How to measure the heat efficiency on the pellet stove

[kicm9988]

I often see the heat efficiency value in the pellet stove instructors, but I'm always wonderring how they can get it. Are there any experts working in the manufacturer here? I'll appreciate it very much for your reply!

 

[tjnamtiw]

I often see the heat efficiency value in the pellet stove instructors, but I'm always wonderring how they can get it. Are there any experts working in the manufacturer here? I'll appreciate it very much for your reply!

I was wondering myself what the actual efficiencies of the pellets stoves are. They are not posted on the Quad or Harman sites. I know they say they meet the Gov't standards of 75%, but how efficient are they? 75, 80, 85???? It would help to have a real number to plug into all of the fuel comparison calculators out there.

 

[jtakeman]

There seems to be varying factors involved. Combustion Efficiency will vary from pellet to pellet and there is weather factors involved as well.(Pressure-Humidity, ect ect.)

I don't think they are giving an actual number on the stoves. Maybe averages or guestamations. And I would not trust the numbers given, Unless it was an independent lad doing the testing.

Heat exchanger efficiency was my main reason for purchasing my new Omega. The more heat you can transfer into the room the better.

You can achieve high Combustion Efficiency with almost any stove(IMO). But if you can't transfer that into the room its useless to you. Thus the lower efficiency's of the stoves.

I have seen Breckwell rating the BigE at 81% and Enviro rating the Omega at 80%. But with having both stoves, And heating my home to the same temp. The Omega seems to be closer to the rating than the BigE was. I used less pellets this year than I did last year. This year was also colder than last year by far.

I don't want to start the war with the Breckwell boys. So I will leave it at that.

But for me the selling factor is the heat exchanger efficiency. Get that heat into the room and not out the exhaust pipe!!

Just my 2
jay

 

[tjnamtiw]

There seems to be varying factors involved. Combustion Efficiency will vary from pellet to pellet and there is weather factors involved as well.(Pressure-Humidity, ect ect.)

I don't think they are giving an actual number on the stoves. Maybe averages or guestamations. And I would not trust the numbers given, Unless it was an independent lad doing the testing.

Heat exchanger efficiency was my main reason for purchasing my new Omega. The more heat you can transfer into the room the better.

You can achieve high Combustion Efficiency with almost any stove(IMO). But if you can't transfer that into the room its useless to you. Thus the lower efficiency's of the stoves.

I have seen Breckwell rating the BigE at 81% and Enviro rating the Omega at 80%. But with having both stoves, And heating my home to the same temp. The Omega seems to be closer to the rating than the BigE was. I used less pellets this year than I did last year. This year was also colder than last year by far.

I don't want to start the war with the Breckwell boys. So I will leave it at that.

But for me the selling factor is the heat exchanger efficiency. Get that heat into the room and not out the exhaust pipe!!

Just my 2
jay

I agree with you. How many btu's go up the chimney would be a good measure of efficiency compared to how many btu's were in the fuel you just burned. Not easy to measure, for sure. One impressive thing I saw with the Bixby corn stove was that you could put your hand on the horizontal exhaust outside, which was only a couple of feet from the stove. That tells you something about its efficiency. Pellet stoves have been around for many, many years yet has no one accepted a standard method of measuring efficiency? Amazing to me. You see efficiency ratings on wood stoves such as the Craft Stove I just replaced. It had a graph showing efficiency vs btu output. It almost begs the question 'What are the pellet manufacturers NOT telling us?'