PC 45 or Advance? Also, Installation costs?

[feather]

Hello. Thanks for your help. We're moving from cord-wood heat to pellet heat, and it's been a learning curve.

Considering what we can buy locally, we've reduced our choices to the Harman PC 45 (on sale for $2999), or a Harman Advance ($3150 for black, no frills).

We have a small house and our biggest concerns are: 1. NOISE and 2. Easy of Cleaning. We also want the option to burn all quality of pellets.

Does anyone know if the PC 45 or Advance is more quite? If all else is equal, ease of cleaning and noise, the Advance is a prettier stove. But the PC 45 is advertised as "whisper quiet", and "the easiest to clean pellet stove", while the Advance brochures say nothing about noise or ease of cleaning.

And another question... the Harmon dealer wants to charge us $425 for installation, plus another $125 for the vent pipe that simply goes through the wall and terminates outside without any vertical pipe. Is that a fair price?

again, thanks for any advice.

 

[jtakeman]

feather,

Welcome to the forums. You will like the people here very much.

I am practicle kinda person. IMO I would go with the PC-45. even if you just intend to burn pellets. These multifuel stoves are pretty much burnpot self cleaning and don't require all the fuss in the daily clean and scraping routines. You will still need to do a weekly and other Preventive maintainace. If you do a forum search for multifuel. You will see many threads of us talking about the fuels available and of coarse the stove themselves.

But if you want a stove that will burn even the worst pellet with ease. This is the right choice. Again just my opinion. I love my multifuel stove!
jay

 

[imacman]

Just a side note on the PC-45....it is specifically a corn burner. It WILL burn pellets, but a different burn pot has to be purchased to burn them.

You live in Oregon...have you given any thought to a Travis (Avalon or Lopi) stove? They will burn up to 50/50 corn & pellets too, and their made right up there in Washington State.

 

[feather]

We get pellets here cheaper than Corn, so we'll probably just burn pellets. Also, the price on the PC 45 includes both pots -- the pellet and the corn burn pots.

What about that installation and vent cost? $550 seems high to me, I'm only a 20 minute drive away from the store.

And noise? Anyone have experience with Advance stove noise?

Also, we don't have a local dealer for Lopi, but we do for Avalon. We've looked at the Avalon Newport.... hmmm... too many choices.

 

[imacman]

.....What about that installation and vent cost? $550 seems high to me, I'm only a 20 minute drive away from the store......

If you want to get a second and maybe a third opinion, here's a website that Zoobler has. Just input your zip code, and you'll get a list of installers in your area. Pick a couple and ask for an estimate.

(broken link removed to http://www.stovesdirect.com/installers.php)

 

[jtakeman]

We get pellets here cheaper than Corn, so we'll probably just burn pellets. Also, the price on the PC 45 includes both pots -- the pellet and the corn burn pots.

What about that installation and vent cost? $550 seems high to me, I'm only a 20 minute drive away from the store.

And noise? Anyone have experience with Advance stove noise?

Also, we don't have a local dealer for Lopi, but we do for Avalon. We've looked at the Avalon Newport.... hmmm... too many choices.

PC-45 with both pots sounds like a good deal. Also if the total installation is $550 thats sounds reasonable. The pipe will run into the couple of hundred alone. What if pellet's sore in prices and corn stays reasonable? Better to have options than stuck with one that will only burn pellets or at best a mix.

I also hear that the Enviro multifuel is around the same price as the Harman. Rock solid stove for the money. M55 retails from around $3000(with options it will go higher). No burnpot changes for the different fuels. Reminds me of the Harmam look too!

jay

 

[Delta-T]

the PC45 and the Advance will pretty much sound the same. They use the same distribution blower and thats usually the loadest part of the machine. The PC45 might be a tiny bit easier to clean, but the top will get hot, where as the Advance top will usually only get luke warm to the touch. The advance glass will get dirty before the PC45 glass will. Especially on the left side glass (it just does it, nothing you can really do about it). I'd say its pretty much a toss up, but you might want to see if you can get a good price on the P61A (same chassis as the PC45, but not built to do 100% corn, but can do the 50/50 blend with pellets) or even the P43 (slightly smaller than the PC45, but very close to the same max output). That install charge doesn't sound rediculous, you're not paying for travel for the most part, you're paying for knowledge.

 

[Bxpellet]

I have the Advance, and when the blower kicks to high you can here it from the next room, but it cranks out heat and the cat loves it!

