Very best Freestanding Pellet Stove on the market....??? *** YOUR opinions Please!***

1. There is not a "best" one any more than there is a best car or house.
2. Please check the recent Harman threads about the status of that particular company.

Breckwell (and many other companies) have been through a couple reincarnations themselves. Some other big brands are not being helpful about keeping up with parts supplies for older pellet stoves.

This stuff MUST be taken into consideration if you are going to spend that kind of money (that is, if you care about the money and long term ownership costs, etc.)...

Maybe Rod from Hearthtools will chirp in here and give some long term service and parts advise. Although we have talked about this MANY times, a local dealer with extensive knowledge and experience can often mean as much (or more) than a brand name.

Are pellet stoves tested to efficiency in some standard way? Or is this just a manufacturer claim on the brochure or EPA hang tag "average".....maybe one of the stove R&D;guys on the forum can inform us on this.

As with woodstoves, if the tests are done in different labs by different people (at the manufacturers), comparing one brand with another this way could be folly.

CHeck out the Quad Mt. Vernon AE

http://www.quadrafire.com/products/stoves/pelletStoveDetail.asp?f=mtvernon

I think it's like anything else... it's what's best for YOU. For example, an Enviro EF2 was best for me... mainly because it was free!! But seriously, I think Craig is right. It's an individual decision that each buyer needs to look at. How large of a space are you heating? Are you interested in auto-light? How important is a warranty to you? Would you sacrifice some of these things for a great second hand deal?

No such thing as "best" in this context, as already mentioned. But the Harman will certainly meet your requirements. The efficiency rating on pellet stoves is suspect and is variable from installation to installation but a good pellet stove is CAPABLE of 80% in the right circumstances. The Harman auto ignition models also have a nice feature where the convection blower can be turned off using a special manual mode setting. And they are easy to clean. The Enviro has a feature where the blowers can be mounted outside the wall instead of in the room. Very unique. If your entire budget is $3200 it will end up dictating the model. You need room for venting, hearth, and installation costs.

Sean

pellet stove s must reach a minimum of 78% when tested to gain certification. most companies(us included) accept default rather than getting a "true" efficiency rating simply because it costs a boat load of money to attain and maintain that rating. so if you are looking at an epa certified pellet unit , remember it had to have been at least 78% efficient and IMHO most are going to be just over 80% for instance when out 25-pdvc went through cert i believe it tested at like 82.8% or somthing like that (was a long time ago so i forget the actual number but im close), but by accepting default , the unit is listed at 78%

i hope this helps ya.

mike esw

stoveguy2esw said:

pellet stove s must reach a minimum of 78% when tested to gain certification. most companies(us included) accept default rather than getting a "true" efficiency rating simply because it costs a boat load of money to attain and maintain that rating. so if you are looking at an epa certified pellet unit , remember it had to have been at least 78% efficient and IMHO most are going to be just over 80% for instance when out 25-pdvc went through cert i believe it tested at like 82.8% or somthing like that (was a long time ago so i forget the actual number but im close), but by accepting default , the unit is listed at 78%

i hope this helps ya.

mike esw

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Good info, Mike. Do you know how the default can be established without an actual test for true efficiency? What's the process accepted by the EPA?

I've always had a hard time accepting the high efficiency numbers given to pellet stoves in general. The overall efficiency will be affected by fuel choice and operator settings and draft conditions, just as with wood stoves. Do you think the 78% is a good number in the field?

Sean

they do the test, and determine that the unit excedes default, the further testing for actual is much more accurate and involved and it also calls for recert at a much shorter interval the default test is accurate, as it needs to be , the test done is "pass/ fail" and how much its passed by is irrelevent in the eyes of the testing agency. im sure the testers do actually know what the actual is even with the default test , but they aint tellin. if we really wanted to know our engineers could duplicate the test , we have a lab capable of doing so ,but with it being "in house" how much stock would "john q" take in it.

Flexpipe said:

Based on the following....
Price range~$3200 max
Efficiency (80% or higher)
Blower Size
Heat Exchanger
Noise Level-Blower and auger
Build Quality/engineering
Ease of Mainteance
Trade offs...One unit may be more noisy, but another brand is more efficient, etc.

I am down to the Harman, and Breckwell, but, hey, what do I know?

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Never tried 'em, I'm a cordwood guy, not a pellethead, but I hope you looked at Englander - (Mike is to nice to say so, but I don't mind giving him a minor plug... :lol: ) They are well under your budget, reasonably efficient, and the reports I've seen say they have good build quality, which agrees w/ what I've seen looking at them in the big box stores... Some folks may not care for the "plain" styling that goes with the "value price" - but IMHO it's a reasonable tradeoff depending on one's priorities.

