Newbie with lots of questions

[Saving$$]

After another $500 a month propane bill, we just installed a quadrafire sante fe in our -until now unheated- sunroom - that feeds by two doorways into a two story farmhouse. Its only been running for four days and for obvious reasons the bathroom at the rear of the house is cold... and the upstairs is holding its own and the living area is doing great.

So wondering on medium- the stove blowers run contiously- during days with high temp of 30. It has a thermostat - left on a temp of 70. My son- who knows a few people with pellet stoves says its more productive to leave it at medium than to turn it down when were not there and to high when we are. How does everyone feel about that senirio? Is there any kind of magic formula for knowing which way these things run most efficiantly?

Also how often does one clean there firepot? ive read daily to every couple days. does it run smoother/better when its clean?

any other thoughts that would make this new venture more productive is appreciated!

 

[coloradan]

So, when you turn it down to low when you leave, you conserve alot of pellets. But when you come back and turn it back up to high, you eat through all those pellets that you had conserved when you were out. So, there probably isn't a big difference in you turning it down and then back up, when compared to just leaving it on medium.

What I personally do is turn it down only a few notches when I leave, so when I get back home I don't have to turn it back up to high to get warm again, I can just turn it back up a few notches to my normal setting. That way I save pellets, and don't have to be cold when I come back.

Try seeing if you can turn it down to a medium-low setting (instead of low) when you go out, and then back up to your medium setting (instead of high) when you get back, and see how that works out for you. If not, maybe just keeping it on the medium setting sounds like it may work best for you.

Good luck!

 

[Fsappo]

How often does your owners manual and the dealer you bought the stove from say you should clean out the burn put? I know that most stoves that use the old "blow air up thru a metal dish filled with holes" design need to have the pot cleaned once every day or so.

 

[hossthehermit]

[quote author="Saving$$" date="1263945128"]After another $500 a month propane bill, we just installed a quadrafire sante fe in our -until now unheated- sunroom - that feeds by two doorways into a two story farmhouse]qoute]

As one who has a “3 season sunroom”, if yours is like mine, it’s about like putting a stove outdoors and opening a couple windows to let heat into the house. Great on sunny days while the sun is beating on the windows, or spring and fall, but no place for a stove. I REALLY hope that’s not what you did, I tried it with electric baseboard and insulated window quilts, it won’t work.

Bad attempt to qoute part of post, mods please delete

 

[hossthehermit]

After another $500 a month propane bill, we just installed a quadrafire sante fe in our -until now unheated- sunroom - that feeds by two doorways into a two story farmhouse. !

As one who has a “3 season sunroom”, if yours is like mine, it’s about like putting a stove outdoors and opening a couple windows to let heat into the house. Great on sunny days while the sun is beating on the windows, or spring and fall, but no place for a stove. I REALLY hope that’s not what you did, I tried it with electric baseboard and insulated window quilts, it won’t work.

 

[Saving$$]

kind of what we did. but we stick built the sunroom- for our hot tub. so it is fully insulted just was not heated. we reallly didnt have any choice of other locations as the living and dining rooms are only 13x13 with exterior foam insulated brick walls - and no way of finding studs and with plaster that would be a mess of a problem.

per the low-med.-high we only have three settings. nothing in between

and we bought used- six months old for half the cost of new. we do have owners manual though.

have any of you tried the door way fans? with any results..

 

[hossthehermit]

I've heard some people use the doorway fans with success, best seems to be blow the cold air toward the heat, not warm toward cold.

 

[Czech]

We have a Castile, run it on high most all the time during the true season, use the stat to keep track of temps. We've been burning many years and this is just where we've wound up, not sure why other than it seems to burn cleaner on high. As mentioned above, if you use a fan, point it toward the stove, works much better. Pot gets scraped once per day, but I'm kind of nuts about cleaning, only takes a minute or so.

 

[MCPO]

How often does your owners manual and the dealer you bought the stove from say you should clean out the burn put? I know that most stoves that use the old "blow air up thru a metal dish filled with holes" design need to have the pot cleaned once every day or so.

What`s the new way ? And are all the newest stoves using a new method? If not, then why?