St. Croix SCF 050

[mithesaint]

I'm thinking about buying a St. Croix SCF 050 to help supplement the 10 CPM. It will be connected to it's own ductwork, just a few runs supplying the first floor and the basement of the house. Thoughts on the unit? Problem areas? I can get a pretty decent deal on a brand new unit. Ideally I'd get a bigger furnace, but I'm getting a great price on this one.

Thoughts?

 

[rona]

Remember they are only 50,000 BTU and if you have a lot of duct work you may run out of heat. A small home will be ok but a larger area or a long run of duct work will be to much.

 

[skibumm100]

I almost bought one last fall. They had new closeouts for $1800. Do your homework, read the reviews. If you do buy one, don't overpay.

 

[Arti]

I'm heating 1200 sq ft with one. When we hit -40 wind chill last winter it wouldn't keep up, we ended up putting in a pellet stove in the living room to keep up. It will heat fairly well down to about 0 F.
I suspect the heat output is 35,000/40,000 btu's. Burning corn helps with the heat output however to burn corn you need to put an extension on the top of the firepot so changing fuel type involves more than just dumping it in the hopper. During the cold days I burned a 50/50 mix of corn and pellets and it seemed to work fairly well if the pot had the corn plate on it or not.

I don't really care for the drop the clinker idea, you need to remove the front door panel, push/pull the firepot rods at least 2 times a day at least or the burn becomes inefficient. Also the bottom of the firepot is part of the clinker removal routine that easily becomes plugged up with clinkers. Ash drawer is undersized and if you don't dump it often then the clinker drop routine won't work. Also it has a baffle plate at the top of the firebox that requires a Cold stove to remove and clean,, sort of a fiddle around thing to remove and put back into place.

The good.
Seems to be a well constructed stove with good quality materials, very easy to pull the blowers with nice large access panels to get at things, will burn a variety of fuel, hopper holds a lot of pellets.

Would I buy one again? Not sure, I picked this up used at a great price and it does heat the house fairly well most of the time, I really don't like the constant fiddling with the drop the clinker idea and the rather small ash pan. Perhaps that is just me.

 

[mithesaint]

Thanks for the feedback. I can get a brand new unit for less than half of normal retail price from a dealer that's moving away from stocking pellet appliances. He'll still help with parts.

Arti, did you see the same clinker issues with burning straight pellets? I don't have any desire to burn corn, although I'm gonna set up the venting so I can if needed.

I know this won't heat my whole house, but I need something to heat the basement, and it would be nice to cut the usage of the 10 CPM. I'm probably going to set up 3 or 4 ducts and hope to get decent heat distribution. I'm keeping the CPM, but I'd prefer not to run it while I'm home. I have some hearing loss, and the mild "hum" in the background makes it almost impossible to hear the TV for me. I know I'll need to run both during the colder weather, but then again the CPM worked pretty hard this winter.

 

[Arti]

Doesn't matter what I burn in it , Clinker in the firepot needs attention at least 2 times a day. I'm thinking about drilling holes in the front door and Extending the rods to the fire rake and firepot bottom so I don't have to remove the door every day.

 

[lsirois]

I bought a used one last Fall. Hooked it up to its own ductwork with 3 vents in the basement and 3 on the first floor. House (colonial) is just over 3000sqft and I have a Hampton HI300 wood stove on the first floor. My goal was to supplement the wood stove, burn less firewood, even out the temps in the house. I burned 3.5 tons of pellets and was pretty impressed. My whole house LP furnace never came on. Basement was warmer. I have a few cords of wood left and I usually don't have any. It was easy to maintain and kept going all Winter. It was not my first choice. I wanted an Endurance, but I couldn't resist the price on the SCF 050. No clinkers jamming the pot in my case by the way.

