sinnian said:
For what it is worth, there seems to be very little heat going up the flue on my friends' Europas. I have touched them when they are blazing, and I felt nothing. When I touch the flue of my PB150 when it is blazing, I definitely can feel the heat going up.
The testimony (above) is definitely encouraging and lends credible support to "Franks" claims of more heat with less pellets especially *if* it uses the standard type PL vent. I mean any stove that significantly limits the amount of heat exiting the flue while blazing away has to be doing something better but I don`t see any connection to why a cooler vent is caused by a better combustion system , (supposedly as in the Europa.)
Sure, I can hold my hand on the exhaust vent on my P-38 but only when it`s set on #1 and #2 (lowest settings) and the stove isn`t exactly blazing but on anything higher the whole exhaust vent gets considerably hotter and not something I want to lay my hands on.
Regardless, I still think any net efficiency superiority or cooler vent pipe in one high end pellet stove compared against another high end one would be found in the design and materials of the heat exchanger and not so much to do with the combustion process . I`d really like to see a diagram of the heat exchanger system on the Europa.
The combustion process designs already used in most pellet stoves are already quite good with little wiggle room for improvement aside from ash/clinker handling . And being that hot operating flues aren`t required any major R&D should be concentrated on heat transfer efficiency instead. I find it a total shame to see what looks like archaic and blatantly simple designed heat exchangers fitted to such a rather high tech device.
Personally I think all pellet stove makers (maybe except the Europa?) ought to have designed a better heat exchanger system long ago. Far too much heat goes up the flue with all the ones I`ve seen running.
It would absolutely be a priority for me in any future pellet stove purchase.