Quiet(er) stove

[Diypete]

I've been heating our 1,400 squate ft home with a Whitfield for 7 years. Love the heat and avoiding propane. I've attempted twice now to replace/retire my 95' model with other stoves and have returned to the Whitfield again!
Who has a stove in their livingroom and can still hear their tv? What make/model are you using. Tried a New Englander, too loud. Tried a Mt. Vernon, loud and burned twice as many pellets. Tired of buying and selling!

 

[Former Farmer]

I don't think that there are many that are that quiet.

Even with our Castile on low, we have to turn up the volume up more to be able to hear. Or, you could do like my wife likes to do and turn on the closed captioning so you can read what they are saying. She likes to watch British shows, it is kind of hard to understand what they are saying at times. It drives me up the wall with the closed captioning on.

 

[ABusWrench]

You didn't mention insert or free standing stove. Several of the newer free standing Harmans have a "whisper" mode. My Harman P61a makes some noise, but it's in the basement.

 

[Washed-Up]

Our P61A is 12ft away from the tv and doesn’t interfere with the sound…

 

[SidecarFlip]

Most of the 'noise' will be the room air distribution blower and can be mitigated to a great extend by replacing the glass wool gasket with a silicone rubber one. Our 6041 is 6 feet from the tube and no issues with the new gasket. Dampened the harmonics down at least 50%. Best 12 bucks I ever spent.

 

[tlc1976]

Most of the 'noise' will be the room air distribution blower and can be mitigated to a great extend by replacing the glass wool gasket with a silicone rubber one. Our 6041 is 6 feet from the tube and no issues with the new gasket. Dampened the harmonics down at least 50%. Best 12 bucks I ever spent.

I’ll have to try that. We sometimes have scraps of the orange silicone rubber gasket at work. I don’t mind the sound of mine, but I’d be curious since I can barely hear the exhaust blower compared to the room blower. I do have to turn up the TV a bit.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I don't have that option so I bought it online from a stove parts dealer. The red silicone rubber is heat resistant, really isolates the blower from the heat exchanger. I'm very impressed.

 

[DeadTreeBurner]

I've been heating our 1,400 squate ft home with a Whitfield for 7 years. Love the heat and avoiding propane. I've attempted twice now to replace/retire my 95' model with other stoves and have returned to the Whitfield again!
Who has a stove in their livingroom and can still hear their tv? What make/model are you using. Tried a New Englander, too loud. Tried a Mt. Vernon, loud and burned twice as many pellets. Tired of buying and selling!

Get a couple of sets of wireless headsets for the TV. Much cheaper than buying a new stove!

 

[Washed-Up]

Here’s what I’ve used a few times for a gasket and it dampens the sound a bit as well.


Silicone Sheet, 70A Durometer, Smooth Finish, No Backing, 0.125" Thickness, 12" Width, 12" Length, Red Amazon product ASIN B00LY2DTOM

 

[SidecarFlip]

I don't think that there are many that are that quiet.

Even with our Castile on low, we have to turn up the volume up more to be able to hear. Or, you could do like my wife likes to do and turn on the closed captioning so you can read what they are saying. She likes to watch British shows, it is kind of hard to understand what they are saying at times. It drives me up the wall with the closed captioning on.

I like Brit shows as well, especially SKY News.

One thing to keep in mind and that is, your HX is sheet metal weldment so bolting the distribution fan to it amplifies the harmonics the fan makes, kind of like a loud speaker and the stock glass wool does nothing to dampen the harmonics so your firebox is causing the noise, but replacing the glass wool gasket with a silicone rubber one, dampens the harmonics and quiets the stove way down, least on mine it did.

Huge noise reduction.

I also tossed the TEKS self tapping screws that secure the blower to the firebox and replaced them with Rivnuts and threaded screws that allow me to actually get the blower tight against the firebox. I've been slowly replacing all the TEKS screws with Rivnuts and threaded screws or threaded hex bolts as required.

The TEKS screws are a cheap way to assemble a stove and repeated removal and tightening will eventually strip them out. Rivnuts are forever.

