Good afternoon all. This is my first post here on Hearth.com after countless hours of researching and reading - I'm ready to join the conversations, and get some input. Let me tell you a little bit about my setup, and then what I'm contemplating. I bought a new home this fall, a 1 story double wide with a full basement under it. Basement is finished for 2/3rds of the sq footage down there. Upstairs is about 1,500sq, and maybe another 600sq feet in the basement. House is pretty tight, has been resided and insulated, all windows and doors replaced with high quality units, etc.
For heat I currently I have a high efficiency propane furnace with forced air throughout the house. I also have an old (circa maybe 1994) Winrich Dynasty pellet stove - predecessor to the Winrich Perfecta (which is also a really old model). I can't find specs anywhere on BTU, efficiency, sq ft coverage, etc. It's a fairly large stove, holds maybe 50lbs of pellets if you load it just right. It's got a long rectangular burn pot, standard style auger feed, 6 position feed/convection blower control panel, draw through combustion blower and a decently strong convection blower. It's located in the finished portion of the basement. Exhaust rises about 4 vertical feet and then exits horizontally through the outside wall. Draws combustion air from the living space. There is a large open stairway about 10' from the stove leading to the center of the house. There is a ceiling fan directly over that stairway to help pull up the heat and push it around the house.
I cleaned the stove out very good before starting up this year, removing the fire bricks and cleaning out all the exhaust passages, etc. I'm burning 4 tons of Heatr's pellets from Home Depot this season, it's a hard/softwood blend. The stove is a manual light only, but pretty easy to get going with a little starting gel under a small handful of pellets. It burns nicely, producing only a little ash and lots of heat. The damper is a manual adjustment, but it's pretty easy to get right. It'll produce a monstrous amount of heat on the high setting, enough to heat up my house from 65* to 78*F in 2hrs with 40* ambient outside temp. Then I can throttle it back to the slowest feed setting and keep it running for days at a time keeping things nice and cozy, it seems to do great. I'm cleaning ash out every 3-4 days of running, and stirring the burn pot every 4-6hrs just to keep it burning clean. I use a few fans to push air around the house, and have no trouble keeping every room comfortable so far. I'm sure as ambient temps drop I'll have to push the stove harder, but I don't think it'll struggle too much to keep us warm, this is a case where the basement install is really working nicely.
So, everything sounds good right? It sounds good to me too. However, I am a little worried about the stoves long term serviceability - these are hard to get parts for. Right now I've notice a small maybe 1/4" in in diameter hole that has formed in between the seam of the center and side fire bricks. The fire bricks are a ceramic fibrous material and are showing quite a bit of erosion in several places. These cannot be replaced, the manufacture is long gone and the parts are very limited for these. Those wear items look to be the first things to go completely out of stock. I think a little furnace cement could fix up my short term issue (anybody ever do a fix on those), but that raises a couple of long term questions:
Am I comfortable putting my primary heating trust in a 20yr old stove that has a limited supply of parts at best? It's also a stove that doesn't have a self starter, so it's trouble if I want to have my wife or one of the kids start it up when I'm away. Is this thing efficient - I bet not so much as some of the new stoves. I'd love to have thermostatic control so I can cutback at night, crank up in the morning, etc. I big hopper would be really nice once we start burning more than a bag a day.
I was thinking about making an upgrade to a refurb 55-TRPAH from amfm. Hard to beat the price and from what I read that's a fairly efficient and reliable stove that has all the features I'm looking for. I hate to replace a good working stove, but it seems like I'm probably on borrowed time until I have a minor or major issue with this old stove, and then I'm on propane till I get it fixed (if I can get parts) and it's big bucks to burn the gas. What would you guys do? Is there a decent gain in efficiency you think I'd see with a new stove? Am I getting too worried about maybes and what ifs? I'd love to hear your thoughts on my setup, and what you think some good options are.
For heat I currently I have a high efficiency propane furnace with forced air throughout the house. I also have an old (circa maybe 1994) Winrich Dynasty pellet stove - predecessor to the Winrich Perfecta (which is also a really old model). I can't find specs anywhere on BTU, efficiency, sq ft coverage, etc. It's a fairly large stove, holds maybe 50lbs of pellets if you load it just right. It's got a long rectangular burn pot, standard style auger feed, 6 position feed/convection blower control panel, draw through combustion blower and a decently strong convection blower. It's located in the finished portion of the basement. Exhaust rises about 4 vertical feet and then exits horizontally through the outside wall. Draws combustion air from the living space. There is a large open stairway about 10' from the stove leading to the center of the house. There is a ceiling fan directly over that stairway to help pull up the heat and push it around the house.
I cleaned the stove out very good before starting up this year, removing the fire bricks and cleaning out all the exhaust passages, etc. I'm burning 4 tons of Heatr's pellets from Home Depot this season, it's a hard/softwood blend. The stove is a manual light only, but pretty easy to get going with a little starting gel under a small handful of pellets. It burns nicely, producing only a little ash and lots of heat. The damper is a manual adjustment, but it's pretty easy to get right. It'll produce a monstrous amount of heat on the high setting, enough to heat up my house from 65* to 78*F in 2hrs with 40* ambient outside temp. Then I can throttle it back to the slowest feed setting and keep it running for days at a time keeping things nice and cozy, it seems to do great. I'm cleaning ash out every 3-4 days of running, and stirring the burn pot every 4-6hrs just to keep it burning clean. I use a few fans to push air around the house, and have no trouble keeping every room comfortable so far. I'm sure as ambient temps drop I'll have to push the stove harder, but I don't think it'll struggle too much to keep us warm, this is a case where the basement install is really working nicely.
So, everything sounds good right? It sounds good to me too. However, I am a little worried about the stoves long term serviceability - these are hard to get parts for. Right now I've notice a small maybe 1/4" in in diameter hole that has formed in between the seam of the center and side fire bricks. The fire bricks are a ceramic fibrous material and are showing quite a bit of erosion in several places. These cannot be replaced, the manufacture is long gone and the parts are very limited for these. Those wear items look to be the first things to go completely out of stock. I think a little furnace cement could fix up my short term issue (anybody ever do a fix on those), but that raises a couple of long term questions:
Am I comfortable putting my primary heating trust in a 20yr old stove that has a limited supply of parts at best? It's also a stove that doesn't have a self starter, so it's trouble if I want to have my wife or one of the kids start it up when I'm away. Is this thing efficient - I bet not so much as some of the new stoves. I'd love to have thermostatic control so I can cutback at night, crank up in the morning, etc. I big hopper would be really nice once we start burning more than a bag a day.
I was thinking about making an upgrade to a refurb 55-TRPAH from amfm. Hard to beat the price and from what I read that's a fairly efficient and reliable stove that has all the features I'm looking for. I hate to replace a good working stove, but it seems like I'm probably on borrowed time until I have a minor or major issue with this old stove, and then I'm on propane till I get it fixed (if I can get parts) and it's big bucks to burn the gas. What would you guys do? Is there a decent gain in efficiency you think I'd see with a new stove? Am I getting too worried about maybes and what ifs? I'd love to hear your thoughts on my setup, and what you think some good options are.
Usually require 18" off garage floor for installation to avoid fumes FYI.
