I bought an XXV!

[mtnbiker727]

So I wanted to give a little update. This has been a rollercoaster ride.

We bought an old poorly insulated farmhouse. I installed our P68 in the living room to heat the "main" part of the house, but we have a 450 sq foot single story "back room" that is very cold (lots of old windows). I originally bought an electric infrared heater that looks like a stove, at the recommendation of someone here. We like that little "stove", but it doesn't have enough oomph to warm up that space. Our plan for this summer is to replace windows and doors, insulate and siding, but that's not in the cards for us right now, and it's cold!

I looked at cheap pellet stoves, including the $1,200 one that Tractor Supply has. That little ash tray would need to be dumped every day, and a 30 lb pellet hopper would be extremely frustrating.

I got a quote for a propane combi boiler and baseboards for the first floor, including the back room, thinking I could swap out my electric water heater, and take some pressure off the pellet stove. $16,400. Yeah, No thanks.

So then I started again thinking about mini split/heat pumps. Mr. Cool makes them for DIY people like myself. These systems seem to be very simple to install, but for the three zones I was hoping to heat, the $6,000 purchase price, and time it would take me still didn't look very attractive.

When we bought the house, they had a coal stove in that back room, so we thought about putting that back in. When I went to clean out the stove and found out how filthy coal is, I told my wife "I don't want that in our house...."

So then my wife suggested looking on Facebook Marketplace for another pellet stove. She immediately found a 2005 XXV about 6 miles from us for $2,200. I thought maybe that was a bit steep for a 20 year old stove, but way cheaper and more familiar than my other options. So we went to look at it. This guy recently bought the stove from a former Harman technician, who had installed a brand new auger motor and fan motors, etc. The stove is spotless clean, inside and out, because the current owner never used it. He had it running when we got there so we could see it working, and it runs nice and quiet and smooth! I figured with all new guts, it doesn't matter if the steel is 20 years old, it's practically a new stove.... so we bought it.

Today we're hauling it up to the house and going to situate it in it's new home where I'll measure everything so I can order the venting. I'll share some pictures after we get it in the house.

 

[Burnin Since 1991]

Yes, post some pics and keep us up to date.

 

[mtnbiker727]

So here are a couple pictures. This is a very nice looking stove, a lot fancier than my P68. My wife suggested we swap stove locations, since the plain looking P68 is in the living room, but we definitely need the big boy where he sits to keep the main house warm.

This stove is a lot different than the P68 in a lot of ways. One important difference is the ash pan is hidden inside in a weird place. To remove the ash pan, you have to open the (only) door and then the bottom front of the stove tips down so you can slide the ash pan out. The door gasket has to seal across the part that hinges, which has me a little uneasy, and the dollar bill test would be challenging because of the way it's all laid out. I don't know if anyone else has one of these and can provide any feedback about this? Have you had problems with getting the door to seal tight?

My venting plan is to go straight out through the wall and terminate with a square horizontal termination cap. According to the installation manual, with an outside air kit I can terminate 9" to the side and/or 9" below a window. I think it'll be pretty close to meeting or exceeding those distances.

I'm going to mix and match some pieces of my vent pipe from my other stove install while I'm buying pipe for this stove. I have a 90 and a horizontal termination cap at the top of my vertical pipe (because I had those pieces from the install at our previous house), which I think might be why my P68 is getting so dirty. I'll get one of the vertical termination caps, which should improve airflow quite a bit.

So on my list of things to buy: one Harman appliance adapter, one 3 foot length of Pellet Vent Pro, a wall thimble with 2 inch outside air, and a vertical termination cap (for the other stove). I have a leftover 6 inch length of PVP that I'll use if I need a little extra. I already have a tube of high temp silicone from the P68 install a couple months ago.

Thanks for following along.

 

[Oregun]

I got the XXV several years ago and the only problems so far was the combustion fan got noisy. Also have two MRCOOL heat pumps that I installed (3ton and 1 ton) They are about 8 yrs old and still work well. I have a leaky house so they don't work that well below 40F so at that point I switch to the XXV.
I also bought mine used for $2400 but it had only been used for 1yr or so.
Good Luck with your stove.

 

[Washed-Up]

Such a great looking stove, been hopeful of finding one to refurbish…looking forward to seeing and hearing your install results.

 

[Dataman]

Got my XXV in Spring 2018. Been using it since this Season. And only couple of burns for few hours. Put in Low Temp Heat Pump and it's been Warm for Fall/Winter. We would go thru 3 tons of pellets. I put in Inventer/Charger (AIMS 1250) along with couple 100ah Batteries for Power Outages. (Only used once for 10 hours with One Battery and borrowed generator battery - 30ah). We have 1k Inverter Genny (Sportsman - Have yet to do more than test it).