 

[johneh]

Rivnuts are forever.

Until you cross thread one and it starts to slip where it's mounted

 

[SidecarFlip]

Until you cross thread one and it starts to slip where it's mounted

Have to say, never had that issue and I use coarse threaded inserts. I use Rivnuts for a lot of stuff. Anything is possible I guess.

 

[Washed-Up]

I’ve had rivnuts spin and needed to tack weld them in place, they’re not perfect

 

[SidecarFlip]

I think it depends on how much clamping force the tool you use exerts on the Rivnut and the thickness of the material you are installing it in plus the physical makeup of the nutsert. I use a pneumatic inserter and never have had an issue. Having said that I did have an issue with the nutserts Kubota used on my roof on one of my tractors, they spun and I had to actually fiberglass them in which was a PITA but the inserted material was vacuum formed plastic.

IMO, any alternative is better than the TEK self tapping screws that builders use. Every time you remove and replace a screw, the pilot hole enlarges and the screw looses some clamping power until at some point it becomes useless.

Tacking them secure is a good alternative if necessary but for me, it has not been an issue and neither has been cross threading. Not to say it won't ever but so far it has not.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I’ve had rivnuts spin and needed to tack weld them in place, they’re not perfect

I still maintain that they are better than self tapping screws. Of course builders won't go that route anyway because it's all about profit versus proper and secure assembly. Nutserts do require more install time and some degree of skill that self tapping TEK screws don't.

 

[earl764]

We actually just ordered an Absolute43 and it won out due to the quiet feature(amongst other things)

We have an insert now and sometimes the fan is just too loud. We spent quiet a bit of time with the Absolute43, and having granular control of the fan is nice.

That silicone gasket idea is interesting. I may look into that since the lead time on the new stove is a few months...

 

[SidecarFlip]

I’ve had rivnuts spin and needed to tack weld them in place, they’re not perfect

Better than a self drilling-tapping TEK screw in my opinion. Problem wit the self tappers is, after a few times in and out they get sloppy. Rivnuts, if set properly (you need a specialized tool to exert sufficient force), don't get sloppy. Don't expect good results using a pop rivet tool on Rivnuts, the don't exert enough clamping pull.

Actually set mine with an air riveter.

 

[SidecarFlip]

We actually just ordered an Absolute43 and it won out due to the quiet feature(amongst other things)

We have an insert now and sometimes the fan is just too loud. We spent quiet a bit of time with the Absolute43, and having granular control of the fan is nice.

That silicone gasket idea is interesting. I may look into that since the lead time on the new stove is a few months...

I have to ask what is granular control? Sounds like cooking class...

 

[SidecarFlip]

I've been heating our 1,400 squate ft home with a Whitfield for 7 years. Love the heat and avoiding propane. I've attempted twice now to replace/retire my 95' model with other stoves and have returned to the Whitfield again!
Who has a stove in their livingroom and can still hear their tv? What make/model are you using. Tried a New Englander, too loud. Tried a Mt. Vernon, loud and burned twice as many pellets. Tired of buying and selling!

Our American Harvest 6041 with the red silicone fan to HX gasket is as quiet as a mouse.

 

[earl764]

I have to ask what is granular control? Sounds like cooking class...

Granular being more precise. Right now my stove has just a few fan settings; think small/medium/large for fan control.

This Harman we looked at had a sliding digital scale you could slide back and forth like a volume control. For times you wanted it quiet you could put it into whisper mode(which was 10% fan) but even at 20-ish percent is was pretty quiet.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Kind of like my 6039. It has 10 different room air blower settings and automatic. I just let the brain box decide actually.

Gotten pretty lazy the last couple years. I let the stove decide everything. Less hassle that way.

One thing I did do was I enlarged the air holes in the burn pot a bit but I burn corn and corn needs quite a bit more air to combust properly compared to wood pellets.

 

[johneh]

Granular being more precise. Right now my stove has just a few fan settings; think small/medium/large for fan control.

Just like the older Envrio's
0 to blow you out of the room
Rheostat controlled!
What goes around comes around