Gooserider

harmon is one of the top of the line pellet stoves ,with a top of the line price to match.
It wouldn't hurt to go to home depot or lowes lumber and price their pellet stoves.

Back in 2003 , harmon had a huge design edge over the other pellet stoves, in that it was thermostatically controlled & even has a remote control like a tv set.

I bought a cheaper pellet stove, with all the same bells & jingles as the harmon except for the remote control and the fancy gold door.

I am quite happy with it,it heats the first floor to 76 deg & warms the second floor to 63-66 deg & house is 1800 sq ft

I found that I never needed to buy the thermoststic control, as it was easy enough to control the pellet stove with the touch pad computer on the side of the stove.

My unit is 55,000 btu max output with a 80 lb hopper,4 auto feed pellet settings and 6 air circulation speed settings. I always run on lowest pellet feed & highest fan & use 5% to 40%
of a bag of pellets a day, depending on outside temp and run time. On a 50 deg day, you may only run 1 out of 4 hrs ,while on a 18 deg day, you run 1 out of 1&1;/2 hr.

The advances in technoligy in this years model, make most of them within 30 % of harmon
because if you try to sell a pellet stove without the computer pad or thermo hookup or auto ignition , only a real dumby would buy it & the retailer of the inferior stove would loose sales,
right & left.


Pellet stoves come in 1200sq ft, 1400sq ft and 1800 sq ft & probably some other sizes too, by now. Make sure you get a stove big enough for the area you want 2 heat but not overkill because the room that the oversized stove is in will get a bit too warm.

I paid 1800.oo for mine including the stainless double wall chimney & 6 bags of pellets.
I installed myself because I am good at following directions and not taking shortcut.

Hint: u have to use the hi temp silicone on the pipes or you get a smell.

hint: a $12.oo carburator HOT air intake hose from auto zone and a stainless worm gear clamp replaces a 70.oo cold air intake kit and works flawlessly.

It is fireproof hose because it normally connects the exhaust manifold heat riser to the air filter housing of carburated cars for preheated intake air during cold start ups.

I saved over $1,200.oo by buying a less expensive pellet stove with the same btu rating that I wanted.

Possible down side---- the fan motors are a little too noisy for my taste, not bad , but noticable.
Just below the verge of being annoying.

Harmon, I have heard ,has extreemly quite fan motors but not 1200.oo worth of quite.

So, if you buy a cheaper pellet stove, see if you can start the stove up , even if there are no pellets in it, just to listen to the noise of the fan motors.

All pellet stoves have 3 motors, room air circulation, conbustion chamber air flow motor,
and pellet feed auger drive motor. The fan motors are variable speed and the pellet feed motor
is variable run duration. ( on 2 sec off 10 sec)to vary the rate of pellet feed.

You dont need the best, just good enough 4 your needs unelse you got cash 2 burn.

Some smart shopping and checking tech. specs & asking saleperson questions can save you 800.oo to 1000.oo

If money is no object , then you cant go wrong with a harmon.

1000.oo saved buys 4. tons of pellets or 200 - 40 lb bags of pellets at 5.oo /bag.

about a 3 or 4 year supply.

What an idea using the fresh air intake from a car to route a fresh air intake. In my case I always wanted one but couldn't make the turns needed to get to the one tiny spot in my where the pipe will fit. Why da hell didn't I think of that. Thanks for the idea.
I guess thats what these forums are really for. Thanks a gazillion.

We just purchased a Harman P68 earlier this month. Had the stove professionally installed. Figured I'd better make sure it's set up right, rather than wasting pellets.

Why did I go with this make and model? After talking with many pellet stove owners (and unhappy former owners), I discovered two important things:

1. Don't go cheap. Pellet stoves are rather involved mechanical devices. A lot can go wrong. I went with Harman because so many liked their Harman stoves. Also, forums like these had many Harman owners that seemed fairly satisfied. Another reason: the Harman plant is about 2 hours from my home. Parts are close at hand.

2. Don't undersize. A common complaint of dissatisfied former pellet stove owners went like this, "Well, the pellet stove was nice until it got COLD... we made a big mistake in not getting a big enough stove." WARNING: Don't go by how many square feet the stove maker claims their stove will heat. Go by BTU's and efficiency. That's the standard in the heating industry. We have an 1800 square foot, rather poorly insulated (yet fairly tight) older home. We decided that having "more" BTU's available was necessary, so we went with the P68. We paide about $4100 with bells and whistles, nice trim, delivered and installed. Yep, that's a lot of bucks. I was going to spend about 75% of that number this winter in heating oil alone anyhow. Time to give up depending on greedy mideast oil sheiks that just hand their profits to fund terror worldwide. Oh, and not to mention greedy big oil, too!

Ask me how we've fared after this winter. We are relying on this device to heat the house, hopefully without need to turn on our oil fired furnace.

