What to do

[quadraman]

Ok guys and gals looking for some recommendations on what to do for my fireplace. I purchased a quadrafire castile pellet insert last year and must say that was one of the worst investments I made. The thing was noisy and hard to controll. And I found you had to clean it virtually every day to get it to burn right. I have since sold that stove and am looking to upgrade to something a little better. I am willing to go LP or Pellet and I am looking for something that will insert into my fireplace. I have plenty of room and should have no problems fitting anything that is out there (insert wise.) I was leaning towards LP but not 100% sure if I should or not. I have an old home that we just remodeled and put all insulation in the walls and attic. I am hoping the house is insulated good enough we didn't skimp on that at all. So my question is which product would you recommend and also what manufacturer. Quadrafire is out for me at least in my experiences.

thank you
Dan

 

[Brian VT]

I have a Fireplacextrordinair gas fireplace and I love it.
Very realistic logs and flame. It's in an 18'x30' room with cathedral ceiling and we usually keep it on low flame.
If I crank it up it'll blow us out of there in an hour or so.
Mine's not an insert but it looks like this FPX 32 DVS Insert (minus the flat black filler trim).

(broken image removed)

 

[quadraman]

Thanks for the info. They are nice looking stoves. Are they loud? Do you burn yours all winter long if so do you go through alot of propane. It seems lp has gone up quiite a bit to match fuel prices. I still am not sure if I want to go with LP or Pellets.

 

[Czech]

If daily cleaning is not your cup of tea, I would stay away from pellets imho.

 

[katman]

We put in a majestic gas fireplace two years ago. I also connected our gas grill to the propane tank. We use the grill at least three or four nights a week. The gas fireplace is used 3-4 hours every night, November through February. First year we burned about 225 gallons of propane. Haven't filled the tank yet for this winter but I suspect it will probably be about the same amount. Paid about $2.29/gallon last year. Haven't checked the current propane price, but I'm sure it has gone up.

 

[DiggerJim]

If daily cleaning is not your cup of tea, I would stay away from pellets imho.

There's cleaning and then there's cleaning. Daily it's a minute or so of "work" while filling the hopper with pellets, stoop down and pull the firepot cleaning lever to clear out any clinkers that haven't fallen thru. No biggie. Ash vacuuming and window cleaning is a weekly or bi-weekly 5-15min chore. All of it depends on how much you burn and the stove. It's not nearly the same league as hunching over a woodstove at 6am trying to blow some coals into life to restart the fire that was banked the night before before refilling it for the first of three or four times that day.

 

[quadraman]

I am not saying I didn't like the cleaning and little work that went into the pellet stove but I guess the quadrafire I had was too tempermental. You had to shut the stove down completely let it cool then clean the firepot. To me that was a waste of time. I was looking at some other brand models and from what I am told you don't have to shut the stove down at all to clean the clinckers out. I didn't mind the pellets and actually kinda liked the idea of burning wood. Just trying to decide what the best option to go with. If I get another pellet stove I want to make sure I get the best one for what I am going to spend. Seems there are alot out there that seem like they have a good idea on how to burn and others don't. The Castile says 30k BTU.hr but I don't think that was the case it seemed alot lower than that.

 

[Czech]

You may have had a bum stove, my folks have that model and love it, I have the freestanding and love that also. Daily for me takes less than 5 minutes, but for some that may seem like another chore. You can clean most stoves 'hot' (use caution), just shut it down and let it burn down, scrape and dump the pot, empty the pan if needed. My point was that flipping a switch on a gas stove is easier than operating and maintaining a pellet stove.

 

[strange_cathect]

That's too bad. I have the same stove and I love it. I do have to clean it out every 2 days or so, but I use it as my primary heat source.

 

[quadraman]

I'm not complaining about the stove soo much as it didn't meet my expectations I guess. I don't know if I would say I got a bum stove it did pump out the heat but I guess I expected more. Maybe I was expecting too much out of the stove. It's a nice stove and very attractive and deffinately accents our living room nice. I guess my main question is would there be a big difference in cost to run LP or Pellets anyone have both or one and then the other? Obviously there is no exact way to measure this because houses are different and no two stoves are exactly the same. My wife keeps bending me towards LP but I think that's because she hated coming home at the end of the day and having to mess with the stove. Me personally it wasn't too bad but every day got to be a pain. My neighbor has a Yankee and he said he doesn't have to clean the firepot but once a week. Could that be true??

 

[brewerpete]

if the daily cleaning is a nuisance for you.. you should go with natural gas or LP.

I can tolerate the 3-4 mins cleaning every day or two not a problem

HOWEVER.. after several seasons I am seeing degraded reliability.
Season one.... very quiet, very reliable
each subsequent season it's gotten less reliable and more noisy.
in the past year I've had to replace healting element, blowers and auger motors.... very frustrating and EXPENSIVE.

For those of you who are heading into season 3-5... plan on some down time and replacement of moving parts.
The wizards that created the warranties, did a good job of limiting thier exposure as they seemd to fail right when the warranties were up ;-(

Make sure you are comfortable with the service portion of the dealer, ask around as to response time and cost of a service call. I didn't and I'm being held hostage.

It is a good looking unit, and does provide for limited interaction to get heat.

 

[quadraman]

Yeah I hear ya. I can see how any of these stoves can wear out there certainly is alot of moving parts. I appreciate everyones feedback certainly nice to get a wide view on what's out there. The guy who was suppose to buy my stove backed out at the last minute so I am still in limbo. Gives me more time to do some research. I am going to stop at the local shop it's been awhile since I have been there. See what they recomend.

 

[slls]

I'm not complaining about the stove soo much as it didn't meet my expectations I guess. I don't know if I would say I got a bum stove it did pump out the heat but I guess I expected more. Maybe I was expecting too much out of the stove. It's a nice stove and very attractive and deffinately accents our living room nice. I guess my main question is would there be a big difference in cost to run LP or Pellets anyone have both or one and then the other? Obviously there is no exact way to measure this because houses are different and no two stoves are exactly the same. My wife keeps bending me towards LP but I think that's because she hated coming home at the end of the day and having to mess with the stove. Me personally it wasn't too bad but every day got to be a pain. My neighbor has a Yankee and he said he doesn't have to clean the firepot but once a week. Could that be true??

Poor quality pellets makes for lots of cleaning. Did you try different brand pellets to see what burned good in your stove. Just buy a bag or 2 of different brands and run them through. I really thing you had bad pellets.