Tweaking stove settings with multi heat source use

[alternativeheat]

It was mentioned to split this topic off from an existing thread, so I'm game.

A lot of people run two stoves, I've done that in the past with coal. I additionally have run my central heat ( FHW by oil) and a coal stove but have not yet done so with my P61 pellet stove. Last winter in the brutal cold my house just made it on the pellet stove. Upstairs was fine but the basement got pretty darned cold. So a lot of people opt to run the central heat or a second stove to help even things up. And there are many different approaches to doing this. I thought the topic was interesting enough to start a thread on it. So lets have your ideas.

What I have found over the years is to not reduce any one heat source to extremes or raise the other but to run them fairly evenly. The reduced load on either or both units conserves fuel. In the case of Harman I'm not sure how I would want to do this though, I might actually be tempted to go into stove temp mode and leave the central heat at 70. See pellet stoves are different than running an old coal stove. With coal in the wee hours of morning and late afternoon as it came time to tend the stove it would start to lose output. A pellet stove doesn't do that. I'm thinking a steady output like in stove temp might be best, then let the heat cycle now and then. I know others use timers on the central heat. Still others two stoves. But bottom line , two heat sources takes the load off one existing system.

What's your method ?

 

[bogieb]

Last February I installed a Harman P61A in the basement and ran it hard, mainly on stove temp, to keep the upstairs in the 60's (downstairs in 80's). I set the boiler thermostat at 62, and on cold/windy nights (negative digits), it would cycle quite a bit. Still went thru way to much propane $$ wise, but did save a lot as the monthly propane bill was much less than it had been up to that point (I spent less in pellets than what I saved on gas, even with the pellet shortage. Okay, yes, the stove cost put a bit of dent in my wallet, but I look to long term use).

This fall I put in a smaller pellet stove in the living area because the bedrooms were very cold last year (40's-50's), and I wanted them warmer, plus want to get away from propane use. So far, I run the downstairs stove 24/7 in room temp mode set somewhere between 72 and 75. I start up the upstairs stove when I get home from work, and shut it down when I leave for work. I have the propane boiler set at 60 - just in case (hasn't been below 68 yet - starts out about 80 , so no boiler use so far). Once the cold temps hit, I will leave the upstairs stove going during the day. I don't know if I will have to give the Harman a kick up when the weather turns, but it is an option that I will exercise if needed..

I just put in a system to cycle my FHW a couple times a day when the cold temps arrive (it is off right now). I have pipes that run thru the garage and the garage stays only about 10 degrees warmer than outside air temp. I do kind of wish I had the room to have put in a coal or small wood stove on the main floor so that power outages would mean exactly zero. But the clearances needed wouldn't work and I do have other means at my disposal to keep warm if needed.

 

[alternativeheat]

Last February I installed a Harman P61A in the basement and ran it hard, mainly on stove temp, to keep the upstairs in the 60's (downstairs in 80's). I set the boiler thermostat at 62, and on cold/windy nights (negative digits), it would cycle quite a bit. Still went thru way to much propane $$ wise, but did save a lot as the monthly propane bill was much less than it had been up to that point (I spent less in pellets than what I saved on gas, even with the pellet shortage. Okay, yes, the stove cost put a bit of dent in my wallet, but I look to long term use).

This fall I put in a smaller pellet stove in the living area because the bedrooms were very cold last year (40's-50's), and I wanted them warmer, plus want to get away from propane use. So far, I run the downstairs stove 24/7 in room temp mode set somewhere between 72 and 75. I start up the upstairs stove when I get home from work, and shut it down when I leave for work. I have the propane boiler set at 60 - just in case (hasn't been below 68 yet - starts out about 80 , so no boiler use so far). Once the cold temps hit, I will leave the upstairs stove going during the day. I don't know if I will have to give the Harman a kick up when the weather turns, but it is an option that I will exercise if needed..

