. Also, not having a heater upstairs, you know what a space heater downstairs does (pellet, wood, gas, stoves are only space heaters).

I wish I would have found an Accentra for $1,500 three weeks ago. I wanted a Multi-Fuel agitator unit, but I would have taken a Harman in a Heartbeat. Especially at that price.

Might as well just get another stove Mad Dog...Maybe put it in the Bathroom!

I DO NOT like "this stove will heat blah-blah" square feet generalizations. There are far too many variables in regions and homes to say this. How does the heat attenuate itself within a particular home? What type of pellets? How cold is it regionally? How insulated is the home? How clean does the particular user keep the stove?What temperature does the user find comfortable? Many of these things are not quantifiable. The best you can do is get the btu/hr rating of the particular stove (40,000 btu/hr for the Accentra F/S), and compare stoves that way. As for 70 downstairs and 68 upstairs? Unlikely. I heat a 2000 square foot colonial built in 1988 with 2x6 walls with a P61, have an 8 degree difference between my first and second floor, and burn 5 tons per year in New England. I think expecting to heat 2200 square feet with a 40,000 btu/hr stove, and having only a 2 degree differential between floors is exceedingly optimistic.
As for the $1500 value? I'd need to knw the age.....if its chain drive, less. If its direct drive....maybe.

He is saying that he already uses 2 propane stoves, on a very low level (2 out of 10 heat levels), to heat his entire home.

The OP is replacing one of the Propane stoves w/ a Pellet stove. So he already heats to 70 down and 68 up. 2 stoves at different ends of the house provide a better convective flow. So I have no doubt that the Accentra would succeed in heating his home. For 2 reasons. 1.) The 30,000 BTU propane stove he is replacing, is only used on level 2 of 10. So he is using a very small amount of BTU's. 2.) The other Propane stove thats run on level 2, can be turned up if needed? The Harman is merely a larger replacement stove.

All the points you made are valid. The pellets, the user, maintenance and cleaning schedule, etc. But because he is already heating with 2 small stoves and only replacing one, I say a 40,000 BTU pellet stove is a good replacement to a 30,000 BTU Propane (Gas stove).

fishwater,

You need to consider what might happen to the air flow in your house if you replace one of those gas units with a pellet stove. The blowers are likely different both in terms of maximum CFM and actual used at any instant CFM.

In other words you are also changing your air flow system and this will have an impact on how well the new setup heats your house.

Would you please tell us the brand and model of the gas units you currently have?

Dexter and Lousyweather,

Keep up the discussion and don't assume things about how those gas units fire.

Smokey, I have two Charmglow propane stoves, self vent with a blower but we never run the blower. The units are run at a very low level & heat the home pretty good except for the moisture they are causing in the home. They are nothing fancy & quite frankly were installed as suplimental heat to the hydronic forced hot air system. We have heated the home exclusively with the two stoves for the last 5 years. They are on opposite ends of the house, one is in the mudroom/sunroom on one end of the house while the other is in the livingroom. I will keep the one in the livingroom & replace the one in the sunroom.

I'm trying to get a copy of the manual for that propane unit you have and like a lot of things I search for it appears that Google is placing crap sites up high in its results at the moment.

Some (a very large number) of the propane (natural gas units) controls do not work as one might expect, setting a unit on a certain number is actually a desired warmth setting (t-stat) and has nothing to do with the stoves actual firing rate.