VCBurner said:Ray,
I'm by no means equipped to answer this question scientifically. But I will attempt to speculate,in my own crude way. The bulk of the heat comes through the heat exchangers of pellet burner. By no means is it soft heat like the heat from a wood stove. Because it is so rapidly heated and forced through it is essentially burned out. The flame is also forced. This is the reason why the pellet burners can get so much heat out of such small amount of wood that is in the burn pot. As you know, any time you try to push hot air through cool air it loses its energy quicker than if it was slowly dissipating. On a wood stove, even a convection type heater, a big portion of the heat comes softly from the body of the stove and is not blown out like a forced air furnace. The heatfills the room more evenly because it radiates out of more surfaces.
Another reason why I can't get as much heat upstairs as I would like. Example: outside tempabout 21°, 74° at the thermostat in the stove room right now. I am sitting 3' away from the side of the stove and I can hardly notice it is running. But if I stand 3' away from the front of the stove, I can feel it for sure. The flame is tall and bright and fills the center of the firebox in a pretty uniform way, the sign of a good burn. As I look from the side, I can see the heat waves coming off the oval enamel difuser on top of the stove, making that part pretty hot. I can't leave my hand on it for more than a second without feeling too hot. I wish I had an IR to see how hot that difuser is. The stove's heat setting is on 4 out of 5 and the cast iron is hot, but I can put my hands on the sides without a problem. The temperature upstairs is 70°, about six feet away from the coldest room. Inside that bedroom it is 64°. That is a difference of 10° between the stove room and the furthest room. However, I can't blame the stove, it is more about the lay out. The hallway leading to the far room is
almost 22 feet long and 3' 3" wide and takes a jog before leading to the doorway. It also has two other bedrooms and
a bathroom to heat on the way. I think any medium sized stove rated to heat 1600 sq ft would have a hard time heating the far room. I do think a medium sized stove would send more heat upstairs due to the natural radiance of the wood stoves.
Thanx for the info Chris! My brother had a Harman pellet stove and got rid of it because he said he could feel the cold draft with so much air movement plus it dried out his house really bad.. He told me he had it hooked up with an OAK too.. You mentioned the stove gets pretty hot on top by the diffuser, maybe you can place a pan of water on top to enhance the humidity a bit? You being a hearth.com member who had a woodstove knows about using box fans etc. and that may help heat the more remote areas in your home..
On another note, after running a CDW cat stove for over 20 years and now running a T-5 I would take this stove anyday! I feel this stove is more efficient and capable than my large CDW stove.. It recovers quickly when you ned fast heat as well and is so easy to learn and operate! I just used the butterfy top and opened it to reheat a few slices of pizza and they came out awesome in 10 mins! I placed them on a piece of foil and they came out crispy! I would consider that free heat as they stove was running for heat anyways If you have a chance to see a T-5 in action check them out.. You would also be amazed how quiet and effective the blower is too.. You would love the great fireshow that a secondary burn stove provides.. While I like cat stoves there is no comparison to the view of a secondary burn stove.. It even puts a campfire to shame lol..
Just thought you'd be interested in hearing about the T-5.. Glad to know you and your family are doing well too!
Hang in there!
Ray