I just put in a system to cycle my FHW a couple times a day when the cold temps arrive (it is off right now). I have pipes that run thru the garage and the garage stays only about 10 degrees warmer than outside air temp. I do kind of wish I had the room to have put in a coal or small wood stove on the main floor so that power outages would mean exactly zero. But the clearances needed wouldn't work and I do have other means at my disposal to keep warm if needed.

We have antifreeze in the central heating systems water. It's the main water pipes that bother me, and mostly out to our kitchen addition area where the laundry station is. The heat runs some anyway to heat our rental apartment but generally not for us in the main house. My wife's laundry drain froze last year but that's it and the basement is tighter this year, we tightened up a lot of drafts down there. We hit -6 here last winter and really that's just about as cold as it gets here and not every winter at that. Anyway, I think we were mighty close to a freeze up down there out in that extension area but then the weather backed off a bit. All FWIW.

Thank's for your input !!

 

[bogieb]

We have antifreeze in the central heating systems water. It's the main water pipes that bother me, and mostly out to our kitchen addition area where the laundry station is. The heat runs some anyway to heat our rental apartment but generally not for us in the main house. My wife's laundry drain froze last year but that's it and the basement is tighter this year, we tightened up a lot of drafts down there. We hit -6 here last winter and really that's just about as cold as it gets here and not every winter at that. Anyway, I think we were mighty close to a freeze up down there out in that extension area but then the weather backed off a bit. All FWIW.

Thank's for your input !!

I checked into getting the FHW pipes winterized and they wanted $500. I figured for that I could buy $150 gals of propane and run the circulator occasionally. Plus, I wouldn't have to worry about corrosion or any other issues that you hear about. All of my drains and main water pipes are in the area heated by the Harman, so don't have any issues there. If the Harman goes down though, I would have to set up electric heaters if I continued to use the pellet stove upstairs. The boiler running on a constant basis seems to heat the basement enough to keep anything from freezing (although, I have only been here one winter, so don't have a long history to go by).

 

[acammer]

I'm running a dual heat setup in my home this heating season. Primary/1st stage heat is from the Englander 25-PAH in a finished section of my basement. This is run by a programmable thermostat upstairs. The section of basement where the stove resides is walled off from the remainder of the basement, and there is a large open stair way to the center of the 1st floor of the house (1 story ranch). Natural convection brings a lot of heat up, but I improved my heat distribution from the stove by installing the cold air return for my propane furnace in the finished basement room with the stove. I have a secondary thermostat installed in the finished basement room, set to cool, which runs the blower motor at low speed on the furnace whenever the basement hits 75*F. This pushes heat to all the bedrooms and corners of the house that natural convection can not handle. Finally, I have a third programmable thermostat in the same location as the pellet stove thermostat, to run my auxiliary/2nd stage of heat from my high efficiency hot air propane furnace. I have the Tstat programmed to kick up a few hours later in the morning that the pellets stove, and a few degrees cooler. If the stove hasn't warmed the house enough by the 2nd stage kicks up, it interrupts the blower on the furnace and runs in heat mode. Once the 2nd stage Tstat is satisfied it returns to the low blower speed to continue exchanging the warm air from the basement. If the pellet stove can't keep up on a cold day (hasn't been the case yet) the propane supplements. It seems to be working quite well so far, it's a new setup so I'm still tuning the timing and temps of things, but I'm very satisfied thus far.

 

[alternativeheat]