 

[mithesaint]

I bought a used one last Fall. Hooked it up to its own ductwork with 3 vents in the basement and 3 on the first floor. House (colonial) is just over 3000sqft and I have a Hampton HI300 wood stove on the first floor. My goal was to supplement the wood stove, burn less firewood, even out the temps in the house. I burned 3.5 tons of pellets and was pretty impressed. My whole house LP furnace never came on. Basement was warmer. I have a few cords of wood left and I usually don't have any. It was easy to maintain and kept going all Winter. It was not my first choice. I wanted an Endurance, but I couldn't resist the price on the SCF 050. No clinkers jamming the pot in my case by the way.

thanks for the feedback. Like you, I'd rather have a Fahrenheit, but the price on the SCF is too good to pass up. If it doesn't work out, I can probably sell it for close to what I will have in it, so I'm gonna give it a shot.

 

[lsirois]

A St-Croix Revolution would have been nice too, but again...couldn't find one.

 

[Arti]

I bought a used one last Fall. Hooked it up to its own ductwork with 3 vents in the basement and 3 on the first floor. House (colonial) is just over 3000sqft and I have a Hampton HI300 wood stove on the first floor. My goal was to supplement the wood stove, burn less firewood, even out the temps in the house. I burned 3.5 tons of pellets and was pretty impressed. My whole house LP furnace never came on. Basement was warmer. I have a few cords of wood left and I usually don't have any. It was easy to maintain and kept going all Winter. It was not my first choice. I wanted an Endurance, but I couldn't resist the price on the SCF 050. No clinkers jamming the pot in my case by the way.

Could you tell me what you are burning in the St Croix ? I have been mixing 50-50 Corn and Indek pellets which is a Hardwood blend.

The firepot doesn't run over however it gets to about 3/4 th full and the heat output goes down if I don't drop the clinker twice daily. Other than that it does a good job of heating.

In comparison my parlor stove is a Magnum Countryside and would run for a couple of weeks without any attention to the fire pot as it has a rotating stir feature.
Thx.

 

[mithesaint]

A St-Croix Revolution would have been nice too, but again...couldn't find one.

I originally started out trying to buy a new Revolution...turns out St. Croix isn't making them anymore.

 

[lsirois]

I burn 100% pellets. Corn is not very easy to find in this area. Bought Fireside and Maine Wood Pellets (I think) from HD. They burned fine. I could go 24h between emptying the burn pot unless I burned on level 4 or 5...then it was every 12h. I also tried Energex and Curran pellets. Energex seemed to produce more ash. Curran was ok. The SCF 050 seems to burn pretty much anything with little fuss. Just need to empty the burn pot every now and then.

 

[Arti]

I burn 100% pellets. Corn is not very easy to find in this area. Bought Fireside and Maine Wood Pellets (I think) from HD. They burned fine. I could go 24h between emptying the burn pot unless I burned on level 4 or 5...then it was every 12h. I also tried Energex and Curran pellets. Energex seemed to produce more ash. Curran was ok. The SCF 050 seems to burn pretty much anything with little fuss. Just need to empty the burn pot every now and then.

Thanks for getting back to me. I always wondered if if the draft was set correctly, sounds like we have similar results so it's all good.

I put 2 large runs one on each end of the house and a small one into the center of the home, also a central cold air return in the center of the house, heat distribution is very good. When first installed it was hooked to the duct work of the main furnace however it never was something that seemed to work quite right.

 

[mithesaint]

Thanks for getting back to me. I always wondered if if the draft was set correctly, sounds like we have similar results so it's all good.

I put 2 large runs one on each end of the house and a small one into the center of the home, also a central cold air return in the center of the house, heat distribution is very good. When first installed it was hooked to the duct work of the main furnace however it never was something that seemed to work quite right.

What size duct did you use? I was thinking of using a 10" tee that reduces to 8" on each side, and running off of that. Is there anywhere that shows how to do the actual calculations?

 

[Arti]

I built a 12 inch square plenum from sheet metal, then took 2 8 inch flex pipes off and a 6 in. I added the 6 in because I wanted more heat in the bathroom and flex duct doesn't flow as well as metal .Also I used 4 X 12 boots and grills.

I also installed a Space Guard Filter to replace the little on on the back of the furnace. Mounted the filter on the ceiling to keep it out of the way.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/equivalent-diameter-d_443.html this web page will give you some general idea of sizes and flow.

 

[mithesaint]

Looks good, thanks for the pics and the link.