Harman P43 Room Temp or Stove Temp?

[Simoni21]

1400 sq ft raised ranch. Stove is hooked up in insulated basement. Basement is roughly 500 sq ft. Going from the basement to main living floor is all open railing. Upstairs is an open layout, plus hallway with 3 bedrooms. When it's cold out I've been keeping the stove at "room temp" and 90 degrees and always on Auto for start-up. Thermostat on second floor (main living floor) typically reads 69-72. Not bad at all for stove in basement but I'd like to get as much heat upstairs and down towards the bedrooms a little more. I have no fans trying to push air down hallway towards bedrooms yet, just making sure I'm getting as much out of my stove as possible. I do not have an OAK installed either. My dealer never mentioned anything about it and reading on these forums it sounds like the OAK is the way to go. Any advice would be greatly appreciated Thanks in advance!
Happy Holidays!

 

[mikkeeh]

From my experience...an OAK is a big help. I had a similar setup with mine...1400sqft house and basement, open stairway. I could run room temp at about 75, and keep most of the upstairs 69-70. This year I moved the stove upstairs, and living areas stay just about where stove is set.....but obviously the basement is cold.
I did have a ceiling fan above the stairway, and that helped distribute the heat a lot. Do you also have central heat.? If the furnace is in the basement you might be able to run it at "fan" position to help distribute heat.
I installed the OAK about 2 weeks after initial install.

 

[Simoni21]

From my experience...an OAK is a big help. I had a similar setup with mine...1400sqft house and basement, open stairway. I could run room temp at about 75, and keep most of the upstairs 69-70. This year I moved the stove upstairs, and living areas stay just about where stove is set.....but obviously the basement is cold.
I did have a ceiling fan above the stairway, and that helped distribute the heat a lot. Do you also have central heat.? If the furnace is in the basement you might be able to run it at "fan" position to help distribute heat.
I installed the OAK about 2 weeks after initial install.

I kept going back and forth about putting the stove up or down and decided down so i wouldn't have to run oil heat for basement. No ceiling fan in stairway and no central heat/ac but I am installing central air this spring so next winter I'll set fan ON and circulate air a lot better. Put a big return in hallway as soon as you come upstairs, should pull some good heat. Thanks for the reply!

 

[fmsm]

Put your return as high as you can, that way you will be distributing warmer air. I have a front to back split with the back blown out for a nice addition. My stove upstairs easily keeps the house at 74 except for the downstairs level that I used to heat on an as needed basis with a Whitfield manual light stove. I sold the Whitfield and installed a second Harman P35i downstairs last month. I am using maybe an extra 1/4 to a 1/2 a bag per day total compared to prior years with the downstairs stove set at 70 degrees room temp. My entire downstairs is warm, my crawl space is in the high 50's (no fear of frozen pipes now) and my floors upstairs are warm. The downstairs stove is now the workhorse and the upstairs stove simply supplements now. At night when my setback kicks in the coldest the upstairs has gotten is 65 when it was around 12 degrees out.

 

[Ed P]

I have petty much the same setup except I'm burning a P68. My whole house is around 71 degrees. I know my stove probably burns more pellets than yours but how much are you burning in 24 hour period. I burn 2 bags in that amount of time.

 

[Simoni21]

I have petty much the same setup except I'm burning a P68. My whole house is around 71 degrees. I know my stove probably burns more pellets than yours but how much are you burning in 24 hour period. I burn 2 bags in that amount of time.

I'm burning probably a little over 1 bag per day. My dealer told me the P43 would be perfect for my setup. I'm in shorts and a tee shirt upstairs while the stove is cranking downstairs. I just wonder if a little bigger stove would heat upstairs a little more. Tstat upstairs currently 71. Can't complain too much

 

[bugize]

Yes...I would say for what you are asking the stove to do....A bigger unit would have been better for your set-up.
A friend of mine is using a p68 with your type of home and loves it.
I have a p68 heating an older,well insulated 2 story...about 2200-2300 sq ft.
I have learned that with the recent cold snap,its better to run mine in stove temp to provide a more constant heat.
The p68 is a tank...with these cold temps I been using 2 bags of crabbes in 24 hrs...the stove costs more but I am using zero oil to heat with