I'm new to this forum (as a member), but I've been lurking and doing a lot of reading long before, as we were considering heating options. This forum and website are outstanding. Thank you, everyone.

BeGreen said:

Welcome. Nice looking setup Mark. Post the full sized picture in the Pictures forum if you have a chance. I'm looking forward to hearing how it works out for you this winter.

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Thanks. I've posted a larger pic/post in "The Perfect Picture" forum.

--Mark

Flexpipe, there is one thing for sure, no such thing as the perfect stove. May be a wood stove and a slave or two to feed it. Lacking at least one of those I would think you could come in well under $3000 as the price of stoves seems to have abated with availability rising. Being in Ohio you really should check out a corn or multifuel stove. Yes corn can be a pain but the price of pellets isn't something to brag about either. Corn is likely pretty cheap out your way so look into it by calling your local grain elevator or feed lot. You might be very happily surprised in spite of the ethanol insanity. Beyond the fuel a pellet and corn stove are nearly identical so you wouldn't notice much if any difference. Problem burning or too moist corn can be fixed by mixing wood pellets or mixing a cup of cheap veggy oil into the hopper full of corn. Check out iburncorn.com for lots of corn and some pellet advice. One nice thing this year is availability. In the last few years you had to order a stove by October to hope to get it for December. Luckily that situation has abated. The big thing you may not like about corn stoves is removing the clinker daily or (with grinder type) the ash being blown around to deposit on your ceiling by the fan if you open the door. Grinder stoves also make more noise due to the action of the extra motor and grinder moving. The other thing about a multifuel stove is having the ability to burn grass pellets when they come on line as they probably will. Dirty but viable if you consider the price of pellets and where its going. Ah decisions decisions decisions.................................................

PS: to gauge the noise level you really should listen to each unit in operation if you can.

Heating efficiency is a funny number. you have three issues:

1) how complete is the combustion?
all pellet stoves burn hot & clean - combustion is optimal (close to 100%) on all of them

2) how well does the stove get the heat OUT of the stove and into the room?
this is where the efficiency takes a big hit. It's hard to do. Depends on the manfaturere & on how much heat you are trying to put out (the more heat the stove produces, the harder it is to get all of it out)

3) how well does the heat disperse in your house?
that depend on the house. Some homes are easy to heat with a stove, others have a huge heat gradient.

I think the Enviro Mini looks nice, for a small area. Anyone have any experience with it?

-- Mike

PS - I caught Craig enjoying a nice, conservative cigar in my local cigar club, so I took a photo and added it as my new avatar... enjoy
(Thanks cat!)

In the Under $3000 range IMO is the Enviro Maridian.
It hold just enough pellets
45k BTU
Quite
Easy to clean and service
HOT TRIVIT TOP

I like the Empress the best
but small hopper
and A little bit more noise that the meridian

I have the NEW OMEGA Multifuill NOW
but it is over $4k

Mike Wilson said:

I think the Enviro Mini looks nice, for a small area. Anyone have any experience with it?

-- Mike

PS - I caught Craig enjoying a nice, conservative cigar in my local cigar club, so I took a photo and added it as my new avatar... enjoy
(Thanks cat!)

Click to expand...

This mini is a good stove for a small area
The burn pot is small so it needs to be cleaned more often

we have 5 sold in the past year and no major problems other that the small burn pot.

BeGreen said:

Looks like Jags inherited your avatar. Wazzup?

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The avatar was made by Catskill... we're just all temporarily changing our avatars to "Craig Limbaugh with a Cigar" for now... its a little fun. Head on over to the ash can for details.

Here, have an avatar... you can change back later:

-- Mike

Flexpipe said:

Based on the following....
Price range~$3200 max
Efficiency (80% or higher)
Blower Size
Heat Exchanger
Noise Level-Blower and auger
Build Quality/engineering
Ease of Mainteance
Trade offs...One unit may be more noisy, but another brand is more efficient, etc.

I am down to the Harman, and Breckwell, but, hey, what do I know?

Click to expand...

Harman or Quadrafire ... forget the rest.

Myself and a friend of mine bought our pellet stoves the same year. He bought a Environ and I bought a Rockwell Big E . I like his because it is not as noisy as mine , it made of cast iron, but it cost $ 700.00 more then mine. It also will only hold 40 Lbs of pellets so you have to feed it a lot. I like mine because of the price , bigger hopper, more options on the control panel. In a perfect world I would have my stove made of cast iron , whisper quiet motors, big hopper , and lots of options on the control panel. He would not trade his for mine , and I would not trade mine for his. I heat my whole house with mine except the basement, he uses his to heat one room. I talk about him in the present tense but he passed away last December.

I would look at a Harman stove. They feed upwards/push like most stoves in Europe and we all know there technology is years ahead of ours