My Mt Vernon AE Experience Thus Far

[Drew1024]

I began looking at pellet stoves about a year ago. I researched the topic to death and decided to go with the Mt. Vernon AE. (This is not an infomercial by the way although it may sound like it!) I must say I was rather skeptical because of all the issues with this stove. I bit the bullet and since I have a large house (4000 sq ft), I felt this was the way to go. A little risky, no doubt. My goals for this stove were to heat my entire 1st floor (2100 sq ft) and possibly some of the second since we have the high foyer ceiling. If you can imagine, the stove sits in the family room in the back of the house. I have an open floor plan with the kitchen about 20 ft or so from the stove with my office to the right and the family and dining room in the front of the house. On the second floor, our master sits off to the right of the two story foyer. Down the other hallway is the guest room, washer dryer room, and the 2 kids bedrooms. My current heating situation is as follows: I have a forced hot air furnace in the basement (propane) and a second forced hot air furnace (also propane) in the attic. I was spending some serious cash monthly to heat my house last winter!! Anyway, thus far, I could not be happier. I am setting my thermostat on my stove to 73. It will get the family room and kitchen to 73 in about an hour. Nice and toasty considering we had the house at 64 last year because of propane costs!! That was half the battle. I wasn't sure the stove could do that to such a big area!! Boy was I wrong. The front of the house (living, dining room) get to about 65 which is fine by us since we are never in there anyway. So as far as I'm concerned, our first floor is complete. No propane hopefully! BTW, I have a high ceiling where the stove sits and played around with my ceiling fan and felt it was best to blow the hot air DOWN on a very low setting. I decided not to blow it up because on the other side of the cathedral ceiling is roof. Remember, the family room has nothing above it but the outside roof. The second story foyer gets to about 68 degrees and our bedroom about 65. The other side of the house, however, is another story. I am thinking I will need space heaters for the kids rooms. So I guess the moral of the story is I could not be happier with the stove, the customer service, (if you need them), and the amount of heat this sucker blows out. If I had one negative it would be the amount of pellets this sucker goes through. Granted, I am heating a big area but I am going through 2.5 bags per day and that is with no nighttime usage. I want to thank you guys for all of your assistance along the way and I will continue to hopefully help other newbies as the begin their quest for their perfect stove.

 

[imacman]

Drew,

in defense of the stove a little, it's going to use a lot of pellets trying to heat 2100 sq. ft. (and that would go for any stove). I'm not surprised by the 2 1/2 bags. I hope you didn't base your purchase on the "specifications" listed by the manufacturer.....they tend to fib somewhat. And did you notice the disclaimer at the bottom of the stove description? If you're running it at med or medium high fuel feed, that works out to just about 2+ bags a day w/o night time use.

* 2,400 to 3,800 sq. ft. †
* Feed Rate: 1.7 - 7.0 lbs/hour
* Hopper Capacity: 81 lbs.
* Overall Efficiency: 81.4% - 83.6%

† Heating capacity and efficiency may differ due to climate, building construction and condition, amount and quality of insulation, location of the fireplace, type of fuel used and air movement in the home. Btu output will vary, depending on the type of fuel used.