Thought that would get your attention!
Backgrounder: as many of you know I work for SBI and we make all sorts of biomass burning appliances. We’ve made pellet appliances for over 5 years. Our initial attempts were, shall we say mixed. Although our initial product was not horrible it was also not world class. So we went back to the drawing board and came out with a pellet furnace (Alterna), bottom feeds, touchscreen input etc... and built it like a tank to make sure users would have low maintenance and service calls. We did the same with Enerzone Euromax (70K BTU) and Drolet ECO-65 (65K BTU).
While this worked fine and despite our best efforts, there was still the few ‘first year kinks’ to work out. This is not acceptable. These units are now rock solid but we want to avoid first year issues.
SO... our engineers begged we do a pre-production run for one year and give units to dealers to install in ‘real world’ home heating situations. This year we will not sell these units but merely field test them.
My Background: Not a huge pellet fan. The reason for this is I take service calls and do tech support and I know that many times a pellet stove is sold to the wrong person. i.e. someone who had no idea what they were getting into, no commitment to cleaning and maintenance, installed themselves with improper venting etc. The list goes on.
My ideal pellet stove is one that is forgiving on the type of fuel used, easy to clean & maintain (no bleeding knuckles syndrome), huge ashpan, quiet, basically a unit I would not be afraid to give to my worst customer.
Based on this fact they said I had to try one. I should receive the unit in a couple of weeks. I’ll post all the specs and pics then. But just so you know it’s a 50K BTU bottom feed unit. I have no intention to keep it but will return it in the spring.
Where you come in: I want to be the worst pellet customer! You tell me what I need to do to reach this lofty status. Suggest anything fuel, maintenance schedule etc. - within reason since I don’t want to kill my family. I will NOT use improper venting for the reason above (safety first).
Will be posting my install pics shortly...
Backgrounder: as many of you know I work for SBI and we make all sorts of biomass burning appliances. We’ve made pellet appliances for over 5 years. Our initial attempts were, shall we say mixed. Although our initial product was not horrible it was also not world class. So we went back to the drawing board and came out with a pellet furnace (Alterna), bottom feeds, touchscreen input etc... and built it like a tank to make sure users would have low maintenance and service calls. We did the same with Enerzone Euromax (70K BTU) and Drolet ECO-65 (65K BTU).
While this worked fine and despite our best efforts, there was still the few ‘first year kinks’ to work out. This is not acceptable. These units are now rock solid but we want to avoid first year issues.
SO... our engineers begged we do a pre-production run for one year and give units to dealers to install in ‘real world’ home heating situations. This year we will not sell these units but merely field test them.
My Background: Not a huge pellet fan. The reason for this is I take service calls and do tech support and I know that many times a pellet stove is sold to the wrong person. i.e. someone who had no idea what they were getting into, no commitment to cleaning and maintenance, installed themselves with improper venting etc. The list goes on.
My ideal pellet stove is one that is forgiving on the type of fuel used, easy to clean & maintain (no bleeding knuckles syndrome), huge ashpan, quiet, basically a unit I would not be afraid to give to my worst customer.
Based on this fact they said I had to try one. I should receive the unit in a couple of weeks. I’ll post all the specs and pics then. But just so you know it’s a 50K BTU bottom feed unit. I have no intention to keep it but will return it in the spring.
Where you come in: I want to be the worst pellet customer! You tell me what I need to do to reach this lofty status. Suggest anything fuel, maintenance schedule etc. - within reason since I don’t want to kill my family. I will NOT use improper venting for the reason above (safety first).
Will be posting my install pics shortly...
! 