Harmon has videos on Maintenance. I would watch them!

I highly recommend some cleaning tools besides the Tool That comes with it. https://www.harborfreight.com/mini-pick-and-hook-set-63697.html

We use couple of box fans to push cold air up towards the Pellet Stove. House is 2500sq ft with 2000 up stairs, rest in basement finished room (Oil Heater if Needed).

We had Midea G3 Evox Put in last Spring. Saving about $800 I estimate not spending for pellets. Electric usage is down about 11% over last year (Warmer Weather). Our biggest electric use is Four 5k Shop Heaters. 2 in Shop and 2 In Garage and Small Shop.

If you put in Heat Pump I highly recommend Remy LED. Dust is non existent!

 

[Whitenuckler]

My venting plan is to go straight out through the wall and terminate with a square horizontal termination cap. According to the installation manual, with an outside air kit I can terminate 9" to the side and/or 9" below a window. I think it'll be pretty close to meeting or exceeding those distances.

Double check your plan:
"The clearance to a window or door that may be opened must be a minimum of 48" to the side and 48" below the window/door, and 12" above the window/door. With outside air installed, the clearances are 18" to the side and below and 9" above."
Also, you should have a vertical section outside.

https://downloads.hearthnhome.com/installmanuals/xxv.pdf

 

[mtnbiker727]

Double check your plan:
"The clearance to a window or door that may be opened must be a minimum of 48" to the side and 48" below the window/door, and 12" above the window/door. With outside air installed, the clearances are 18" to the side and below and 9" above."
Also, you should have a vertical section outside.

https://downloads.hearthnhome.com/installmanuals/xxv.pdf

These snips are from the install manual from 2004, which is the year the stove was made. I do have a newer manual, which I see has revised the distance to 18".

The newer manual still has the diagram for the horizontal only vent, but they recommend 5 vertical feet to vent smoke in case of power failure.

It'll be challenging to install a vertical pipe because of the roof overhang and roof gutter. I'm going to need to keep it pretty far from the outside wall to clear all of that.

 

[williaty]

I originally bought an electric infrared heater that looks like a stove, at the recommendation of someone here. We like that little "stove", but it doesn't have enough oomph to warm up that space.

Can you link to what you bought? We have a similar need that might work better with an electric radiant than a wood/pellet stove

 

[mtnbiker727]

Can you link to what you bought? We have a similar need that might work better with an electric radiant than a wood/pellet stove

We got this: https://www.amazon.com/Duraflame-In...182421&sprefix=duraflame+,aps,137&sr=8-1&th=1

I think it was $250 when we got it, looks like it's on sale right now. It's a nice little heater with 5 fake flame settings, and a bunch of temperature settings and a remote control. There's no wifi control for this one, which is partially why we bought it. They put a little more money into the actual product instead of fancy features. It's also Duraflame brand, instead of some random weird company I've never heard of.

 

[bogieb]

These snips are from the install manual from 2004, which is the year the stove was made. I do have a newer manual, which I see has revised the distance to 18".

The newer manual still has the diagram for the horizontal only vent, but they recommend 5 vertical feet to vent smoke in case of power failure.

It'll be challenging to install a vertical pipe because of the roof overhang and roof gutter. I'm going to need to keep it pretty far from the outside wall to clear all of that.

For a direct vent configuration, I'd just get an APC BE850G2 UPS to gracefully shut down the stove in case of power outage (assuming that a stove that old has the same capabilities as my P-series stoves). That particular UPS is simulated sine wave when on battery power (pure sine wave when mains power is flowing) and will initiate the stove shut down process while pulsing the exhaust fans long enough to make sure all smoke goes outside.

I have one of those on both my stoves and it works great. Technically, the P61a shouldn't need it as it has about a 6' rise before it goes out, but it is cheap enough insurance.

 

[Whitenuckler]

For a direct vent configuration, I'd just get an APC BE850G2 UPS to gracefully shut down the stove in case of power outage (assuming that a stove that old has the same capabilities as my P-series stoves). That particular UPS is simulated sine wave when on battery power (pure sine wave when mains power is flowing) and will initiate the stove shut down process while pulsing the exhaust fans long enough to make sure all smoke goes outside.

I have one of those on both my stoves and it works great. Technically, the P61a shouldn't need it as it has about a 6' rise before it goes out, but it is cheap enough insurance.

