hardly any heat coming from my stove

[robinwoods]

I have only had my New Englander brand stove since October, and it was manufactured in August of 2008. After only using it for 6 weeks or so the ignitor stopped working and the blower did not seem to be working very well. There never seemed to be all that much heat coming from the stove.

I called the tech people and they sent me new ignitor and blower parts, which I replaced. The ignitor is still not working and the blower is the same as it was before.

Anoher very strange problem is moving the warm air from one room to another. I have a very old house, 1730, with 7 ft ceilings and small rooms. Even with fans in the corners of all the doors the air seems to barely circulate.
I never had had this problem with my woodstove which I could pull the heat thru the house, even upstairs

Has anyone had these problems?

 

[LeonMSPT]

Is this a pellet stove? What is the BTU rating, compared to the woodstove it replaced? I've only "seen" pellet stoves, never worked one, on one, or used it for heat. My initial impression was it would be great for for a room or addition where a chimney wasn't really an option. But, you'll never get the heat out of one that a woodstove will put out.

 

[webbie]

We have had a number of "low heat" complaints about pellet stoves - especially from former wood burners, but also from owners of older houses or rooms.

Pellet stoves are generally run at relatively low heat outputs - typical is 15,000 BTU per hour, which is 1/8 the amount of heat as a furnace and about the size of three plug-in electric heaters.

As to moving heat.....is that room getting too hot? If you don't build up excess heat, there will not be much to move. If you want to produce more heat, you have to turn up the settings on the stove so it burns more pellets.

As to exactly how powerful the blower is, others can probably answer that better.

 

[imacman]

I have only had my New Englander brand stove since October, and it was manufactured in August of 2008. After only using it for 6 weeks or so the ignitor stopped working and the blower did not seem to be working very well. There never seemed to be all that much heat coming from the stove.

I called the tech people and they sent me new ignitor and blower parts, which I replaced. The ignitor is still not working and the blower is the same as it was before.

Anoher very strange problem is moving the warm air from one room to another. I have a very old house, 1730, with 7 ft ceilings and small rooms. Even with fans in the corners of all the doors the air seems to barely circulate.
I never had had this problem with my woodstove which I could pull the heat thru the house, even upstairs

Has anyone had these problems?

I suggest that you send a PM to Mike Holten on this forum (stoveguy2esw) and explain your problems...he is the head of tech support for Englander, and is a great guy to work with.....I'm sure he can help you figure out what is wrong w/ the ignitor, and also whether or not you are getting the max heat out of the stove.

BTW, on your next post, I suggest you include the Model # of the stove you have.

 

[Skunk]

There never seemed to be all that much heat coming from the stove.
...
Anoher very strange problem is moving the warm air from one room to another. I have a very old house, 1730, with 7 ft ceilings and small rooms. Even with fans in the corners of all the doors the air seems to barely circulate.
I never had had this problem with my woodstove which I could pull the heat thru the house, even upstairs

Has anyone had these problems?

I imagine a lot of people who move from wood to pellets (in old houses) are in for the same rude awakening. Our pellet stove is frankly anemic compared to our woodstove, which is a freebie we got from a friend a million years ago. Pellets and wood aren't interchangeable heat sources. Wish we knew this beforehand.

Complicating matters are the huge differences in pellet quality. After spending almost $700 for two tons of a new brand of pellets, it turns out they don't burn nearly as hot (100 degrees less at the warmest part of the stove) as the previous brand we tried.

We might end up moving the pellet stove to overhead of our garage. New construction and a single room approximately 500sq ft - hopefully this "1,500sq. ft." stove will heat it.

The pellet stove hasn't disappointed in one area - convenience. It's still a helluva lot more convenient than cutting, hauling, splitting, stacking, and constantly feeding a woodstove.

Regarding the fans: experiment with drawing warm air away from the stove, cold air toward it, or some combination. I currently only have one fan low blowing toward the stove, and it's working. At one point, had a fan blowing away, and it was actually sucking cold air from upstairs and making the house draftier than ever..

 

[MCPO]

Well from my previous 12 yrs burning wood I know how hot even a cheap wood stove can get and the amount of heat they can output.
That said, that initial burst of high heat from a wood stove doesn`t last for long either so my vote goes for the steady and even and adjustable heat output of a good pellet stove that works properly.
Of course if you want to baby sit that wood stove and feed it more often that`s another story too.
But getting back to the OP`s complaint, if he can hardly feel heat coming from his pellet stove something is drastically wrong.
I`ve seen quite a few different pellet stoves now and the ones I`ve seen can really throw some heat. (burn lots of pellets too) No free lunch!

 

[moorehaven]

We are another that got the rude awakening that after cord wood for a primary heat souce to our pellet stove, the pellet is a "softer heat" compared the the wood burner that we often cooked on when we lost power in a storm. We've adjusted to it, and I don't miss the labor involved to keep the wood stove going as a primary heat source compared to my multifuel. Something else we've learned is to watch the in-house humidity level, when it get's too dry you'll notice it in your comfort level.

 

[MCPO]

We are another that got the rude awakening that after cord wood for a primary heat souce to our pellet stove, the pellet is a "softer heat" compared the the wood burner that we often cooked on when we lost power in a storm. We've adjusted to it, and I don't miss the labor involved to keep the wood stove going as a primary heat source compared to my multifuel. Something else we've learned is to watch the in-house humidity level, when it get's too dry you'll notice it in your comfort level.

Any stove in the winter will create less moisture but wood stoves are the worse.
Actually I can recall getting static shocks arond the house in winter when I ran only my forced hot water baseboard heat.
Years ago the good old steam radiators that expelled excess steam were nice for humidity. The drying rack near the radiators loaded with , wet socks, mittens, and clothes didn`t hurt either. All in the name of progress (?)we lost the luxury of being able to dry clothes and increase humidity when we replaced the radiators for baseboard fin tube.

 

[MCPO]

Is this a pellet stove? What is the BTU rating, compared to the woodstove it replaced? I've only "seen" pellet stoves, never worked one, on one, or used it for heat. My initial impression was it would be great for for a room or addition where a chimney wasn't really an option. But, you'll never get the heat out of one that a woodstove will put out.

I think you are misinformed.
A wood stove typically loaded 3 times daily might well put out more heat shortly after being loaded but only for a fraction of the usual 8 hr burn cycle where as a pellet stove is able to produce a high volume of heat on a continual basis (24/7) not to mention a much better control of that heat at any time .In practical use it is rarely necessary to run a pellet stove at their highest heat producing settings.

 

[krooser]

I don't know much about how many btu's my stove puts out but I CAN tell you that the 80K Lennox gas furnace I have in my basement can't hold a candle to my St Croix as far as heat output.

I got my stove simply because gas was so expensive and I was sick of trying to save money by running my t-stat at 65F. Mt stove will melt your face off at level 5....

 

[krooser]

We have had a number of "low heat" complaints about pellet stoves - especially from former wood burners, but also from owners of older houses or rooms.

Pellet stoves are generally run at relatively low heat outputs - typical is 15,000 BTU per hour, which is 1/8 the amount of heat as a furnace and about the size of three plug-in electric heaters.

As to moving heat.....is that room getting too hot? If you don't build up excess heat, there will not be much to move. If you want to produce more heat, you have to turn up the settings on the stove so it burns more pellets.

As to exactly how powerful the blower is, others can probably answer that better.

I'm not sure where you get that info from... a clean, properly running pellet stove will be rated at up to 65K btu's with about 90% efficiency, I believe.