Second stove placement

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Shoe1757

New Member
Dec 10, 2022
55
SW Pennsylvania
Hello again! I was looking for some expertise again from you all. I recently replaced my Quadrafire contour that's been out of commission for 2 years with the Pelpro pp130. I've been blown away by it's performance compared to the warn out lemon Quadrafire I bought ignorantly (lots of issues not mentioned by seller). The pp130 is installed in my unheated 3 car garage that my master bedroom is above. Rest of the house is 2 living floors and a basement, roughly 3000 square foot. The Pelpro one a 25-35 degree day is burning around 2.5 to over 3 bags in 24 hours, but it is keeping the entire house (minus basement) at 68 degrees without the furnace!!!

I am refurbishing the 2001 QuadraFire Contour and looking to use it as well. One stove is going into the basement, the other will be in the same garage spot. What I would like to know is, does anyone strongly recommend which location which stove should be in? The Contour has a 40lb hopper, pp130 is 130lb hopper. Contour has a standalone thermostat or can be ran on low, med, high. Pp130 is just a dial control low, 1-10, high.

The pp130 is mainting temp throughout the house, but is working extremely hard and using 3 fans to distribute the heat. As the outside temp drops l, the difference between garage temp and rest of the house increase (81 in garage and 68 main floor last night) I was going to put the Quadrafire in the basement, but now I am thinking the pp130 may be the better choice as it may be more effective in the basement vs the garage.

Thanks all!
 
I'm interested to know how the heat is getting to other parts of the house from the garage.

It looks like the Quadrafire contour is rated at 30k btu and the Pelpro is rated at just under 50k btu. I would place the larger stove where it is going to work hardest, then the smaller stove in the less stressful placement. Regardless of whether is is trying to heat part of the main floor, it will work hard to keep the codl at bay from the concrete floor an, foundation and overhead doors (I'm making assumptions again).

Also, Might it be more efficient to open the door between the garage and basement then place the other stove on the main floor (on the opposite end)? IDK, just a thought.
 
The garage floor is about 5 foot lower than the main floor. So with 1 fan blowing across the garage and another hanging in the ceiling blowing into the doorway of the main floor and the natural rise I'm able to transfer heat pretty well to that part of the house. The second floor gets it from the heat migrating out of the master BR above the garage, and coming up the stairs from the 1st floor. But this leaves us with a pretty cool basement, which I don't mind but my theory is that I should be able to efficiently heat the main and 2nd floor more from the basement and straight up. I am not sure though.
 
For anyone interested, I placed the Pelpro in my basement facing the stairs to the main floor. I got the Quadrafire rebuilt and placed in the garage (where the Pelpro was previously). Our current outdoor temps are around -2, wind chill of -24. The Pelpro is doing well burning about 3.5 bags in 24 hours with no assistance from the furnace. The Quadrafire is burning about 2 bags in 24 hours and struggling to keep the garage at 50.