I'm running a dual heat setup in my home this heating season. Primary/1st stage heat is from the Englander 25-PAH in a finished section of my basement. This is run by a programmable thermostat upstairs. The section of basement where the stove resides is walled off from the remainder of the basement, and there is a large open stair way to the center of the 1st floor of the house (1 story ranch). Natural convection brings a lot of heat up, but I improved my heat distribution from the stove by installing the cold air return for my propane furnace in the finished basement room with the stove. I have a secondary thermostat installed in the finished basement room, set to cool, which runs the blower motor at low speed on the furnace whenever the basement hits 75*F. This pushes heat to all the bedrooms and corners of the house that natural convection can not handle. Finally, I have a third programmable thermostat in the same location as the pellet stove thermostat, to run my auxiliary/2nd stage of heat from my high efficiency hot air propane furnace. I have the Tstat programmed to kick up a few hours later in the morning that the pellets stove, and a few degrees cooler. If the stove hasn't warmed the house enough by the 2nd stage kicks up, it interrupts the blower on the furnace and runs in heat mode. Once the 2nd stage Tstat is satisfied it returns to the low blower speed to continue exchanging the warm air from the basement. If the pellet stove can't keep up on a cold day (hasn't been the case yet) the propane supplements. It seems to be working quite well so far, it's a new setup so I'm still tuning the timing and temps of things, but I'm very satisfied thus far.

Sounds like it had more than a small degree of pre- thinking involved !

 

[acammer]

Sounds like it had more than a small degree of pre- thinking involved !

Yea, we just bought the place and things were less than ideal. There was a real old pellet stove in the basement which produced big heat, but was completely manual, no Tstat options, and not very efficient. The furnace install was poor as well - the original cold air return was right at the furnace, in the unfinished section of the basement, with a big air gap in the doors to that section. Essentially it was heating that entire space of unfinished basement. I've got everything straightened out now, and I hope this slightly complex setup is going to work real nice, it seems to so far. The PAH probably wasn't my best choice for maximum heat output, but if all I use the propane for is a long efficient burn in the morning to warm things up and then pellets sustain throughout the day, I'll be happy.

 

[Snowy Rivers]

We have a 2300 + sq ft ranch style house and it is wide open with no hallways.

The bed rooms are on one end with a small area in one corner of the family room that we call "the hall" that has 3 doors, 2 are small rooms (one is a bedroom, one is my office, the other is a small bath)

The family room is about 18x26 and it just runs into the kitchen, then the dining room and then to the living room, which is partially separated by one wall of the kitchen.

We have 3 pellet stoves in the house, 2 Whitfields ( one tiny Prodigy and one large Advantage) and way out in the far corner of the living room we have a Quadrafire 1000

The house came with an all electric central heating system (air handler) that we use only for the AC in summer.

The tiny Whit is in the far south west end of the living room in a corner, facing towards the dining area and family room.
The large Whit is in the far north east corner of the family room facing towards the kitchen/dinning/living room (And small Whit)

The Quad is in the northwest corner of the living room facing southeast.

We juggle stove use by the outside temp.
On days that are 50's and dreary with no sun the tiny Whit will handle the job nicely.
Once the temp drops into the mid 40's then we shut off the Tiny Whit and fire the large one.

Winter weather and temps into the 20's and we fire both Whits.

Last winter we had a few early mornings that were near zero (Quite rare for us) and the Quad was coming on to take up the slack.

We run the Whits on a low setting, Due to the fuel we use (nut shells) low is a nice mid sized fire that does not overheat the stove, and feeds and burns well.

It's a juggling act that can require shutting off the big stove at bed time and lighting off the little guy, or vice versa.

I have woke up at 2 am with the house roasting and had to shut things down til morning.

Generally we can keep things between 69-72 F with minimal bother.

The Quad on occasion gets set to do the entire job if we can't be home to fill the Whits twice a day.

The shells are a tad more time consuming to deal with, but at 1.5 cents a pound the trade off is well worth it.

As has been mentioned many times here at the forum, Pellet Stoves "ARE A SPACE HEATER" and as such usually can't heat an entire house using one (Not always so, butttttt)


The other benefit of multiple stoves is of course, if one fails, you can still stay warm, maybe not cozy, but at least not without heat.

Here at the forum there has been multiple times that folks have posted about a stove failure and a cold house without a backup.

My daughter and her family are planning to build a new home here in the future and she was asking about "How many stoves do we need" ????

3000 foot house on 3 levels
My guess is likely 4 to really do it well.

Just some thoughts.

Snowy