Picked up a 5510 the other day after much thought and debate, etc....
Been reading this forum gathering information for the last few months to help me pick out the right stove. But the more you learn, the more questions seem to arise.
Real quick, live in a pole barn type home (1300 sq ft on a slab) with a very open floor plan that is about three years old. Very well insulated, walls are 9 inches thick, with about 2 ft of insulation in the attic. The house is 100% electric and has a heat pump, with a backup furnace in the attic. If the outside temp drops to around 35 degrees, have to switch to the backup furnace (which gets expensive). Before I bought this home I was planning to build a similar home and was considering a pellet stove as a secondary source of heat. With this new home, I'm in a fairly rural part of the county, and I'm being told when power goes out, it usually is out for a few days if it is a major outage. So I remembered the research on the pellet stoves and decided it would be a good idea to pick one up to help take the edge off on those cold days, plus I'd be able to use it if power goes out (using a ups and generator.... but that is down the road). Considered the St Croix, Avalon, Breckwell, etc... but all the stoves seemed to have problems, but the 5510 kept coming up as a good option given my situation, and was priced right.
anyways, going to hook it up here in the next few days and I have a couple questions I need answered or some further clarification.
1. Bought the Simpson pellet stove vent kit at TSC at the same time as the stove. Comes with elbows, thimble, clean-out, straight pieces, etc. The manual says to use NO MORE than 180 degrees of elbows. I'm very limited on where I can put the stove, so I am putting it in a corner. I'm going to come off of the stove with the short appliance adapter, then a 45 degree elbow, then 2 ft. horizontally through the wall thimble, into the clean-out (90 degree to switch to vertical), 4 ft of straight, 90 degree elbow to hook up the vent hood.
Problem is, with the required clean-out and elbow for the vent, I'm at that 180 degree limit. Will the extra 45 degrees hurt the flow enough to reduce the performance of the stove? and do I need to hook up the air intake to draw outside air?
2. The pellet pipe manual states there should be 3 screws per joint. Looking at the pipe the way it twists and locks together, I would think using a screw that will penetrate both walls of the pipe could lead to more problems than relying on the built-in locking mechanism of the pipe itself. Planned on just using RTV on all of the joints and calling it good, but what are you guys doing?
3. The connection from the 3 inch aluminum exhaust blower assembly to the first piece of exhaust pipe.... I don't see a good way to "attach" that pipe to the stove. It looks like a hose clamp would just crush the first layer of the pellet pipe, without applying any real clamping force. Are you supposed to drill and install three screws into the blower housing, or just rely on the weight of the stove and just shove it on there and hope it doesn't come loose?
Both manuals for the stove and pipe are very vague.
4. And about the ash doors being sealed to improve the stove (main reason I chose this stove)... I'm unclear if they are being sealed shut, or just adding RTV around the track to "tighten" them up. A little clarification would help me when I get ready to hook the stove up.
5. I've seen references to hooking up a wall thermostat to control the pellet stove, but nothing in the manual. I'm assuming somewhere behind a panel somewhere there is a hook up for one. Has anyone added one and is it as simple as one would think?
Hopefully it works out as planned and I won't have to call the fire department upon start up. Living in a rural area I'm sure the response time is long
Been reading this forum gathering information for the last few months to help me pick out the right stove. But the more you learn, the more questions seem to arise.
Real quick, live in a pole barn type home (1300 sq ft on a slab) with a very open floor plan that is about three years old. Very well insulated, walls are 9 inches thick, with about 2 ft of insulation in the attic. The house is 100% electric and has a heat pump, with a backup furnace in the attic. If the outside temp drops to around 35 degrees, have to switch to the backup furnace (which gets expensive). Before I bought this home I was planning to build a similar home and was considering a pellet stove as a secondary source of heat. With this new home, I'm in a fairly rural part of the county, and I'm being told when power goes out, it usually is out for a few days if it is a major outage. So I remembered the research on the pellet stoves and decided it would be a good idea to pick one up to help take the edge off on those cold days, plus I'd be able to use it if power goes out (using a ups and generator.... but that is down the road). Considered the St Croix, Avalon, Breckwell, etc... but all the stoves seemed to have problems, but the 5510 kept coming up as a good option given my situation, and was priced right.
anyways, going to hook it up here in the next few days and I have a couple questions I need answered or some further clarification.
1. Bought the Simpson pellet stove vent kit at TSC at the same time as the stove. Comes with elbows, thimble, clean-out, straight pieces, etc. The manual says to use NO MORE than 180 degrees of elbows. I'm very limited on where I can put the stove, so I am putting it in a corner. I'm going to come off of the stove with the short appliance adapter, then a 45 degree elbow, then 2 ft. horizontally through the wall thimble, into the clean-out (90 degree to switch to vertical), 4 ft of straight, 90 degree elbow to hook up the vent hood.
Problem is, with the required clean-out and elbow for the vent, I'm at that 180 degree limit. Will the extra 45 degrees hurt the flow enough to reduce the performance of the stove? and do I need to hook up the air intake to draw outside air?
2. The pellet pipe manual states there should be 3 screws per joint. Looking at the pipe the way it twists and locks together, I would think using a screw that will penetrate both walls of the pipe could lead to more problems than relying on the built-in locking mechanism of the pipe itself. Planned on just using RTV on all of the joints and calling it good, but what are you guys doing?
3. The connection from the 3 inch aluminum exhaust blower assembly to the first piece of exhaust pipe.... I don't see a good way to "attach" that pipe to the stove. It looks like a hose clamp would just crush the first layer of the pellet pipe, without applying any real clamping force. Are you supposed to drill and install three screws into the blower housing, or just rely on the weight of the stove and just shove it on there and hope it doesn't come loose?
Both manuals for the stove and pipe are very vague.
4. And about the ash doors being sealed to improve the stove (main reason I chose this stove)... I'm unclear if they are being sealed shut, or just adding RTV around the track to "tighten" them up. A little clarification would help me when I get ready to hook the stove up.
5. I've seen references to hooking up a wall thermostat to control the pellet stove, but nothing in the manual. I'm assuming somewhere behind a panel somewhere there is a hook up for one. Has anyone added one and is it as simple as one would think?
Hopefully it works out as planned and I won't have to call the fire department upon start up. Living in a rural area I'm sure the response time is long
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