Hi,
I had stated that I would do a post once I had some experience with my Wiseway stove.
First some background on my situation. My house is an 1950's ranch with average insulation for its age. The windows are primarily aluminum framed single pane sliding windows. The exception is the living room and kitchen where the windows are double pane aluminum non opening windows. I plan on adding insulation to the attic (blown fiberglass) next month. The house has electric baseboard heating in all rooms. We live on the Olympic Peninsula in WA state which has a moderate cool climate and great electric rates at 6.5 cents per Kwh. Last year with the baseboard we kept my office (I work from home) and living room on a low setting turning them up when we were in those rooms. So really only one baseboard unit was on at a time. My wife would also turn on the one in her craft area when in use.
In looking for a stove we wanted something to back up the electricity during an outage as well as adding to our comfort level without costing more. I know that in some areas of the country just replacing electricity with pellets is enough. Since we are conservative in our electric usage we only added 150 a month for Feb last year to our summer cost. We only have a window AC for one bedroom so the summer cost is what I am using as a baseline. At 200 a ton for pellets we need to have a bag last 1.5 days to meet that goal.
Stove installation was done by the dealer. It was the first one he installed in a house. Likewise it was the first one the inspector saw. The stove was installed with an OAK, which is actually required here in my county so I had no choice on that. The installer used 3 inch duravent pellet pipe with two 45 degree elbows in the attic to gain clearance from the rafter. The ceiling joist and rafter did not line completely up with where we positioned the stove. Total chimney height from the stove to cap is 15 feet (3 - 5 ft sections, 2 45 elbows, cap, stove adapter, ceiling box, roof flashing). The stove was installed on a modular hearth that provides ember protection and meets the clearances from the manual.
Now for the stove review.
The first thing to note about this stove is it behaves more like a wood stove than a pellet stove. It seems obvious to state that since there is no auger feeding pellets, no combustion motor, no thermostat, etc the stove behaves like a wood stove where draft is important. I follow the lighting procedure from the manual that is to use a propane torch, let it run for a minute or so with no pellets to get a draft going, then add pellets and let the torch continue until the temp hits 300 degrees on the flue thermometer at which time I remove the torch and put the burn chamber door on.
At first (I made some adjustments noted later) if I left the stove on high (air damper closed) it would reach max temperature of + 700 degrees on the flue thermometer in about 20 minutes. If I opened the air damper putting the stove on low when it was at 300 degrees the stove rose to 450 in 20 minutes. On low it would slowly climb to 600 degrees after 2 - 3 hours. The pellet usage on high or low was 11 - 14 hours a bag. I felt this was a bit high and posted on the Wiseway forum and received guidance on either using a barometric damper or ordering the low heat basket. At this time I have not done either, although I think I will order the basket.
What I did do however was to make an unrecommended adjustment to my current basket. I found some old threads on that forum that mentioned that the basket should have 5/16 gaps in it. When I measured mine one was at 3/8ths the other two were a loose 5/16ths. So I tightened my gaps up to 5/16ths and have been pleased with the results. First I noticed that on high the stove will climb to 550 in 20 minutes and only reaches 650 after a couple of hours. On low the stove stabilizes around 400 degrees. I can adjust the air so that I can maintain 450, 500, 550. This is why I stated the stove performs more like a traditional wood stove and not a pellet stove. The usage seems to be about 2 pounds per hour on low and 3.5 on high now. Since I was not planning on burning 24x7 I believe that I can meet my stretching a bag over a day and a half.
I did include a picture since I am aware of the internet adage that without pictures it did not happen.
I had stated that I would do a post once I had some experience with my Wiseway stove.
First some background on my situation. My house is an 1950's ranch with average insulation for its age. The windows are primarily aluminum framed single pane sliding windows. The exception is the living room and kitchen where the windows are double pane aluminum non opening windows. I plan on adding insulation to the attic (blown fiberglass) next month. The house has electric baseboard heating in all rooms. We live on the Olympic Peninsula in WA state which has a moderate cool climate and great electric rates at 6.5 cents per Kwh. Last year with the baseboard we kept my office (I work from home) and living room on a low setting turning them up when we were in those rooms. So really only one baseboard unit was on at a time. My wife would also turn on the one in her craft area when in use.
In looking for a stove we wanted something to back up the electricity during an outage as well as adding to our comfort level without costing more. I know that in some areas of the country just replacing electricity with pellets is enough. Since we are conservative in our electric usage we only added 150 a month for Feb last year to our summer cost. We only have a window AC for one bedroom so the summer cost is what I am using as a baseline. At 200 a ton for pellets we need to have a bag last 1.5 days to meet that goal.
Stove installation was done by the dealer. It was the first one he installed in a house. Likewise it was the first one the inspector saw. The stove was installed with an OAK, which is actually required here in my county so I had no choice on that. The installer used 3 inch duravent pellet pipe with two 45 degree elbows in the attic to gain clearance from the rafter. The ceiling joist and rafter did not line completely up with where we positioned the stove. Total chimney height from the stove to cap is 15 feet (3 - 5 ft sections, 2 45 elbows, cap, stove adapter, ceiling box, roof flashing). The stove was installed on a modular hearth that provides ember protection and meets the clearances from the manual.
Now for the stove review.
The first thing to note about this stove is it behaves more like a wood stove than a pellet stove. It seems obvious to state that since there is no auger feeding pellets, no combustion motor, no thermostat, etc the stove behaves like a wood stove where draft is important. I follow the lighting procedure from the manual that is to use a propane torch, let it run for a minute or so with no pellets to get a draft going, then add pellets and let the torch continue until the temp hits 300 degrees on the flue thermometer at which time I remove the torch and put the burn chamber door on.
At first (I made some adjustments noted later) if I left the stove on high (air damper closed) it would reach max temperature of + 700 degrees on the flue thermometer in about 20 minutes. If I opened the air damper putting the stove on low when it was at 300 degrees the stove rose to 450 in 20 minutes. On low it would slowly climb to 600 degrees after 2 - 3 hours. The pellet usage on high or low was 11 - 14 hours a bag. I felt this was a bit high and posted on the Wiseway forum and received guidance on either using a barometric damper or ordering the low heat basket. At this time I have not done either, although I think I will order the basket.
What I did do however was to make an unrecommended adjustment to my current basket. I found some old threads on that forum that mentioned that the basket should have 5/16 gaps in it. When I measured mine one was at 3/8ths the other two were a loose 5/16ths. So I tightened my gaps up to 5/16ths and have been pleased with the results. First I noticed that on high the stove will climb to 550 in 20 minutes and only reaches 650 after a couple of hours. On low the stove stabilizes around 400 degrees. I can adjust the air so that I can maintain 450, 500, 550. This is why I stated the stove performs more like a traditional wood stove and not a pellet stove. The usage seems to be about 2 pounds per hour on low and 3.5 on high now. Since I was not planning on burning 24x7 I believe that I can meet my stretching a bag over a day and a half.
I did include a picture since I am aware of the internet adage that without pictures it did not happen.
![[Hearth.com] My Wiseway non electric stove experience](/talk/data/attachments/115/115472-ca9b2763343c9ce8ceaa5061ccf7b357.jpg?hash=PDu1ptv2xk)
