Hello everyone, I did not see a lot of information on this stove so I thought I would do a review for anyone else who might be considering it. First I want to thank all the good people here with all their great contributions and knowledge. I have never owned a wood stove before but with all of the information here it made easy and enjoyable.
First my house set up and need. I have a 1200 sq ft bungalow with full finished basement built in 1977, on 2 acres. We have an electric furnace and some baseboards for heat. Our family room in the basement is hard to keep warm in the winter so a wood stove made sense for heat and a back up in case the power ever goes out. Our only option was to put it in the corner with 2 90 degree elbows and an outside chimney. I was worried about the stack effect and smoke in the house and whether the stove would overwhelm the basement room and cook us out.
We chose the P.E. neo 2.5, and these are some of the things that drew us to this stove. I love the modern look, the firebox sits up high with a big glass window so we have a great view of the fire. Also makes for easy loading and cleaning. It has storage for logs underneath, and it has a trivet that can be removed for cooking if needed. It can be placed as close as 3 in. to corner combustibles with the double stove pipe. Most important was the reputation of P.E. stoves and the quality of the build.
So we purchased and had installed this fall and I have been running it evenings and weekends since then. I do cold starts every day. I build the log cabin top-down fire, open the window beside the stove and run a hairdryer over the baffle for a few minutes top to preheat the flue. I have never had a problem with smoke in the house using this method. The first fire is to heat the flue up to 600 degrees and bring the stovetop to 700 degrees. The next load starts to heat the room. Its generally 60 degrees down there and I can bring it up to 75 in about 2 hours. We have an open staircase from the family room up to the living room. So as things warm up the heat rises up to the living room and colder air circulates down back to the stove . Because of this the basement never gets too hot. We had a really cold spell of -40 c for a week so I ran the stove pretty hot and it kicked out the heat really well. I don't have the highest btu wood but I would load it up with 4 big splits of birch and get those secondary's going like little rockets. As far as burn times go I can get 3 1/2 hours of fire with another 2 1/2 of hot coals before the stove temp drops. If you had oak you could probably get longer times. Because the firebox is 14 in deep by 19 wide you cant load north south with regular splits. The air control works very well with a wide range of movement but it's mostly full open 1/2 way or shut down for me.
So my thoughts are its a very well-made stove. Its a serious heater that can run very hot but can run well at 1/2 loads . Because of the firebox I would say it's not practical for overnight burn . I love the big glass and view of the fire but it does get dirty on the left hand corner as other people have mentioned. Overall I have been extremely happy with my purchase and the warmth it has brought to the house. Last thing is I'm amazed by how much heat can be extracted from 3 logs , but I warn you it can be addictive to have that nice fire always going.
Hope this helps anyone considering this stove. Cheers.
First my house set up and need. I have a 1200 sq ft bungalow with full finished basement built in 1977, on 2 acres. We have an electric furnace and some baseboards for heat. Our family room in the basement is hard to keep warm in the winter so a wood stove made sense for heat and a back up in case the power ever goes out. Our only option was to put it in the corner with 2 90 degree elbows and an outside chimney. I was worried about the stack effect and smoke in the house and whether the stove would overwhelm the basement room and cook us out.
We chose the P.E. neo 2.5, and these are some of the things that drew us to this stove. I love the modern look, the firebox sits up high with a big glass window so we have a great view of the fire. Also makes for easy loading and cleaning. It has storage for logs underneath, and it has a trivet that can be removed for cooking if needed. It can be placed as close as 3 in. to corner combustibles with the double stove pipe. Most important was the reputation of P.E. stoves and the quality of the build.
So we purchased and had installed this fall and I have been running it evenings and weekends since then. I do cold starts every day. I build the log cabin top-down fire, open the window beside the stove and run a hairdryer over the baffle for a few minutes top to preheat the flue. I have never had a problem with smoke in the house using this method. The first fire is to heat the flue up to 600 degrees and bring the stovetop to 700 degrees. The next load starts to heat the room. Its generally 60 degrees down there and I can bring it up to 75 in about 2 hours. We have an open staircase from the family room up to the living room. So as things warm up the heat rises up to the living room and colder air circulates down back to the stove . Because of this the basement never gets too hot. We had a really cold spell of -40 c for a week so I ran the stove pretty hot and it kicked out the heat really well. I don't have the highest btu wood but I would load it up with 4 big splits of birch and get those secondary's going like little rockets. As far as burn times go I can get 3 1/2 hours of fire with another 2 1/2 of hot coals before the stove temp drops. If you had oak you could probably get longer times. Because the firebox is 14 in deep by 19 wide you cant load north south with regular splits. The air control works very well with a wide range of movement but it's mostly full open 1/2 way or shut down for me.
So my thoughts are its a very well-made stove. Its a serious heater that can run very hot but can run well at 1/2 loads . Because of the firebox I would say it's not practical for overnight burn . I love the big glass and view of the fire but it does get dirty on the left hand corner as other people have mentioned. Overall I have been extremely happy with my purchase and the warmth it has brought to the house. Last thing is I'm amazed by how much heat can be extracted from 3 logs , but I warn you it can be addictive to have that nice fire always going.
Hope this helps anyone considering this stove. Cheers.
