Exhaust temp check.

[Tony garofalo]

I have a Harman accentra and I wanted to know how much heat I was sending up the chimney so I installed a digital thermometer in the PL vent pipe. On stove temp setting on the lowest it would go I got a reading of 110 degrees out the vent pipe and a 200 degrees when I checked the temp of the heat coming from the fan in the front of the stove. Then I checked the temps on a higher setting of 5 and I got a Exhaust temp of 165 and a fan temp of 365. It may be more efficient to run the stove at a higher setting but it eats a lot more pellets, What do you all think?

 

[rona]

The btus produced is measured by total pellets burned. But the stove companies don't tell you how much goes out into the room and how much goes out the exh . This is why I always suggest to people that they buy a bigger stove then the dealers recommendation. A larger stove will have more convection tubes or area to capture the heat the stove produces so it can be circulated in the room rather then out the exhaust system.

 

[john193]

^ this is true, but generally an oversized stove spending most its time on low is working on the lower end of its efficiency spectrum.

 

[skibumm100]

I have a Harman accentra and I wanted to know how much heat I was sending up the chimney so I installed a digital thermometer in the PL vent pipe. On stove temp setting on the lowest it would go I got a reading of 110 degrees out the vent pipe and a 200 degrees when I checked the temp of the heat coming from the fan in the front of the stove. Then I checked the temps on a higher setting of 5 and I got a Exhaust temp of 165 and a fan temp of 365. It may be more efficient to run the stove at a higher setting but it eats a lot more pellets, What do you all think?

Are you using the same thermometer in both places? From what I've seen, those numbers don't sound right. I'm not familiar with how the fans and controls operate on a Harman in stove temp mode so I'm no expert. I would be very surprised to see a room outlet temp of 365 and a flue gas temp of 165. I can't imagine a pellet stove heat exchanger that efficient. Hopefully someone else can chime in.

 

[rona]

^ this is true, but generally an oversized stove spending most its time on low is working on the lower end of its efficiency spectrum.

That is true but when I have -20 such as now I like the extra size as I am comfortable and not shivering wondering why I got a stove to small. The shoulder seasons spring and fall are probably not the best time to look at the stoves efficiency as they idle a lot. I would say 2/3rds of the heating season most of the homes could get buy with a smaller unit but we have to survive in the cold part of winter so we size the stove for the colder temps.