 

[rona]

You got some bad info from someone when they told you you couldn't burn pellets with the corn pot. I know many customers who have the PC45 and burn pellets using the same pot with the agitator running. We are liquidating a friends corn stove business being he died of cancer the end of Oct and are selling Harman PC45s for 1850.00 plus freight. We also have corn and pellet pipe from Simpson that is used to do the install.
The manual covers how to do a stove install and it is basicly follow the directions.
Warranty- Harman covers the parts and once again follow a few simple directions and you can do things yourself. With each stove sold I am enclosing a few pages of tech advice so you will have the same pages to read as the tech. The Harman PC45 is famous for simplicity and very little to go wrong.
To me you are getting ripped off with the install price, the pipe price and the stove price.
As far as noisy fan it is fairly quiet but when it is in high mode moving air it will be noticible just like a table fan on high. If you need to move a lot of air you will hear it.
QuadraFire AE is advewrtised as whisper quiet but see what happens when you need to circulate air. It makes noise.

 

[trylon]

Hi and welcome-

I own a PC45 and paid about that for the install. Burns about anything and only needs cleaning once a week and it's easy.
Window gets dirty after a day or so but its not important to me.

I mostly burn pellets now but have lots of corn for Jan and Feb because I like to burn corn in Stove mode instead of temp mode like I do with pellets. The stove is built tough but you'll pay for it. No issues with mine so far. I had a squeak problem that I fixed myself.

I think its a bit noisy when the auger feeds but I havent seen a lot of stoves in my day. You get used to the noise after a week or so. I'm pretty sure both have ALOT of parts in common- A different main board though. P43 might be good for you as well. My 45 is prob overkill for my small house but I liked the looks and reliability. Dealer experience was OK- Just get out of the way when they install and wait til they are done- then chat with them and give them a soda. The fairly difficult install was done in about 4 hours total and they did a professional job. Best of luck- you'll be happy with either one. Someone told me Enviro Omegas are good too- Might put one in my basement one day.

 

[anka]

Id check the enviro omega or m55 for multifuel, or the p61 XXv for harman. If you want cheap buy used.. or the p43 should go for about 2300. I would take the advance over the p45 for sure, a much better looking stove with better resale if need be. Price for the pipe is good, though I would consider getting it shipped and doing your own install...IMOP. Good luck-if you look around the web the enviro omega can be shipped for around the same cost you are quoting, plus you get a third back on your taxes... read read read.

Anka

 

[jcouncil]

I'm the other half of the pair that asked this question; regarding recommendations from a few of you for the Enviro's:

We looked closely at Enviro's and really liked a lot about them. We would happily have bought one. HOWEVER their only multi-fuel is too big for the house, and the other models need premium or standard pellets only. Harman seem to be one of the few makes that handle ALL grades of pellet even on their standard pellet stoves.

Come on you other stove makers! A big pro of pellets is use of biomass waste. I'm disheartened that with the need for high grade pellets on so many makes and models. As the market grows, there will be pressure to grind up hardwood forests and increased pressure on our softwood forests to feed demand. I look forward to wide availability of low grade pellets containing bark, recycled construction waste, newspaper... whatever. The Harman with it's boasts of long cycles between cleaning and ability to burn low grade pellets efficiently, makes the downside of lower grade pellets easier to take on.

Thanks all for your useful posts - wish we could take one of those low cost PC45s off your hands Rona!

I liked the P43 too - just so happens the dealer has the PC45 on the floor right now for same or less $$ than if he ordered in the P43 for us.

A side question; do any of you we could burn walnut shells in the PC45? We have walnut orchards around here, and it would be nice to use a local biomass source like that!

 

[jtakeman]

I'm the other half of the pair that asked this question; regarding recommendations from a few of you for the Enviro's:

We looked closely at Enviro's and really liked a lot about them. We would happily have bought one. HOWEVER their only multi-fuel is too big for the house, and the other models need premium or standard pellets only.

Enviro has 2 models for the multifuel now. The Omega which is rather big. But burn's great on low, and the M55 which is a medium sized stove. Both stoves will handle any pellet, Corn and grains. There are several members who have the Omega and also there are a few that have the M55. As far as I know, Both these stoves ROCK!(that word is from Rod-hearthtools!).

If you need to see what my stove looked like after a full weeks run(never opening the door to scrape or anything!) with moderate pellets. Let me know. I will post a few pict's for you.

As far as I know it is still better to have a stove that is slightly large than needed. You stove will almost never need to see the max setting. And will always have the extra heat needed for the really cold days too! Better to be a bit big than too small and not having enough heat to keep warm.

Just my 2
jay

 

[jcouncil]

yes we looked at the m55 - nice stove. We have 800sq ft (not the best insulated) cabin, split level, open plan.