If you go that route to get a UPS, be aware it only works with certain control cards above a certain date/revision. There is a recent post I can find if you need the info.

 

[lefty Ef3]

So here are a couple pictures. This is a very nice looking stove, a lot fancier than my P68. My wife suggested we swap stove locations, since the plain looking P68 is in the living room, but we definitely need the big boy where he sits to keep the main house warm.

This stove is a lot different than the P68 in a lot of ways. One important difference is the ash pan is hidden inside in a weird place. To remove the ash pan, you have to open the (only) door and then the bottom front of the stove tips down so you can slide the ash pan out. The door gasket has to seal across the part that hinges, which has me a little uneasy, and the dollar bill test would be challenging because of the way it's all laid out. I don't know if anyone else has one of these and can provide any feedback about this? Have you had problems with getting the door to seal tight?

My venting plan is to go straight out through the wall and terminate with a square horizontal termination cap. According to the installation manual, with an outside air kit I can terminate 9" to the side and/or 9" below a window. I think it'll be pretty close to meeting or exceeding those distances.

I'm going to mix and match some pieces of my vent pipe from my other stove install while I'm buying pipe for this stove. I have a 90 and a horizontal termination cap at the top of my vertical pipe (because I had those pieces from the install at our previous house), which I think might be why my P68 is getting so dirty. I'll get one of the vertical termination caps, which should improve airflow quite a bit.

So on my list of things to buy: one Harman appliance adapter, one 3 foot length of Pellet Vent Pro, a wall thimble with 2 inch outside air, and a vertical termination cap (for the other stove). I have a leftover 6 inch length of PVP that I'll use if I need a little extra. I already have a tube of high temp silicone from the P68 install a couple months ago.

Thanks for following along.

beautiful stove

 

[stovelark]

Very pretty stove, she has many years of service left, essentially as long as Harman logistically supports it. I know you said it was a cold area, but for 450 sqft- that stove should handle it with ease, I'd think running at a low level most of the time. Good luck with her.

 

[mtnbiker727]

Very pretty stove, she has many years of service left, essentially as long as Harman logistically supports it. I know you said it was a cold area, but for 450 sqft- that stove should handle it with ease, I'd think running at a low level most of the time. Good luck with her.

Thanks! This stove is pointed at the doorway to the rest of the house, so it'll warm that back room and share the load of the main house with the big brother in the living room.

 

[mtnbiker727]

For a direct vent configuration, I'd just get an APC BE850G2 UPS to gracefully shut down the stove in case of power outage (assuming that a stove that old has the same capabilities as my P-series stoves). That particular UPS is simulated sine wave when on battery power (pure sine wave when mains power is flowing) and will initiate the stove shut down process while pulsing the exhaust fans long enough to make sure all smoke goes outside.

I have one of those on both my stoves and it works great. Technically, the P61a shouldn't need it as it has about a 6' rise before it goes out, but it is cheap enough insurance.

Yes, my long term plan is to get one of those for my P68. And now that I have two stoves, it would be nice to have a UPS for each of them.

 

[mtnbiker727]

Another update: I priced all the piping I would need for 5 feet of rise, as well as getting double cleanout Tees for both stoves. The double cleanout is $269 each! I added it all up and went over $1,000 in piping... so again I went back to the drawing board.

I remembered that I have my original black PVP from the "professional" install of my P68 at our first house. The "professionals" held the pipe together with screws, which punctured the inner liner and I chased smoke for months until I figured it out. Duravent technical service ended up giving me all new piping free of charge. For the XXV, most of the pipe will be outside, so I can reuse the leaky pipes outside and save myself a pile of money.

Now I'm just waiting for my appliance adapter and thimble to get here so I can get this thing set up!

 

[mtnbiker727]

All the parts came on Saturday, so my dad and I installed the stove, except for permanently attaching the pipe to the back of the stove.

First I swapped out the 90 and horizontal termination cap on my P68 with the correct vertical termination cap. Hopefully the big girl can breathe a lot better now.

Then we lined up the XXV with the wall and put the thimble up to trace around it. We used a 2 inch hole saw to get a look at what was behind the pine paneling. Finding no wires, we cut out the rest of the hole and then sent a drill bit out through the wall to the outside, and then traced and cut out the siding and outer wall. While we were test fitting the outside part of the thimble, we found a wire about 1 inch above the hole that we had made. Thankfully we hadn't nicked it with the blade... After getting everything test fit, my father-in-law made a couple trim pieces so the inner thimble would fit over the mop board at the bottom of the wall. I put the pipe together and stuffed it through the wall and my wife and I lined up the stove to make sure it all would fit.

