What Is In Your Stove Right Now?

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Todd67 said:
What kind of pellet stove do you have? I've had three different ones and they all failed miserably in the durability/reliability aspects. The aluminum auger broke in the first one (a $1,200 stove), but we replaced the auger.

Some other issues made us buy our 2nd one, (a $2,800 stove) and the exhaust fan stopped working before it was a month old. It smoked up our house so bad that the fire department said our smoke detectors saved our lives (@ 1:00am).

Our third pellet stove was a top of the line Quadra Fire insert (cost over $4,000) that developed a short in one of the augers and ignited the pellets in the hopper.

Bye bye pellet insert! Hello Fisher Mama Bear! I don't trust pellet Stoves after having two different stove develop possible life threatening issues. None of it was operator induced.
Click to expand...
Before we bought the lot I cut on, we bought a new (at the time) yankee pellet stove. We had something go wrong with the computer/control board after having it a month but they came out and replaced it at no cost, the second problem we had was many years later when the auger had some buildup of some sort in the back of the stove. I don't think they make them anymore but they still make parts if I understood our Lopi dealer.

I would rather clean a wood stove, the pellet stove can be a pain but when it gets cold like it did last night, it's worth the extra work. Ours is in the basement so I think we get more ash in the pipe compared to a direct vent.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Todd67
thewoodlands said:
Before we bought the lot I cut on, we bought a new (at the time) yankee pellet stove. We had something go wrong with the computer/control board after having it a month but they came out and replaced it at no cost, the second problem we had was many years later when the auger had some buildup of some sort in the back of the stove. I don't think they make them anymore but they still make parts if I understood our Lopi dealer.

I would rather clean a wood stove, the pellet stove can be a pain but when it gets cold like it did last night, it's worth the extra work. Ours is in the basement so I think we get more ash in the pipe compared to a direct vent.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I love heating with wood, but it would be nice to find a reliable pellet stove for the basement. I agree that cleaning a woodstove is a LOT easier than cleaning a pellet stove!
 
  • Like
Reactions: thewoodlands
Todd67 said:
Thanks for the info. I love heating with wood, but it would be nice to find a reliable pellet stove for the basement. I agree that cleaning a woodstove is a LOT easier than cleaning a pellet stove!
Click to expand...
We did have it over feed one night (all clogged up) I think that is when the local Lopi dealer came out, I'm not sure if that was the auger issue we had.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Todd67
We had - 7 this morning with some maple going in the Liberty.
 
Pine slabs tonight. Icing out now, but day time warming expected today.
 
We had 33 this morning with some ugly chunks of maple going in the liberty.
 
Todd67 said:
Thanks for the info. I love heating with wood, but it would be nice to find a reliable pellet stove for the basement. I agree that cleaning a woodstove is a LOT easier than cleaning a pellet stove!
Click to expand...
I see you might be in for some high winds, stay safe.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Todd67
thewoodlands said:
I see you might be in for some high winds, stay safe.
Click to expand...

Yes indeed. One forecast says wind gusts could reach 75mph! Sustained winds of 35-45mph or more. I'm getting things stored in the garage that could blow away, like snow shovels. Tomorrow I'll take my canoes off their saw horses and wedge them between some firewood racks. One is a 17ft aluminum & one is a 15.5ft plastic, or whatever material that is:confused: . They got blown more than 100 yards from their saw horses last spring in much lesser winds. Thankfully they weren't damaged.

I'm ready for spring. In the meantime, I'm burning more mystery wood in the Fisher.
 
  • Like
Reactions: thewoodlands
Todd67 said:
Yes indeed. One forecast says wind gusts could reach 75mph! Sustained winds of 35-45mph or more. I'm getting things stored in the garage that could blow away, like snow shovels. Tomorrow I'll take my canoes off their saw horses and wedge them between some firewood racks. One is a 17ft aluminum & one is a 15.5ft plastic, or whatever material that is:confused: . They got blown more than 100 yards from their saw horses last spring in much lesser winds. Thankfully they weren't damaged.

I'm ready for spring. In the meantime, I'm burning more mystery wood in the Fisher.
Click to expand...
Hopefully it's an early spring and not a longer winter. We'll put more wood in tomorrow before we get ice (Sat. night) and then rain.

If you see this go by during your wind event, it's only Miss Gulch.
maxresdefault.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Todd67
thewoodlands said:
Hopefully it's an early spring and not a longer winter. We'll put more wood in tomorrow before we get ice (Sat. night) and then rain.

If you see this go by during your wind event, it's only Miss Gulch.
View attachment 241287
Click to expand...

Lol, thanks for the heads up:) . I'll keep my eyes peeled, and my head down.
 
  • Like
Reactions: thewoodlands
It's 25 out tonight so we'll grab the first six or seven splits for the overnight fire.
 
just doug fir & juniper.. didn't get a chance this fall to get up to the higher elevations to cut my preferred dense whitebark pine (there's a ton of dead stuff killed off by bark beetles & blister rust around here up high) before it all became snow bound... so I had to stick with the easy-to-reach doug fir forests down low for firewood this year...
 
As if the 75mph wind gusts aren't enough of a hazard tomorrow and Monday, now we are under another lake effect snow warning from Sunday evening through Monday afternoon with 5-9'" of snow expected, or more in the persistent snow bands.

Spring can't come soon enough! It didn't arrive until May last year:(
 
  • Like
Reactions: thewoodlands
We had 2 for a low this morning with ironwood on the bottom row with some maple filling out the top row in the liberty. NOAA is calling for a low of - 7 for tomorrow morning so I'll be burning ironwood in every fire today along with the overnight fire.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Todd67
Loaded up with some Ash and Maple. I have a little cherry I'll throw in after work. Looking forward to a nice warm house in this crap weather.
 
  • Like
Reactions: thewoodlands
Got a maple and pine mix going now. Temps expected to plummet tonight to single digits. Got the shagbark hickory on standby.
 
The forecast is for a low of -9, the liberty has all ironwood in it and the pellet stove has one bag in it set on a medium heat on the manual mode.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Stinkpickle
All nighter size round of maple, 1 ash split, and heavy loaded with shagbark hickory.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Stinkpickle
We had a low of - 11.9 this morning, the liberty had some yellow birch with ironwood for its morning meal.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Stinkpickle
For the past two nights, with those winds that we've had here in NH, I've been burning sugar maple 17% MC, beech @ 15% MC and Red oak @ just under 20% MC. Tonight, I may be burning some shag bark hickory. We'll see.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Stinkpickle
Single digits and expecting new record lows for March coming up. I’m getting to the bottom of my mulberry stacks, and the splits aren’t quite as dry, even at three years. A couple splits of ash mixed in with each load is doing the trick, though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: thewoodlands
We had 0 this morning with a load of yellow birch going in the liberty.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Todd67
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

T
Wood ID: red, dense, very slow seasoning
Replies
19
Views
2K
The Wood Shed
Youp
Y
Z
Just for fun: restarting stove from a coal slivers
Replies
17
Views
2K
The Wood Shed
ClintonH
ClintonH
S
What a difference TWO YEARS make
Replies
35
Views
4K
The Wood Shed
30WCF
30WCF
stoveliker
How much did you burn this year
Replies
44
Views
2K
The Wood Shed
sirlight
S
Mr. Kelly
What is the current thought on solar arrays right now?
Replies
26
Views
3K
The Green Room
Megunticook
Megunticook
Top Bottom
Back