Wittus Club - Englander 25-IP - Harman Accentra

[lostdrum]

Hi,
I have no experience with Pellet stoves and as we have a heat pump as our only source of heating I'm looking for an alternate source for when it is cold, below 50.
The three stoves in the title have a modern look, but are very different on pricing. Although I can afford them, I'm price conscious.
I prefer the Wittus because of its modern look and it is supposed to be relatively quiet.
Second is the Englander, it is cheap and I can install it myself. My understanding from this forum is that it is also of good quality but I don't know how reliable or quiet it is.
Third is the Harman Accentra, somewhat modern look, a bit cheaper than the Wittus. I understand that it is reliable and easy to maintain, but I have to have it installed by only one dealer in the area.

So as many newbies on this forum I'm looking for advice on which one to pick.
Thanks

 

[dlehneman]

This may not be super helpful since I can only comment on one, but I bought an Englander PAH 2 years ago and it has been trouble free and keeping us much warmer then our FHW oil heat did (thanks to cost). The IP is supposed to have a newer improved heat exchanger, larger ash pan and those nice hinged access doors to make working on it or cleaning it easy. I don't think they are the quietest stoves out there, but my experience has been good and it's proven very reliable through the past several very cold NH winters as our sole source of heat. Picking one up from AM/FM energy at a discount makes them a GREAT deal! Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

[Bioburner]

The pictures and what little info I could glean from the site of the Wittus stove appears to be a variation of the Ecoteck Elena. Nice stove but having one I would lean someone towards your other two choices first for a new to the pellet burning world.

 

[lostdrum]

Thanks for the tip, I bought the Englander from AM/FM Energy, this is a great deal indeed. I now have to install it and get some pellets, will let you know by the end of winter if that was a good choice for me.

 

[Polar Bear]

Good luck... I was very new to pellet stoves and was easily able to install the stove and pipe (through block wall). I perform my own annual maintenance and haven't had an issue.

Cheers.

 

[lostdrum]

Here is the stove installed, looks fine and seem to work.
It's not cold enough here yet to really see if it warms up the home. Install was easy through the wall with the venting kit, just the thing is heavy.
My only complaint is the noise, the exhaust fan is really noisy to the point of being annoying. It makes a loud 1kHz sound. Not sure how to fix that, I could wrap the whole fan in fiberglass but it may overheat the motor. Any idea?

 

[Light in the Dark]

Nice looking stove (and install). Any way to take a video showing this noise?

 

[lostdrum]

Hi,
Here is a wav file, at the beginning the stove is off, it's pretty quiet at home, then I start it, only the exhaust fan runs. I took that with my phone from 4 feet away.

At this point I'm wondering what I should do, return the whole thing and get a Wittus or Accentra, or find a way to quiet this thing down to a bearable level.
I'd be interested if someone could record an Accentra to hear how it sounds.

Thanks.

 

[Stovensen]

Hi Lostdrum, congratulations with your new stove. Looks really nice. As for the noise issue, I can tell you that I experienced exactly the same whining sound from my convection blower at the 3/5 setting. The remedy was VERY simple, and I found it by studying in depth the original Whitfield owners manual. The engineers at Whitfield have been aware of this problem of triac-chopped signals that turn acoustic in the windings on the motor, so on the back of the control panel there is a trimpot to finetune the voltage fed to the blower motor away from the point, where the resonances occur. You can hear my convection blower whining noise on the video clip here. At the time mark 1:08 the noise is very remarkable and sounds just like your blower motor. Is there a way to finetune the room blower motor on your stove?

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[JDenyer236]

Take a look at the P series Harmans as well. Easy maintenance, relatively quite, and available in a wide range of btu ranges. If you can install an englander yourself then you can install any pellet stove as they are all the same as far as installation. Just make sure to follow the install manual exactly for your model as they all differ in minimum clearances. While the Englanders are very budget friendly they do have their quirks, but then again all stoves do. I owned a 25-PDVC for a year and tossed it, worst experience ever, maintenance was terrible. Hidden passages with no access to clean out the fly ash. Had to take the stove outside and blow out the fly ash with an air gun to remove fly ash from hidden areas. Newer models of the Englanders may be different with new designs, don't know as I haven't look at them. I suggest you download the owners manuals for each stove that you are looking at, that way you can see the differences in maintenance procedures. Hope this helps.