Having trouble deciding on what stove

[TJN66]

Its me again everyone =)

Well..we have decided on a pellet stove. Now we can't decide on what model would work the best for us. We want to heat our downstairs living area, which is approx 700 sq feet. We are not too concerned with the upstairs as we only use one bedroom and have a small heater for that room when it gets really cold. My whole house is approx 1100 sq feet, not including the basement. All new windows downstairs, new doors and insulation. Rooms are in a typical square pattern with open doorways to each room.

The stoves we are considering are: (Are the heating capacities accurate or are they scaled bigger for sales?)

1. Harman PS61 2000+sq ft.

2. Quadra Fire Castile (my favorite). Heats up to 1500 sq ft.

3. Quadra Mt Vernon. Heats 2400 to 3800 sq feet.

4. Country Winslow PS40 (hubby's favorite) Heats from 900 to 2000 sq ft

Our question is what stove will heat the best but not run on high all the time to heat the area that we want? Hubby is worried that if we get a smaller stove then it will run on high all the time and burn more pellets.

But I don't want a stove that is going to blast us out of the house either.

Thank you for all your help!
Tammy

 

[jtp10181]

Hubby is worried that if we get a smaller stove then it will run on high all the time and burn more pellets.

This is kind of confusing... a smaller stove has a smaller hopper and a smaller burn pot and smaller fire. The same pellets will burn for the same BTU's in any stove, the efficiency is what tells you how much of those BTU's actually make it into the house as heat, not the size of the stove or the burn rate.

A small stove running on high, might put out the same heat (and use the same amount of pellets) as a bigger stove running on medium.

The Quadrafire Mt. Vernon would blast you out of the room if you had it on level 5 (highest). Putting it on a lower setting might not be too bad. Definitely a large stove for that space. That unit is pretty unique though, new technology, fantastic wall control. It also is one of the few pellet stove you will even see mentioning its efficiency, because most pellet stoves its not worth mentioning.

The Quad Castile should work as well, it has a smaller hopper and a smaller footprint. You would probably want to run it on high most of the time (if you are in a very cold region). On that unit you have to toggle a switch on the back to change the burn setting. It is a lot more simplistic, not all fancy new technology. Less to go wrong. Although I find the Mt Vernon is MUCH easier to clean than the Castile. Quad really thought it out when making the AE, the top baffle locks in with two clips and just drops down. All the other units I have worked on have a baffle that hooks into slots and its very frustrating trying to get it back in.

I can't really comment on the others, don't know anything about them. One of the others you have picked out could be a high effeciency as well, not sure. If you have any questions about the Quad's just ask.

Where are you located? (You can put it in your profile)

 

[KeithO]

It sounds like any of those stoves will heat the area you have. My corn stove is rated at 40kbtu/hr which is considerably less than the HVAC furnace, but the difference is that the corn / pellet stoves run continuously instead of turning on and off. I heated the upper area of our house (1300sq ft) which has a bad layout for this type of heating (a long hallway). The only time we needed the furnace to balance things was in the morning to get the bathrooms warmed up prior to getting everyone up in the morning. My total utility bill averaged less than $75/month last winter and I'm in southern Michigan. If possible, fit the stove in a central position instead of against an outside wall. It does increase the cost of the pellet vent, but the heat is much more evenly distributed.

I suggest you consider several aspects that are probably more important than the specification alone:

How many lbs go in the hopper ? It is very convenient to be able to fit 2 bags in the hopper so that the stove can run for more than 24 hours if needed without attention. My St Croix requires being fed twice a day without exception. If I get home late or have to be away overnight, the fire will go out.
How is the hopper door designed ? Does it open away from you or towards you ? This can make the difference between it being easy pouring from a 50lb bag or really awkward (guess what my greenfield has ? )
How noisy are the blowers and the auger ? Make sure to test the low speed (with the stove burning) because sometimes there are resonances at the lower speeds that are very anoying.
What is the procedure for removing clinker and ash ? Do you have to shut down the stove to do it ? Do you have to remove the burnpot ? Ideally, schedule a meeting at your stove shop to see personally how this is done after an extended burn. Don't let the dealer poo poo this issue, you have to live with it daily.

