Harman P43 or P68 - Cathedral Ceilings

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Couple thoughts -

Pellet stoves: get a Harman and the biggest one you can afford. You can sell all day long if you ever leave.

Pellet heat: what is the temperature range in your area? If I lived in Canada, I would look at pellet furnaces and not a stove.

Before spending $5K: If your temperatures are only heading to -15 F, then I would go electric, high efficency mini splits. Mitsubishi's HyperHeat runs 100% efficient at -15. Panasonic has models going down to -30 F. They are not rocket science to install. Costs might be $2.5K more installed, but guess what, no buying nor hauling pellets :)

Natural gas: do you have access to a line? If so, I would go natural gas furnace.

Insulation: how much cubic feet of insulation do you need? A can does 12" x12" x 4". Next size up looks like an expansion tank, doing 50 cubic feet, usually sold in pairs online, totaling 100 cubic feet. Next would be to get a company to come in and do it for you. Easiest thing to do is drill 1/2" holes where you need the foam, fill, take a sheet of drywall do a 1" hole, then use the 1/2" bit to keep the paper on the 1" side. Patch with mud on the wall and tape. You'll breeze through it in no time. Be forewarned, taking foam out of walls where you may, in the future, run electric becomes very cumbersome. Get your wires in now :)
Hi :) typically it’s 14F to -5F here in the winter but we had 3 weeks of -40F in January last year. I like the point about selling my pellet stove eventually, as this is my first home and I don’t plan to keep it forever, I’d like to move out of town.
the reason I decided against pellet or NG furnace is because the ducting was quoted to me at 5-7K plus the cost of the furnace so pellet stove was more affordable. NG is also veeeery expensive here and people supplement their NG with pellet heat. I don’t have a NG line to my home so it would be pretty expensive to change into a gas system. I will look into the mini splits I haven’t heard of that! I am getting my pellet stove (P68) installed tomorrow morning though so it will be for educational purposes.
I like the extra insulation idea! I will definitely look into that too. Thanks so much for all the helpful information :)
 
Hi :) typically it’s 14F to -5F here in the winter but we had 3 weeks of -40F in January last year. I like the point about selling my pellet stove eventually, as this is my first home and I don’t plan to keep it forever, I’d like to move out of town.
the reason I decided against pellet or NG furnace is because the ducting was quoted to me at 5-7K plus the cost of the furnace so pellet stove was more affordable. NG is also veeeery expensive here and people supplement their NG with pellet heat. I don’t have a NG line to my home so it would be pretty expensive to change into a gas system. I will look into the mini splits I haven’t heard of that! I am getting my pellet stove (P68) installed tomorrow morning though so it will be for educational purposes.
I like the extra insulation idea! I will definitely look into that too. Thanks so much for all the helpful information :)

The biggest, IMO, benefit is no duct work needed. Only thing required is some line-sets to the heads. Much cheaper than running ducts. Debatable how much heat loss comes from ducts, but real world experience yields near 60%.

Other beauty about no duct mini splits, you no longer have tragically low ceilings, holes in wales, etc.
 
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Success! It’s been in for under an hour and house is already 4 degrees Celsius warmer (around 71 now). Thank you everyone for all of your help and insight
 

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Looks awesome ! Enjoy the heat...
 
Been busy,but,after seeing pics,glad you got the P68. Surge protection and outside air would be the only 2 questions I have. On the ceiling fans,if proper ones were installed,the distance would be OK, they are generally lowered for "circumstances". Living in cold climate,and cathedral ceilings,going to leave you a link,which can save you money at low cost,and keep room temps more even.
 
Nice!
 
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Looks good enjoy the warmth.
It is plugged into surge protection RIGHT?
Yes I plugged it into surge protection :)

and thanks everyone! I am very happy with it. My house was a comfortable 22 all evening yesterday.


Been busy,but,after seeing pics,glad you got the P68. Surge protection and outside air would be the only 2 questions I have. On the ceiling fans,if proper ones were installed,the distance would be OK, they are generally lowered for "circumstances". Living in cold climate,and cathedral ceilings,going to leave you a link,which can save you money at low cost,and keep room temps more even.

I will definitely check out the link! Thanks so much :)
 
For the insulation, I looked at the only place I could see in (around the window sills) and it looks like I have pretty thick styrofoam insulation between the drywall and the foundation. I pulled down insulation from between the two floors when I moved in as the heat exchange was even worse when it was up, so I’m assuming anywhere where there’s not the styrofoam should be insulated with the same stuff that was in the roof.
Thats a good point about the hearth pad/getting a barrier up on the floor. Especially if I’m just gonna be running baseboards down there unless it gets really cold.
It looks like here it usually hovers 14degreesFahrenheit to -5degreesFahrenheit from day to night. We did have a 3 week stint of -40degreesFahrenheit last winter in January. We also get a ton of snow.
I think my wood stove in the basement would heat about the same. I do have the baseboards supplementing at 65Fahrenheit, but there are no baseboards in the open living room with the ceilings so the majority of the heat there is coming from the stove. I just got up to refill the stove. It’s 65Fahrenheit in my living room, outside it is 5Fahrenheit.
I think since I’m not using the wood stove as much as I’ll just run baseboards down there unless it’s really cold, and I’m going to be heating those ceilings like you said, that the P68 is the safer stove for me. I did contact the dealer (the only dealer available as no one wants to come out from the city which is over an hour away) and inquire if they sell the P61A and he said while they can get it in, the P68 is a better deal right now due to the sale so I may as well stick with that.

I put up insulation bats on my basement ceiling when I moved in. Later, when I put in the pellet stove, took them back down (except around the perimeter where the joists meet the foundation) to help with heat exchange.