Today we painted the trim pieces. I stuffed insulation around the outside of the wall thimble, and put silicone on the back of the stove and slid the appliance adapter on. I tried to use self tapping sheet metal screws to attach the appliance adapter, but they don't like cast iron. I had to predrill the holes, and then my impact twisted the heads right off the screws. I think I needed to predrill a bigger hole. The stubs left from the screws are currently doing a nice job of firmly holding the pipe where it needs to go, so I slopped silicone over them and we'll worry about them when I need to take it apart (which is hopefully not anytime soon).

I am impatient, so I lit the stove without waiting for the silicone to cure, just to make sure I didn't buy a lemon. I broke the thermostat wire, so the stove wouldn't light in Room Temp mode, but it happily lit in Stove Temp mode. I learned that this stove is not a P68. I set the feed rate at 4 (the default for a P68) and very quickly (and quietly) had pellets spilling out the front of the burn pot and clinking into the ash pan. I turned the feed rate down to 1, and eventually the pellets stopped flowing and the stove lit into huge lazy flames that filled the entire fire box. After a couple minutes the excess pellets burned down and the flames looked a lot more reasonable. I turned the stove to OFF and regretted my decision to start the stove when I had to leave right away for an appointment.

Since we're not living there yet, I had my mom come down and unplug it after the combustion fan quit running, just to make sure there wasn't any funny business while no one was around to see it.

So a question for the group about the thermostat wire: can anyone tell me which wire goes into which side of the thermostat plug? My P68 has one red and one black, this XXV has one white and one black. The book tells me how great a room temperature probe is, but doesn't tell me which prong to plug in which hole.

 

[Washed-Up]

As far as I know it doesn’t matter which wire goes into which side, it’s just a loop. And yeah learning a new stove might take a bit but it’ll be a fun trial and error I believe.
And Dammmmnnnnn that’s a fine looking stove

 

[bogieb]

Those are really nice looking stoves!

It doesn't matter which wire goes to which side of the plug.

Looking at the manual for the XXV, the directions for feed rate aren't any different than for the P-series stoves (feed rate #4). I would ensure there is no impediment to the airflow coming in all the way from the thimble, thru the tube and to the flapper. Make sure the flapper works correctly, and make sure that nothing got sucked in and is behind that flap. Also check the cover plate under to the ignitor area - if that is on incorrectly, it messes with things badly.

That being said, my P43 prefers less than #4 feed rate setting. I used to run it at 3, but for various reasons (not stove related), I settled on #2 as the best for my circumstances.

 

[mtnbiker727]

Those are really nice looking stoves!

It doesn't matter which wire goes to which side of the plug.

Looking at the manual for the XXV, the directions for feed rate aren't any different than for the P-series stoves (feed rate #4). I would ensure there is no impediment to the airflow coming in all the way from the thimble, thru the tube and to the flapper. Make sure the flapper works correctly, and make sure that nothing got sucked in and is behind that flap. Also check the cover plate under to the ignitor area - if that is on incorrectly, it messes with things badly.

That being said, my P43 prefers less than #4 feed rate setting. I used to run it at 3, but for various reasons (not stove related), I settled on #2 as the best for my circumstances.

Thanks. I'll check into all of that next time!

 

[Whitenuckler]

Thanks. I'll check into all of that next time!

I'm not sure which nozzle you have now, or if you have an outside vertical section. There is one picture of a nozzle installed on a vertical section, but it looks like a rain catcher. Mine is the same, but attaches to a 90 so it ends up pointing down a bit.
re the wires - if you want, you can extend the wiring to locate the tip further into the room half way down a wall. I used an old thermostat location in my basement and the wiring that went to it. Room mode will work much better, and room mode is great. Looks great. Nice work.

 

[mtnbiker727]

I'm not sure which nozzle you have now, or if you have an outside vertical section. There is one picture of a nozzle installed on a vertical section, but it looks like a rain catcher. Mine is the same, but attaches to a 90 so it ends up pointing down a bit.

That end isn't a solid piece. The vertical section of the pipe stops and then the angled piece is attached to it. If rain got in, it would run out the crack between the two pieces.

 

[Whitenuckler]

That end isn't a solid piece. The vertical section of the pipe stops and then the angled piece is attached to it. If rain got in, it would run out the crack between the two pieces.

OK - not a big deal, but it supposed to be used on horizontal applications

 

[stovelark]

Yeah, that's a horizontal jet cap, not a vertical cap. The vertical cap has a dome top, with a storm collar piece built in right above where it attaches. Stay warm.