Looking for advice....

[Ekk232]

Good Evening All,
I am looking for a good quality pellet stove insert to heat my 1900 sq foot home. The dealers in my area offer Enviro, Heatilator EcoChoice, Quadra-Fire, Harman P35, and Accentra.
Any advice? Recommendations?

Thanks!

-Ethan

 

[johneh]

We will need more information about your house
Is it new or and older unsealed home in other words how tight is it
Is your place open concept or a lot of rooms 2story or ?
What do you heat with now and how much fuel do you use
But the most important part is that a pellet stove is designed
for space heating not a whole house . That being said some people
on the forum have good luck heating there whole house while others don't
If you are going for a stove Enviro or Harman would be my choice
Welcome to the forum
Let The Fun Begin

 

[MaineiacMoose]

Welcome to the fouroum!
Like Johneh said more information is needed to give a good suggestion. I have a 1990 built house that is ok insulated and fairly tight and I manage to heat a 1900sf 2 story house with a Harman P43. But please keep in mind that I do use a fan to move the heat to the bedrooms. I have had good luck with my Harman but again this is only my second year with it.

Enjoy!

 

[PelletPirate]

+1 on the Enviro or Harman recommendation.

 

[wildbill]

I have a Harman 52i insert and love it. when I was comparing stoves the Harman was a clear winner in my opinion , I probably could have got away with the smaller one but the opening was big enough for the 52, glad I didn't, you can turn a bigger stove down but cant get more out of a smaller one, plus the harman dealer was closer and has a larger store and parts inventory than the other ones..let us know what you get !

 

[Ekk232]

Thanks for the feedback everyone! So, the house is a colonial, 1900 sq feet, not a very open floor plan. The stove would be in the living room on the main level and the bedrooms are upstairs. Currently, we heat with oil and last year I spent > $2800 and only kept the house at 64 degrees.
I went to my local stove dealer and I really liked the Quadra-Fire Classic Bay 1200. Thoughts?

 

[Cory S]

Currently, we heat with oil and last year I spent > $2800 and only kept the house at 64 degrees.

This season, heating your home with oil will probably cost almost 1/2 of what you paid last season. Take that into consideration also.

 

[bcarton]

All of the vendors you mentioned in your initial post make good products, and there are many satisfied owners of those stoves. Cosmetics, ease-of-use, parts availability etc. are all variable between brands and models. There are plenty of people who love their Classic Bay 1200s. If you can afford it, and you want fire, then go for it. But as Cory pointed out, you probably won't be doing it to save a lot of money this year.

 

[St_Earl]

if and when you buy a stove, i'd say go big.
our heatilator PS50 heats our 925 SQ. feet just fine.
but i wouldn't want to try heating twice that when it gets seriously below zero.

i do expect helga to be even more robust this year as i have gone with an upgraded combustion motor, and have shifted from the feed gate all the way closed to running all the way open now.
i expect to adjust by just running on medium at times i may have run on high before. then i'll have headroom on high for if it gets brutally cold.

but i still advise getting the most stove you can for a two story house twice the footage of mine.

the classic bay and the heatilator have the same basic control system. low, medium , high and a feed gate. and of course, the quad has real heat exchange tubes whereas the heatilator uses a flat plate method.
the harmans have more sophisticated controls that you should probably investigate to see how they could benefit you.

there is also the two stove option. in which case a less expensive stove on each story could be a great success.
lots of people heat multi level homes perfectly well with a single stove.
but others have to work at moving the heat around to get (or try and get) the second story as warm as they want it.

 

[P51mustang]

I own two pellet stoves and both are stand alone units and not inserts. I had a Lopi for years and three years ago replaced it with a Harman P61A.....I would add to what others have already stated, buy big and simply turn it down should you need to.

As far as inserts, I would buy the most dependable that is also the easiest to service and clean. Seems to me they're far more of a pain to do both due to the shear nature of tehm being an insert. That said, I'm partial to Harman due to owning one and that they're American made. They are a bit pricey, but I think worth every penny.

Whatever you do, take your time and do plenty of research as well as visit dealers and see and hear stoves actually running. Since you already heat with oil and thus will save money this winter anyway, don't rush into buying something you'll regret. Good luck.

 

[wildbill]

Like p51 said go with the one that's the easiest to slide out for maintenance, that was one of the main reasons I went with the harman, that and with the reputation and availability of parts close by if needed in the dead of winter. where your looking to heat a large area go big and the one that fits your opining and looks the best to you and your décor. I too run two stoves one is the insert and one free stander in the finished basement, the free stander deff throws more heat and has twice the surface area for radiated heating , the insert isn't a slouch by any means with 50,000 btu's it throws a lot of heat . I guess if I was looking for one stove to do two floors a free stander would have been a better option, but depending on where the stairs where or whether the look of a free stander sitting on a hearth with the pipe going in to a fire box looks. With the layout of my house that wouldn't have looked so good so I opted for the insert and replaced an old wood stove in the basement. guess what I'm getting at is if a free stander will work for your lay out it might be a better way to go output wise

 

[Aquion]

I've had my Enviro M-55 FPI for a few years now and am very happy with it. I'm heating about the same square footage as you. I rarely have to push the stove past level 3 (out of 5). The stove is in the living room on one end of the house. The bedrooms are on the other end.