Pellet Stoves

[whistlepig]

When we bought this place three years ago it came with a Whitfield pellet stove. I know nothing about pellet stoves except how to light one. We don't use it that much. Some cold winter nights the wife fires it up and turns it off before she goes to bed. We don't use it all the time because we have geothermal heat. It's a good source of back up heat because I can run it off my portable generator. This pellet stove is about 11 years old. Should it be serviced like a furnace? It seems to be working very well.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

If you have the manual, it will give the normal maintenance requirements. Usually it will be clean the exhaust pipe & vacuum it out. I have a Harman, which I really like, it also says to vacuum the fine dust out of the auger area. The manual shows the areas to clean.

 

[whistlepig]

If you have the manual, it will give the normal maintenance requirements. Usually it will be clean the exhaust pipe & vacuum it out. I have a Harman, which I really like, it also says to vacuum the fine dust out of the auger area. The manual shows the areas to clean.

Are you happy with your pellet stove? Do you think it worthwhile?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I love my pellet stove. Last year I replaced my 7 yr old manual start pellet stove with an automatic one, Harman XXV. I just set the temperature, it does the rest, except I do have to empty the huge ash pan about every ton of pellets burned.
I clean the pipe every year, and generally vacuum everywhere in the stove I can. I plan to put the old stove in my garage this year for occasional heat.

What type of geothermal you have? That's one of my next projects.

 

[easygo]

We bought a Harman pellet stove 3 years ago and that along with our very old wood stove provide the heat for our home. It runs 24/7 during the coldest months out of the year. It is - even at current oil prices - cheaper than heating with oil.
Because of the constant use I clean it every week or if have no time two weeks at the most.
I let it cool down for at least an hour AFTER the fire goes out. I brush the ash from the heat exchanger with a paint brush while a shop-vac is constantly running with a high quality filter. Clean the burn pot and scrape the hard deposited stuff off with a screw driver. Dump the ashes from the collector every 3-4 weeks. There are a few more details but that is about all I do. A real good cleaning takes 40 minutes and that includes getting out the shop-vac and putting it away. The thing is that we start using it in late September or early October and shut it down around early to mid May depending on the temps. (This year we had frost on May 26th.) It runs non-stop from December to March. Never had a problem, but I assume under such heavy usage it is just a matter of time.