Newbie

[Topshelf]

Well I'm a newbie to the Corn/pellet craze.
I have been running my new Timber Ridge stove on and off for a month or so and have to say I love it.
I burned firewood in a wood stove for 10 years prior to that and I do not miss it a bit. Why didnt anyone tell me about this sooner?
My brother picked up a stove last fall and kept telling me how nice it was and I just didnt believe him..... I have been officially converted.
I have 3 tons of pellets stacked and ready to fly in the garage.

Bring on the cold because I'm ready baby!

 

[smoke show]

welcome aboard

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Greetings, and a friendly reminder to always wear your hard hat while here as there be flying pellet pigs round abouts.

 

[countk]

Welcome aboard Topshelf.

I too burned wood for 23 years, until we had a chimney fire in 2008. Old house and chimney was not lined (not good). At any rate, while the fire department was still there putting out our chimney fire (fortunately no damage done), the vultures were giving me quotes to have my chimney lined. When they wanted between 2 - $3,000, I decided to look into these weird contraptions called pellet stoves. Best thing I ever did. Have had my stove for 2 years now and no more freezing my butt off and killing myself bringing in wood 2 or 3X a day.

Enjoy your stove!

 

[imacman]

Welcome TopShelf.....another converted wood burner here, and new owner of an Englander 10-cpm. Started with pellets last year in an Avalon Astoria, and no looking back.

To make it official, how about posting some pics of your stove/install? We LOVE pics! Especially ones of the stove while it's burning.

As we say here, "no pic=it really didn't happen!" LOL

 

[Topshelf]

I will work on the pics for you guys. Because I had a Lopi wood burner for so many years I already had a nice stone hearth I had built for it. The install for mine was fairly painless besides the carrying in of the new stove and the cost of the Duravent. Ouch x2! I had 6" SS Dura vent installed for the wood burner that was in Excellent condition and was just going to use that for my new pellet burner. Well after exhaustive research, lots of opinions on how to do it and cost comparisons with different install types, I just bit the bullet and inserted 3" pellet vent inside the existing 6" Duravent with a weather cap on top and one on the ceiling. I think with the two double wall pipes I could run a 10,000 degree fire and not have any issues. I ended up painting the galvanized pipe black to match my stove and it looks great. My stove came with cast iron legs but I didnt install them yet. Maybe next season after the major cleaning session.

I experimented with burning corn last weekend and was amazed on how much hotter corn was than pellets and also corn seemed to have a better burn time compared to pellets? Even the wife commented on how she thought the room was warmer with the same stove settings?

A couple of question for you Guru's.

1) Mine has a stirrer that you can turn on and off depending on if you burn corn or pellets. Does anyone leave the stirrer "On" when burning pellets only? It seeemed the stove ran cleaner and more effeciently in the stirrer "on" mode while burning pellets? I just wondered if it really mattered one way or the other?

2) Whats the best way to start a stove that will be burning corn? The manual says to use pellets to get a fire going. My problem is if I leave the stirrer in the "on" or "corn" mode it wants to put the fire out before it gets going on the corn due to the stir action.