Greetings all,
I'm new here and to pellet stoves. I've been burning Canawick Canablock in my 1979 Katahdin wood furnace, and while it's still much less expensive than oil, it's far more inconvenient.
My house is a bi-level 1600 sq ft farmhouse built in 1880, and doesn't have much in the way of effective insulation (1" of foam insulation all around). I can get the Katahdin to burn for about 5 hours for a final night's burn, then by morning the house is in the 35 - 45 degree range after a really cold Maine night. So I got the bright idea to try a pellet stove out. I ended up getting a King KP-130, which at least from the outside, looks a awful lot like a King 5502m.
My question is, are they the same unit, with the KP-130 being an 'upgraded' 5502m?
I have not messed with any of the settings on this - it's running in full automatic mode.
I've got the 130 installed in the following manner:
1. Vent pipe is DuraVent, inside
2. Clean-out tee coming out of the 130
3. 4 feet of DuraVent to a 90 deg going out of the wall
4. Vent angled down
5. The stove is installed near the front door, angled as much as I can down the hall to the living room, and right across from the den
6. 3 feet from the stove is a staircase going up
I'll get some temps where the hot air exits the stove tonight. I do know the sides get well over 160 deg.
Even though the house is old, I expected at least the front half of the house to be warm after a night of being ran - it wasn't. The den (the door is 4 feet across the hall from the stove) was only 58 deg last night (got down to 5 deg). Upstairs was about the same. The living room was 55 deg. Don't get me wrong, it's an improvement from when the wood furnace would burn out at 2 am, and we'd have 3 hours of no heat at all.
The stove lights good. The draft fan seems to pulse, not run at a consistent RPM regardless of the HR setting. Sometimes you'd think the flame is going to go out, then it comes back, not overly vigorous, not lazy, then dies down and comes back, and so on.
I do not have the OAK installed - 140 year old farm house, didn't think it would be necessary since the house is the opposite of airtight.
The first two bags of pellets I've used were from Lowes, Green Team Platinum. I fired the stove up for the first time yesterday at about 3pm, and followed the manual recommendation for the 3 hours curing on HR-3. About 4 am, I turned the stove up to HR-5. No appreciable difference at all. About 11 am my girlfriend shut down the stove since it had less than a quarter full hopper.
I'm going to try different pellets tonight. I won't be able to install the OAK until this weekend, tho I might be able to attach one of the tube near a cold air inlet near the front door.
Any other advice?
I'm new here and to pellet stoves. I've been burning Canawick Canablock in my 1979 Katahdin wood furnace, and while it's still much less expensive than oil, it's far more inconvenient.
My house is a bi-level 1600 sq ft farmhouse built in 1880, and doesn't have much in the way of effective insulation (1" of foam insulation all around). I can get the Katahdin to burn for about 5 hours for a final night's burn, then by morning the house is in the 35 - 45 degree range after a really cold Maine night. So I got the bright idea to try a pellet stove out. I ended up getting a King KP-130, which at least from the outside, looks a awful lot like a King 5502m.
My question is, are they the same unit, with the KP-130 being an 'upgraded' 5502m?
I have not messed with any of the settings on this - it's running in full automatic mode.
I've got the 130 installed in the following manner:
1. Vent pipe is DuraVent, inside
2. Clean-out tee coming out of the 130
3. 4 feet of DuraVent to a 90 deg going out of the wall
4. Vent angled down
5. The stove is installed near the front door, angled as much as I can down the hall to the living room, and right across from the den
6. 3 feet from the stove is a staircase going up
I'll get some temps where the hot air exits the stove tonight. I do know the sides get well over 160 deg.
Even though the house is old, I expected at least the front half of the house to be warm after a night of being ran - it wasn't. The den (the door is 4 feet across the hall from the stove) was only 58 deg last night (got down to 5 deg). Upstairs was about the same. The living room was 55 deg. Don't get me wrong, it's an improvement from when the wood furnace would burn out at 2 am, and we'd have 3 hours of no heat at all.
The stove lights good. The draft fan seems to pulse, not run at a consistent RPM regardless of the HR setting. Sometimes you'd think the flame is going to go out, then it comes back, not overly vigorous, not lazy, then dies down and comes back, and so on.
I do not have the OAK installed - 140 year old farm house, didn't think it would be necessary since the house is the opposite of airtight.
The first two bags of pellets I've used were from Lowes, Green Team Platinum. I fired the stove up for the first time yesterday at about 3pm, and followed the manual recommendation for the 3 hours curing on HR-3. About 4 am, I turned the stove up to HR-5. No appreciable difference at all. About 11 am my girlfriend shut down the stove since it had less than a quarter full hopper.
I'm going to try different pellets tonight. I won't be able to install the OAK until this weekend, tho I might be able to attach one of the tube near a cold air inlet near the front door.
Any other advice?