TSC PP 90 review

[5akman]

I wanted to give a 2 month review on our recently purchased PelletPro 90 that we bought from TSC.

We live in a 2300 sq ft single story ranch style home in northern CA. We see a dozen or so nights each winter where the temps drop below freezing but for the most part, our winters are pretty mild with typical lows in the mid to upper 30's/low 40's. When I built our house 16yrs ago, we purchased a new Woodstock Soapstone Palladian woodstove which was AWESOME! That stove would roast us out of our house but getting older, I didn't want to deal with the cutting/splitting/stacking/hauling of firewood anymore so we bought a used Quadrafire Castille pellet stove. We really liked the looks of this stove but found that it just didn't put out the btu's needed to keep the house at a comfortable temp.

I had looked at the various, inexpensive pellet stoves and we liked the looks and btu output of the PP90 that we saw online at TSC. We ordered the stove, TSC had the wrong one delivered and we had a bit of a delay getting the correct one. TSC did refund us 150.00 for our troubles however. The stove is installed on a 8" hearth in our living room and I then ran 4" double wall pipe vertically about 10' to the ceiling thimble. This stove holds two bags of pellets and I have to add one bag about every 24hrs. We set the temp on the control panel at 62 when we're away from home and 67 when we're home. It provides a nice, comfortable heat that makes it clear back to our back bedrooms which is quite a distance away from the stove itself. Our electric bill for the months of Dec and Jan were around 300.00 with the quadrafire running on high speed (two bags every 24 hrs) to get the btu's we needed to keep the house comfortable. In February and March thus far, our bills have been under 100.00 and these last two months have been colder than Dec/Jan.

So, I'd encourage anyone shopping for a pellet stove to do two things. #1, don't buy a small btu stove and expect it to keep up as it will only cost you money in inefficiency and #2, check out the PP stoves! I know there are some "dings" mentioned in other reviews for this brand of stove but we've had two months of great use! Also, we've had the thing turned on 24/7 for two months now and have only cleaned it 4 times. I know this isn't a great testimonial on my upkeep and maintenance of the unit but I'm amazed that it runs so well with so little attention needed. And finally, we use Golden Fire pellets that run us about 6.00/bag.

 

[khpony]

Thanks for the review. We recently removed our no name wood stove and purchased a TSC PelPro PP130 and are currently installing it. I'm currently waiting on 2 45degree elbows to complete it. Needed these so the stove would set on our existing corner hearth correctly rather than on the edge. I burned in the new stove in the driveway rather than smoke up the house. We purchased this after 3 months of research based on price and great recommendations from 2 local owners that have dad theirs for 3-4 years. We're going to only be heating about 1100 square foot so we believe this will fill the bill. The local users also recommended the TSC pellets ( Lignetics Green Supreme Premium Douglas Fir Wood Pellets) that are offered here. We're in the northern mountains of New Mexico. Local manager quote $265 a ton out the door so the neighbor and I are waiting for the next load to come in. I will say that when burning in the stove it certainly put a tremendous amount of heat and the blower noise was refreshingly low. Our house is 2 story with the great room on the lower level and open to the above dining room and kitchen. Wife (who's extremely heat sensitive after having heat stroke years ago) often complained of being too hot. I'm hoping that we'll be able to control heat level better since this is t-stat controlled. Once we start heating on a regular basis I'll report back on it's performance.

 

[FixedGearFlyer]

We put two PP130s in last year - one in the house and one in our 1200 sq ft shop, both connected to Pellet Misers and programable wqll thermostats.

They have been fantastic and ran like tops last winter. We dumped the burn pot daily, used an ash vac to clean the ash pits every other day, and did a full burn chamber cleaning (including pulling the baffles) weekly. The end of season cleaning was a breeze and they both run perfectly as we roll into their second full season.

Both the house and shop are well insulated 2x6 framing and we burned about a bag per day in the depths of an Upper Peninsula winter with the buildings at 68 during the days, 60 at night, and night time lows in the negative teens. The house also has a Drolet Heat Commander and when we ran one fire in that per day and let the pellet stove handle the nights and early mornings, it was about half a bag per day.

The house unit didn't burn as well as the shop unit and we spent a while trying to figure out why. We finally found the cause at the end of season cleaning - the gasket between the exhaust blower housing and stove wasn't positioned correctly, so there was a vacuum leak that reduced the draft in the burn chamber. Now that we've fixed that, they are both fantastic performers.

We think they were a great value for the cost.

 

[khpony]

Thanks for the feedback. I will complete the installation today. Getting in the upper 30's at night here. Should begin using it tomorrow if all goes well.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I quit using those rather expensive spun wool gaskets on my combustion blower years ago. What I did was after spring cleaning (with the combustion blower assembly out and on the workbench, I put a bead of red high temp silicone around the edge of the mounting flange and let it sit on the bench and vulvanize up so it was firm and not sticky and then I reinstalled it. been that way for at least 8 years now, seals right up, no issue. I take mine apart every mid winter for a clean and lube anyway and that has really worked out well and no worry about getting the gasket centered up because there is no gasket anymore.

 

[FixedGearFlyer]

I quit using those rather expensive spun wool gaskets on my combustion blower years ago. What I did was after spring cleaning (with the combustion blower assembly out and on the workbench, I put a bead of red high temp silicone around the edge of the mounting flange and let it sit on the bench and vulvanize up so it was firm and not sticky and then I reinstalled it.

That's exactly what we did, too.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I see you ca now buy a reuseable red silicone gasket for the combustion blower. The spun wool is cheap and one use only. My red RTV silicone bead has lasted at leas 5 years now.