Mt Vernon AE insert not heating the square footage as I would have thought (at all!!!!)

[Ezekiel_33]

Right now my ignitor is out due to the holder coming off the fire pot. It is too cold up here in northern MI to shut it down for a day or two while I take it to a buddy to get it re-welded. Meanwhile, I set my thermostat at 86 and turned my stove on it's lowest setting (pre-AE Mt Vernon) and lit it manually. I am now burning about 2.5-3 bags a day, and my basement (about 1,300 sq ft) is staying around 82 while it is around zero outside. In fact, it was about -17 this morning.

How many sq ft did you say you are trying to heat?

 

[chken]

Just re-read the initial post, and I'd say your problem is baffling. Does the snow melt on your roof, so that you can see your roof joists, or does it stay snow longer than your neighbors?

How much oil or whatever were you burning before? That should give us a baseline for your house's energy requirements. Square footage, volume, # of windows, etc are good to know, but it's far more accurate to know how much energy you needed to heat your house before the pellet stove.

Did your old primary heat source keep your house warm?

 

[hyfire]

Its simple if he can't burn the required fuel to make 60k btu he won't get 60k btu into the room.........

 

[Harvey Schneider]

Its simple if he can't burn the required fuel to make 60k btu he won't get 60k btu into the room.........

I agree with you but, there is another side to the equation. I don't think it should take 60kBTU to heat that space. I think both issues need to be examined.

 

[hyfire]

I agree with you but, there is another side to the equation. I don't think it should take 60kBTU to heat that space. I think both issues need to be examined.

Good point...What we need is someone else with the same stove to confirm the pellet usage rate also..

 

[richg]

Quadrafire has a tendency to dramatically overstate the heating capability of their stoves. "Heats up to X feet" means nothing. My Quad 1200 was rated to heat "up to 2500 square feet".....well, it didn't even come close. A Harman P61A did heat my whopping 2000 square foot house with no trouble.

 

[hyfire]

Quadrafire has a tendency to dramatically overstate the heating capability of their stoves. "Heats up to X feet" means nothing. My Quad 1200 was rated to heat "up to 2500 square feet".....well, it didn't even come close. A Harman P61A did heat my whopping 2000 square foot house with no trouble.

So your saying the btu numbers are inflated?

 

[richg]

So your saying the btu numbers are inflated?

To be blunt as a bowling ball,YES. The Quad 1200 puts out 40K BTU's and did not adequately heat my house. The Harman P61A puts out 61K BTU's and did a great job of heating the place. When the cards are on the table, the only thing that really matters is the BTU output of the stove. Manufacturers can and will make up all kinds of ridiculous numbers about the performance of their stoves and Quad is one of the worst offenders. Dane doesn't BS about his stoves...he doesn't have to.

 

[chken]

To be blunt as a bowling ball,YES. The Quad 1200 puts out 40K BTU's and did not adequately heat my house. The Harman P61A puts out 61K BTU's and did a great job of heating the place. When the cards are on the table, the only thing that really matters is the BTU output of the stove. Manufacturers can and will make up all kinds of ridiculous numbers about the performance of their stoves and Quad is one of the worst offenders. Dane doesn't BS about his stoves...he doesn't have to.

To be fair, those are input btus, not output btus. You have to factor in stove efficiency to get approx. output btus, after you compare your pellets to the avg that the mfr uses. Some use 8000 btus as the average, others higher like 8200 btus.

Oh, aren't Quads and Harmans owned by the same company?

 

[jlupi]

To be blunt as a bowling ball,YES. The Quad 1200 puts out 40K BTU's and did not adequately heat my house. The Harman P61A puts out 61K BTU's and did a great job of heating the place. When the cards are on the table, the only thing that really matters is the BTU output of the stove. Manufacturers can and will make up all kinds of ridiculous numbers about the performance of their stoves and Quad is one of the worst offenders. Dane doesn't BS about his stoves...he doesn't have to.

so your saying the stove w 20k more btu heats better? this was a surprise?

 

[Harvey Schneider]

Is flame height set to +5? That controls feed rate. Anything less will restrict pellet feed rate and heat output.

 

[afd_82]

Hello back from the fire house again, wife states the stove ran out (that's new)and she works 8-5 and gets home around 6ish. With this on manual hight will now be a new problem, the tec came and changed out a board the other day he was here...... Now I can't keep this thing running long enuff and is still damn cold 67 degrees now (hey that's up)

Tried the fan from the furnace seemed to do very little but only tried 3 or 4 hours.