The Harman is rated for 1400 sq ft, and the M55 at 2500 Sqft (same as the Omega) - so seemed TOO overspec'd (...though I still don't quite get what the sq ft ratings really mean, whether they are truly comparable between brands, or how they relate to the btu rating... btu on the Harman PC45 is 48-50k, on the M55 it's 55k and Omega is 60k - even though the 2 enviro stoves heat the same sq ft. mmm.)

So it seemed like the M55 was the wrong scale of stove for us. Would you still recommend it?

 

[jtakeman]

yes we looked at the m55 - nice stove. We have 800sq ft (not the best insulated) cabin, split level, open plan.

The Harman is rated for 1400 sq ft, and the M55 at 2500 Sqft (same as the Omega) - so seemed TOO overspec'd (...though I still don't quite get what the sq ft ratings really mean, whether they are truly comparable between brands, or how they relate to the btu rating... btu on the Harman PC45 is 48-50k, on the M55 it's 55k and Omega is 60k - even though the 2 enviro stoves heat the same sq ft. mmm.)

So it seemed like the M55 was the wrong scale of stove for us. Would you still recommend it?

Yes. Thats only 5K over the PC-45. No burnpot changes and an awesome control panel that's very simple to use and adjust. The M55 and the Omega will purr along on low for days on end. So they run very well in the smaller homes as well. Trust me its a great stove, So is its big sister the Omega. No I don't work for Enviro. But these stoves do very well.

If you need anything else. I would be glad to help.

Edit: I forgot about the heat exchangers. They are very efficient at transferring heat into the room. Not out the vent pipe.

 

[littlesmokey]

Welcome to you and the other half to the hearth. You are both welcome as long as you separate your ID's. Wouldn't want some of the slope heads here laying a compliment the wrong party.

Don't let the grade of pellet the specs say can be burned. You are in the heart of pellet production in the US. The difference between premium and standard in price is almost insugnificant if you consider the actual heat you will get and the reduced maintanence using better pellets. Because of the square footage you need to consider size of the stove first. Don't over do the capacity, it is more apparent in smaller square footage homes. I heat with one stove about 700 square feet and rarely get off a low setting even when it's single digits outside, can't imagine running it on high

 

[jcouncil]

Thanks all, turns out our dealer just got an enviro m55 in stock, so we will go in and compare it to the PC45, and the regular pellet Harman Advance tomorrow. But WOW the Enviro is spendy. $3600. vs $3000 for the PC45 incl a ton of pellets special offer.

Like I said we liked the Enviros esp their emphasis on low noise. But the sq ft rating put me off.

But jtakeman's got me wondering about the sq ft rating, and if I've not been understanding the square foot and BTU specs. SO I've just posted this as a new question at https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/47954/ if anyone would like to pick up the thread there.

Thanks again

 

[jtakeman]

jenjen,

In this economy I would tell the Enviro dealer there is a PC-45 down the road for the 3K price tag. Tell him that you perfer the M55 but can't swing the extra case. See if he will haggle a little.

$3600 is steep to me. I live in Pricey CT. and I can get it for around $3200 give or take. No option's though. Basic stove cost. All those fancy things will add up quickly.

I posted in the other thread as well.

jay

 

[jcouncil]

unfortunately for haggling, its the same dealer for both brands ! ... and I think they want to shift the 45 - it's already on sale. But we'll talk price when we go in tomorrow.

 

[jtakeman]

Well that stinks. But it sure sounds like they need to push the PC-45. See if you can get them to hook one or both of them up so you can see and hear them run. I bought my stove without seeing it or hearing it run(internet sale no dealer had one in my area). I was nervous as heck. But relieved when it was running, But mostly because it was keeping us warm.

I wish you luck and hope you get a good deal.
jay

 

[krooser]

Don't believe all the hype from Harman about burning "any" pellet... there are plenty of of folks here that will tell you buying a quality pellet is the answer... a crappy pellet is a crappy pellet no matter what name is on the stove.

BTW... the pellets produced in your area are usually top notch softwoods made from recycled products... they aren't out there chiping trees for raw materials for pellets...

 

[jtakeman]

Krooser,

Those Rocky Mountains are using some percentage of chips to make there pellets. With the pole pine beetle problem you may see more of that too. Its cheap fiber for the mills to use an maybe cost effective for them to use even more. As long as they grind it small enough it should be OK. But chunks don't compress as well as dust.

With our area's lack of fiber, We have seen some iffy batches due to the same chip instead of dust made pellets.

Just FYI