 

[KeithO]

JTP: Any convection stove, when "maxed out" has the convection blower running at max speed. By virtue of the "residence time" of the room air in the heat exchanger being the shortest at this speed, the efficiency of the heat exchanger does drop off and more heat goes out the chimney than usual. Therefore it is not desireable with a convection stove to buy the smallest stove that will run flat out all the time, since the stove cannot deliver peak efficiency at this point. It is better to buy a higher BTU rated stove and run it "part throttle" which is the more efficient "sweet spot".

This behaviour is specific to convection stoves, as opposed to radiant stoves (ordinary wood stoves) where the opposite rule is generally used: do not buy too big a stove, since if you throttle it down (particularly non cats) it will burn dirty smokey and inefficient. Pellet stoves have controls to maintain the right air/fuel ratio and since a forced draft is used, they run just fine at the lower settings (maybe not at the very lowest).

 

[jtp10181]

Makes sense, never thought of it that way.

 

[TJN66]

Thanks everyone. Do any of you know if the Castile actually heats the sq footage that it states. I had some dealer telling me that they all "pad" the numbers to make it look better. He of course was trying to get me to buy a $4000 stove. Wont be doing business with him as he thinks Im a dumb woman.

Tammy

 

[KeithO]

If it is any indication, I ran my St Croix Greenfield on the 2 or 3 setting last winter (out of 5). On that setting, the air temperature in our great room averaged 76f and then dropped as one went down the hall into the bedrooms. 2 (40%) was the usual setting and 3 (60%) for the -10f and below days. We never really ran the stove higher, other than short periods after the stove had gone out because it ran out of fuel. Remember that rated capacity is on the maximum setting but because of improved efficiency at a slightly lower setting there is not really much of a drop going down from 100% to 80 or 60%. The stove operation is also quieter of course. Our house is conventional site built with 2x4 walls and fiberglass batt insulation with about 12-14" of cellulose insulation in the attic.

 

[TJN66]

Ahhh... I am thinking that I will be getting a little larger stove then. I dont want it to run full throttle all the time as this is going to be our main heat source in the winter. (we are trying not to use our forced air furnace that uses gas).

Thanks so much everyone..I truly appreciate all you have shared with me. I love coming here!

Tammy

 

[smirnov3]

JTP: Any convection stove, when "maxed out" has the convection blower running at max speed. By virtue of the "residence time" of the room air in the heat exchanger being the shortest at this speed, the efficiency of the heat exchanger does drop off and more heat goes out the chimney than usual. Therefore it is not desireable with a convection stove to buy the smallest stove that will run flat out all the time, since the stove cannot deliver peak efficiency at this point. It is better to buy a higher BTU rated stove and run it "part throttle" which is the more efficient "sweet spot".

This behaviour is specific to convection stoves, as opposed to radiant stoves (ordinary wood stoves) where the opposite rule is generally used: do not buy too big a stove, since if you throttle it down (particularly non cats) it will burn dirty smokey and inefficient. Pellet stoves have controls to maintain the right air/fuel ratio and since a forced draft is used, they run just fine at the lower settings (maybe not at the very lowest).

Sorry, I gotta disagree.

The higher the fan setting, the more heat is extracted from the stove.

yes, each unit of air absorbs less heat (and comes out less hot, compared to room temp), but there larger quantity of air transfers more heat.

that said, I run an Accentra, where I can control pellet feed rate & blower speed independantly. If your stove sets both at the same time, then when you max out the blower, you are feeding in more pellets. That will give you a bigger fire (and given the set size of heat exchanger, it is harder to suck the heat out of a big fire than a small fire)

 

[begreen]

From what I've seen and heard, a small stove generally equals more frequent fillings and often more noise with the stove always running on high. There are very few pellet stove owners that want a smaller hopper. Most want a larger one.

How can a stove manufacturer be held to account for recommended sq ftg.? There's a huge difference between trying to heat a 1600 sq ft ranch house in Bismark, ND and the same sized colonial in Atlanta, GA. The sq ftg info given by the stove maker is just a guideline. More important is a realistic assessment of the btus that the actual house will use and then matching the stove to the need.

Your NY house is small, a Castille or SanteFe should work fine. You might also want to look at an Enviro Mini.