No problem, Mike, and thank you for responding- you're not raising any doubts or questions that we haven't already entertained, especially when we discovered that Avalon apparently putting out more heat.
It's not unusual to fail to recognize blessings (in this case, apparently, the btu's generated are mostly staying inside the living areas of the house, i.e. we are retaining the heat produced) when one doesn't yet fully understand the math and the physics involved in the equation.
After four years of pellet stove ownership I will freely admit that I'm still on that learning curve. I understand the form and function better now than I did when we started, but I will freely admit that I'm still learning the finer points and even some of the simpler points. It never occured to me until today that maybe I need to know *exactly* how many pounds we are burning an hour, and what that does for the btu output- simple but I just never thought about it before. On the other hand, as you've pointed out, if we are extracting enough heat to maintain and even raise the temperature in a 1420 sq ft house by burning just under 2 lbs of pellets per hour, we don't necessarily have a problem, we might just have a really efficient stove, or a well-enough insulated house, or some combination of both.
I know that previous issues with maintaining the heat in the house were directly related to inadequate insulation in the attic. Adding insulation in the attic made a HUGE difference. Thermal curtain panels over the cell shades over the double paned windows blocked convective cooling that we experienced around the edges of the cell shades a couple of winters ago, during that long stretch of sub-freezing temps both day and night, and thick area rugs on the wooden floors helped as well. Since then the pellet stove has carried the house much better.
Nevertheless, if Napoleon says that a feed rate of 4 equals 4 lbs. an hour, then the feed rate at 4 should be somewhere around 4 lbs. an hour. Even allowing for the 20% decrease in feed rate with small pellets, as noted in the owner's manual, we should have a burn rate of at least 3.2 lbs. an hour, or about 3 lbs. an hour- or 72 lbs. - 76.8 lbs. in a 24 hour period- or two bags in 24 hours. We've never burned through two bags in a 24 hour period during a continuous 24 hour burn.
Right now we are at 28.75 hours and there are *still* pellets left in the hopper, see below. Not many, but the hopper isn't empty yet. I bet we hit midnight, 30 hours, before we burn through 55 lbs.
So, to answer this question, I have sent an email to Napoleon, asking about this discrepancy. I think it's a fair question.
I'm a bit of a physics geek (I understand delta T and heat dissipation) and I'm married to an IT geek. We love numbers.
To that end, see my highly scientific candy thermometer stuck in the far left convection blower outlet, the "hot" side, of the stove. When I took the pictures, the thermometer read about 325'F. Right now it is at 310'F, but a few minutes ago, it was at 330'F. I guess the temp is varying with the height of the flame in the burn cycle. At any rate, I can't complain about a temp output of over 300'F, regardless of feed rate.
And the temperature in the house is rising, without any assistance from the HVAC. Again, can't complain!
Thank you again, Mike and Smokey... and glocke12, if you are still out there, I hope this discussion is helping you parse through the variables with your stove and set up... don't give up on it!