My first post – Install photos and the Leaf Blower trick w/video

[Shawn S]

I’ve been a lurker here for about a year and got some great info from you guys & gals.

After a few years of procrastinating about getting a pellet stove, I’m glad I finally did it.

As everyone knows we had a long cold winter last year.

I normally burn 2-3 tanks of oil on a “normal” year in my small 1950 ‘s ranch home.

Last year I burned less than a quarter tank of oil and about 3 tons of pellets.


I ended up getting an Englander 25-PDVC and did the install myself.

The stove worked great last winter and I look forward to another warm house this season.

Instead of being a miser with the thermostat set at 64-65, my house is a nice warm 70-72 and I’m saving money.


Here are some photos from when I did the install and my setup.

I hope I have the HTML format correct for this forum.

And here is a link to the video of the “Leaf blower trick” that I did a few weeks ago.
I hope this works.....

http://photos.imageevent.com/shawnsef/video/IMG_5444_small.MOV

 

[bbfarm]

Welcome! Nice install. We installed ours ourselves too

 

[Shawn S]

Nice job man.
Is that a UPS behind the stove? If so how long will it run it for?

Yes, it’s an APC 550.

I tested it and the stove will run for about 10-15 minutes before it begins to lose charge.

I mainly got it for surge protection and short losses of power because I’m in a fairly rural area and the power blinks a lot.


I’ve also rigged up a relay to the stove control board that cuts the power to the upper feed auger if the power goes out.

That way the pellet feed will stop and the flame will go out before the UPS battery goes dead and the blower stops if I’m not home.

I took pictures of the setup and I’ll describe that in another post.


I have a generator (manual hookup) & transfer panel that can run my oil burner if the power is out for an extended time.


Shawn S


Here’s a picture of the relay I wired up before I installed it:

 

[Shawn S]

I am just going to have to get a leaf blower, that looks so cool.
Did it get the stove nice and clean?
Do you have the door open or closed?
I have no sound, but it didn't look like there was adaptor on the blower, did you just sit the intake on the pipe?

I cleaned the stove as best I could from the inside before I shot that video so it didn’t look much different after I did that.

The ash was mainly from the blower and the pipe to the wall thimble.

There’s no way to clean those without pulling the exhaust line off the back.

Stove door was closed and the inlet of the leaf blower was just held up to the pipe out the wall after I took the riser off.

 

[tjnamtiw]

Great install! Great idea with the relay. I did something similar with my desktop computer since we also have frequent flickers of power loss (before I went to all laptops). The sudden surge of high voltage when the power comes back on will kill electronics.
With the leaf blower trick, I hope you disconnected the vacuum switch's hose!