My elderly mothers old wood burning stove has worn out and I thought that a pellet stove may be a better fit, we could fill so she doesn’t have to move firewood . It is her primary source of heat, so it runs constant (Washington state) so reliability is important. She is very good about maintenance so that’s not a problem either. Her home is aprx 1500 sqf. So many choices even with research. Would like something she could program or remit start so she doesn’t have to get up in cold. Any help would be appreciated.
Looking for reliable pellet stove for main source of heat
- Thread starter jellyroll
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The venerable Quadrafire 1200 is simple, reliable and low maintenance. It can be connected to a digital thermostat for night time temperature setback. Will she be able to move 40# bags of pellets? If that is an issue or could be in the future it might be good to also look at a high efficiency mini-split heat pump option.
That's good. Depending on the house insulation it may need to be refilled twice a day when very cold weather strikes, but during our normal winter weather once a day should work.
We have been to a couple of shops and it has been very frustrating. Many salesman seem to hate pellets stoves in general and have scared her with fears of constant breakdowns
A pellet stove is a small wood furnace by design. It's definitely more complex than a wood stove. We had the 1200i (insert) for 5.5 seasons. It was pretty reliable. The small failure point were the snap switches which fortunately are easily accessible and cheap to replace. I think I replaced 2 during the time of ownership. Other than that I did once a week cleaning of the stove which took about 10-15 minutes. This consisted of cleaning out the fly ash and cleaning the glass. One common failure point is the electronics. Some can be poorly protected against voltage surges. Plugging the stove into a UPS or at least a high-quality surge protector can alleviate this issue.
She was good about spending the money to have her stove maintained, chimney swept, bricks replaced etc. and I’m around and slightly mechanically inclined so we are not to bad off, as long as parts are readily available for small fixes.
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