My furnace is a forced hot air 3 year old 148000 btu furnace

As I stated before the stove seems to burn more fuel (good and bad)

The flame looks good per owners manual

It's set on utility flame, 0

The snow does not melt no sings of heat loss there

We used right around 1500 gal. Of propane last year

Yes my furnace keeps the house warm (I'm still using it because of the lack of heat here)

My fan is on down high or med (change it from time to time) but "winter mode" did not do much

As I'm typing this the stove shut off and said "low pot tem"

 

[Harvey Schneider]

It's set on utility flame, 0

Set that to +5. Flame height controls pellet feed rate. It's like a speed limiter on an engine. You can't generate full capacity heat output with the limiter set.

Low pot temp error means that it either failed to ignite or didn't feed pellets. It won't feed pellets if the hopper lid isn't closed, etc.
If something is open you should see an icon on the screen after you hit retry.

 

[chken]

So, you burnt thru a whole hopper, 47lbs, in a little over 10 hrs? Your wife got home at 6, you filled it before leaving at 8am. Probably a 5 lb/hr burn rate? Or about 40k btus. The stove still has some capacity to burn more, since it's a 52k btu stove. Having said that, 67 degrees is not bad, I don't heat my house beyond 65.

A 148k btu furnace seems largish for your house, maybe indicative of your heating needs. 1500 gal of propane is about equal to 1000 gals of heating oil, which is above average for a 2000sqft home in Maine. Nowadays, the avg is about 800 gals, so your heating needs seem to be a bit above avg, though if you are including DHW in that 1500 gals of propane, that could be the difference.

I'm going to guesstimate that you probably used about 9 gals of propane on an "average" winter day, which would put you at about 2.5 bags of pellets for an avg winter day, which is a lot. I'd guess the average winter needs for most people here is around 1.5 bags. Remember, that's for an average day between 25 and 35 degrees.

So, now that I think your house has higher heating needs than your avg home, there are still a couple questions. One, if you are supplementing your heat with the gas furnace, are you actually turning off the stove because the stove thermostat is reaching its set point? I know you tried manual, but I want to make sure you're not inadvertently turning off your stove because of the gas furnace being on. Two, are you sure there aren't air leaks around those large windows and doors? You should consider getting a cheap IR thermometer and shooting the picture framing around the windows and doors. If you find any, remove the moulding and foam. How's the snow melt on the roof? Do the rafters show thru as the snow melts? Does your roof keep its snow hat on longer or shorter than your neighbors? I know you have what looks like a 12:12 pitch, so it might slide off first.

One of the downsides to an insert is that the hopper is not all that large. So, if you burned at your max rate of 6.5lbs / hr, you'd have to refill it every 7 hrs.

 

[hyfire]

Where did you get the 52k btu rating from???????? Manual states 60K BTU OUTPUT, not input...

 

[chken]

Where did you get the 52k btu rating from???????? Manual states 60K BTU OUTPUT, not input...

Where? Nowhere, I just thought that was what it was. My brother has a MVAE and I thought he told me it was a 52k btu stove. Then again, that was several years ago.

 

[Harvey Schneider]

Where? Nowhere, I just thought that was what it was. My brother has a MVAE and I thought he told me it was a 52k btu stove. Then again, that was several years ago.

I heard rumor that the spec was changed from 60K to 58.4K. Not that it matters. That stove heats like the sun.

 

[LMPS]

Harvey is right turn the turn the feed rate up to +5, and take it off Utility move it to softwood it gives you longer run times. I think you will see a much better result.

 

[JoeS]

I would set it on sunflower seed setting at -5 flame height, manual low to start and see what kind of heat you get out of the unit.

This setting should generate maximum heat.

Personally I think something is wrong with your stove, I heat a much larger area effortlessly.

 

[hyfire]

Joe how man bags do you burn a day?????

 

[JoeS]

Joe how man bags do you burn a day?????

Obviously it depends on the temps outside and wind conditions but on average running on the sunflower setting 3 bags a day.

I don't always use this setting, mainly only on very cold and windy days!

 

[hyfire]

Excuse my ignorance but what does the sunflower setting mean/do?

 

[Harvey Schneider]

Excuse my ignorance but what does the sunflower setting mean/do?

Sunflower setting increases the amount of fuel being delivered. It does this because sunflower seeds don't yield as much heat as pellets. When you run pellets at the sunflower setting you get more than the stove is designed for. I haven't tried it myself, so I can't say how it burns.

 

[LMPS]

I have burned on sunflower and as Joe says it burns hot, very hot....but the trade off is you go through a high number of bags per day. I have burned on sunflower +5 flame height when its below zero for a few days in arrow and I easily can go through 3+ bags a day on that setting. The trade off is a lot of heat which keeps the wife happy

 

[hyfire]

SorrY I am confused Joe said to run -5 flame height and your saying +5 flame height? Which is correct.... A happy wife is a good thing...I;m told..lol