Pellet stoves

looking at pellet stoves for warming up the living room, not heaating the whole house,does the blower have to run all the time on these? looking at some feed back thanks.

Yes fan has to run at all times. I have a Quadrafire, I’ve had it for 9 years no problems. Mine runs 24/7 when I’m home. I can burn wood or corn, whatever is cheaper I burn. Very easy to use, my wife can clean it and start it in no time.
Chad

The blower does not run all the time, the blower fan is controlled by a thermostat and doesn’t turn on until the stove is hot enough. I have one in my finished basement and keep it set on the lowest setting and the blower never comes on. I have to set it at 2-3 for the blower fan to run. You can also adjust the speed of the blower fan so that it is almost totally silent.

There is an internal fan that blows out the exhaust and that has to run continually but it is very quiet. I have a Harman, one of the best made.

Confirming the internal fan has to run all the time to keep the fire burning. From there some models have a blower to move the heated air, I’m not sure about that one, it could vary by model.

Strongly suggest you consider dual fuel so you can burn corn or wood.

Have relatives that heat both house and machine shop with corn. They love it and it cut their heating costs by 50% so ROI on the equipment was only a couple of years for the whole setup.

If you have a feed store nearby that can load bulk corn into your pickup or into large trash cans on a trailer, you can buy corn very cheap compared to bagged corn.

Grouse

If your fan/blower never runs on low you are losing alot of heat out your vent! Harmon stoves are nice, but they have there quirks. Its all about heat transfer, if you don’t mind heat lose that’s fine. I want all the heat I can in the room not going out the vent.

CHad

x2

I had one in my basement from 05-08 until I moved – dont remember the brand. My fan always ran once it was warm. It also made two intermittent sounds as the auger fed fuel and the tines stirred the pot to clear ash. I loved the always on fire and the whirring sounds. I had trouble keeping corn lit at less than medium which was too hot for the space so I mostly burned wood.

Does anyone here at IDO install them for cash, or know someone who does? I’m interested in getting one also.

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Strongly suggest you consider dual fuel so you can burn corn

If you have a feed store nearby that can load bulk corn into your pickup or into large trash cans on a trailer, you can buy corn very cheap compared to bagged corn.

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I just bought 165 bushels of corn. $4.08/bus.

Where did you get a price like that? That works out to about $145 per ton.

Shopping around for corn for winter deer feed, the cheapest I could find was $320/ton. For that price, it’d be worth it to drive to the cities and buy a couple tons

You’ll want #2 shelled field corn, less than 12% moisture, if a kernel snaps when you bite it you’re good. Check local farmers (best) or grain elevators (better), bushel = 56lbs. Two fans, combustion and convention. Combustion provides airflow to the firebox, either positive (pushes air through the box out the vent) or negative (pulls air out of the box out the vent) depending on the stove. Combustion blowers run all the time the stove does for obvious reasons, hard to make fire without air. Convection blowers are the room air blowers that pull heat from the exchange tubes and push it into the room. These run when the stove runs also, but are typically controlled by a heat dependent circuit (snap disk). Some stoves can run on a thermostat via electronic igniter (may not light 100% corn!), some are manually started with whatever you may use to do so (gel, torch, alcohol). All take maint (maybe daily, weekly for sure, annual for sure), these are not ‘set and forget’ as some sales folks will tell you. Stove must be designed to handle biomass (corn) or wood pellet, or both. Biomass stoves need upgraded venting, corn is corrosive when it burns, vent is rated for wood pellet or corn/bio which handles either. Good info at hearthnet, specific forums for different types of heating including pellet, not an endorsement of that site at all. We heat with two stoves 100% of the time, we’ve burned everything from horse chow (grain) to dog food (cheap stuff is 70% corn)to nut shells, or corn or pellets, whatever I can lay my hands on over the summer. You can drop $3000+ on a decent stove, and consider some relatively expensive parts are considered wear items (combustion fans fail due to heat and can run $200+, vent fails after time, etc), so consider this on ROI. If you are replacing LP this is a no brainer savings wise, NG not so much if at all. Winter heating our 1600/800 sq foot split requires a bit under 4 tons of fuel per year, good price point per ton is $200 or less. That’s 200 forty pound bags of pellets you’ll need to move and store for what it is worth. Install wise, these are pretty straight forward (think power vented water heater rather than fireplace chimney), study the manual as the clearances there are what to go by. I say this because sometimes local code enforcement does not know much about these units (getting better) and pro installers sometime make these sound more cumbersome than they are (high install cost). Hope this helps, sorry for the long post!

I had looked into pellet stoves before but ended up going with an Eko 40 gasification boiler.

The biggest thing I learned for trouble free operation is make sure it is a bottom feed unit to the combustion plate. That way the clinkers are pushed off the plate and do not build up means less cleaning and better burns.

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Yes fan has to run at all times. I have a Quadrafire, I’ve had it for 9 years no problems. Mine runs 24/7 when I’m home. I can burn wood or corn, whatever is cheaper I burn. Very easy to use, my wife can clean it and start it in no time.
Chad

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Glad to hear good news regarding the Quadrafire. That’s the brand the guy sells that did my furnace at the cabin. I trust and like him and would like to give him the business for the stove.

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Where did you get a price like that? That works out to about $145 per ton.

Shopping around for corn for winter deer feed, the cheapest I could find was $320/ton. For that price, it’d be worth it to drive to the cities and buy a couple tons

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Got it at the local coop elevator, 1.5 miles away. I watched the market daily for a few weeks and bought when i thought it was at a good price. I bought a total of 400 bushelsfor my outside boiler(heats my house and outbuilding/shop)I have a gravity box that I use. I will have to pay a couple of cents storage on the remaining 235 bushels yet to be picked up.
http://www.agweb.com/markets/cash_grain_bids.aspx

Cannot say one bad thing about it’s reliability. In 9 years with the quadrafire I have never spent a dime to fix it. knock on wood
CHad

thanks guys for input

when you guys installed yours did you horizontal or vertical vent your stoves?

I am replacing the vacuum switch in my Englander 25-CB120. I did not mark the wires before I removed the switch. Both wires are blue, there are three male spade connectors coming off the switch, two are close together and one is on the side. I realize one wire goes on one of the two connectors and the other goes on the side spade connector, but does it matter which blue wire goes were? Thanks

I am getting a lot of particulates in the air with this pellet stove that I just acquired any thoughts on what that might be? It is a Lopi energy system.

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