My Wiseway non electric stove experience

[briansol]

Serious question:

Do you think your lower pellet consumption is due to daily clean out tasks and having to fiddle with it to get it burning again?

Have you marked oil consumption to match while you are in down time mode?

 

[Woodsmythe]

It seems the stove gives off more heat per unit of pellets but, due to the nature of the draft, as it loads up with ash it restricts the exhaust draft as well as the input draft thereby, reducing the intensity of the burn and the heat given off. The cleaning is simple, taking only 10 or 15 minutes, including relighting. One drawback is the lag time from shutting off the pellet supply, to the stove being out, is around an hour. Most days the oil will only run to do our hot water a little more than that on a day like today at 10 below and windy.

 

[pellet powered]

I joined the ranks of Wiseway owners about a month and a half ago. Overall I'd say I'm happy, maybe a 5 or 6 out of 10. We have an circa 1830 approx. 3000 sqft.brick farmhouse in Northern Vermont we are constantly improving. During our first winter the oil bill exceeded $1,000/ month December through February for hydronic baseboard. Something had to be done We have run a pellet stove in the basement and one on the first floor, fairly centrally located, for about 4 years. . We spend a lot of time in the same room with the first floor pellet stove and the noise problem was significant. When the downstairs stove ( an Austro-Flamm Integra) required another very expensive repair, the Wiseway, with no discontinued circuit boards and expensive sensors, seemed like the way to go. The set up was simple. It was a one for one swap with the stove we had on the first floor (it and it's noise moved to the basement). The Wiseway does have quite a learning curve to operate. I work from home and good and bad I'm always trying to "dial it in". It is higher maintenance than the other two stoves. It runs best clean, so while you may not have to clean it as often as I see fit the performance suffers.

For the most part our stoves are running 24/7 and I clean the Wiseway daily (a whisker more than a bag a day). Our former consumption was about 8 tons/ year. It's looking like the Wiseway will be helping reduce that amount. The heat production seems fine. Without a blower, we're playing with fans to move the heat around. The burn back issue is significant although experience with how the stove works will help with this. We have only had some smoke, no fires. I have found that balancing the "after-fire" air of the chimney and the "pre-fire" air of all the many in take points, is the key to smoke free operation. The Wiseway appears to take in to much "pre-fire" air and gives heat and smoke the tendency to rise into the pellet supply. In the manual Wiseway mentions adjusting the (primary air flow{ their term ], pre-fire air { my term } by moving the secondary burn plate out for more air, in for less. The problem with this is there is an intake port, that can be attached to an outside air supply, that enters this area at 90 degrees causing all sorts of turbulence and to much input. In my situation I can't access outside air and found if I place a pellet pipe clean out cap over the intake port it creates much better linear flow of pre-fire air over the burn basket, makes the secondary burn plate adjustment much more effective, and tips the balance drawing smoke and heat down towards the burn basket and up the chimney. Sorry for the length of this. Looking forward to questions.

I was glad to read that last sentence as I have some: Have you tried to open up the basket in the primary burn chamber? Alot of the trouble it sounds like you're having sounds like the trouble I had when I first purchased my WiseWay. I stretched the basket out EVENLY so it just barely fits back in the primary and now I have no draft issues. That's all the "dialing in" I had to do. Otherwise, I empty it once a day and run it hot twice a day- just like you would with any woodstove. The Wiseway is just like a woodstove with way less hassle and mess! Also, the ash build up is likely a pellet issue. What brand are you burning? BTW- I agree that the WiseWay uses less pellets. I was burning a solid bag and a half last year with a conventional pellet stove. I'm down to just a hair over a bag a day now.

 

[kenstogie]

I recently purchased a Pellet stove and at the time considered getting the Wiseway but didn't want to be the person figuring out how it worked... especially with fire involved. Needless to say I am glad to see others have bought them, LOVE the idea of a unit that "runs by itself" and may very well get one some day. I am watching threads like these carefully.

 

[Wiseway pellet stoves]

The 2nd hopper would smolder and on one unit I sold, a fire made it into the main storage hopper. We tried everything and couldn't get this to work properly or safely. I sold 8 of them and 4 had this problem. Three were not installed yet and the customers returned them for a refund. Just food for thought, do more research and remember, all of the reviews I see are from dealers, hummmm. I had one in my showroom burning and several times it had a hopper fire, or as Wiseway calls it "Burn Back"' We removed it and no longer sell them. There is nothing to prevent the pellet hoppers to catch on fire/smolder. Needs to go back to the drawing board, approach carefully.

Yes we had a issue with the first stoves going to the east coast. We had been selling out here on the west coast for a year and a half with no problems at all. All our pellets out here were Douglas fir. the ash is much lighter and fed from the secondary burn chamber to the ash tray with no problems. some of the hardwood pellets ash was more solid and would over time build up in the secondary burn chamber choking off the air supply and keep the pellets from feeding into the secondary burn chamber causing smoldering up the feed tube. When we heard of this we spent all our time trying to find a cure for this. first we directed our distributors to contact our dealers and have them contact us so we could send out seal kits free of charge and asked them to seal all the stoves they had sold and we would pay them for there time. If there was no oxygen there could not be any smoldering. Then we did many hours of testing with hardwood pellets some of our dealers sent from the east coast. Over a three week period we made several modifications to the stove. a different secondary burn plate with slots in it instead of holes and changed the angle of the secondary burn chamber from 45 degrees to 20 degrees so all the pellets from the primary burn chamber would fall all the way to the secondary burn plate. I don't know if this dealer was contacted by the distributor or not but again there can't be any smoldering up the feed tube if there is no oxygen he obviously did't seal the stoves or not properly if he did. If there is anyone with a Wiseway that is not sealed contact [email protected] and he will send you a seal kit free of charge along with instructions . the customers that have sealed there stoves are doing fine . I am very sorry for the troubles some of our cutomers on the east coast were having with the wiseway stove(out of the 300+ stoves we sold on the east coast only about 20 had problems) I'm not taking those 20 lightly just putting things in prospective The 20 stoves were either fixed or they had there money returned to them. Wiseway has a 5 year guarantee more than any other pellet stove on the market but in bad we find good and we now have a stove that burns hard and soft wood pellets very well and will be testing with Omni in the next 2 weeks.( when we change a stove it has to be retested before we can sell it) you will find that all pellet stoves have a problem with ash build up with some hardwood pellets. Sorry for such a long post but wanted people to here from us directly
Thanks
Gary
Inventor of the Wiseway pellet stove

 

[mikelcan]

OP here. I was asked about an update and if I were planning on using the stove this year in a PM. I responded to that but will also post it here.

I am still planning on using the wiseway this year. As for as a review. I burned 2 1/2 tons of pellets last year. I found that I got about 20 - 22 hours out of a bag when I burnt on low after the startup. I always let it get to about 600 before I would open the air control. I found that if I opened it around 350 or 400 it would cool off and settle around 250. If I waited it would settle around 350 - 400 which is where I wanted it. I work from home and fell into a routine where I would start the stove after lunch and let it run until it was out. I would then clean the ash tray and secondary burn plate and restart the stove. Weekly I would scrape out the burn tube as far as I could reach (to the first turn) using a spatula. I could see "fly ash" through the air control holes. All in all it heated fine for me and I had no real issues. I wish I would have waited to buy until this year and I would have bought one with the window. One of my wife's complaints is that you can not see the fire.

I however did not save as much money as I had hoped - only a couple hundred dollars which makes the pay back several years. But that has as much to do with my cheap electric rates and the fact that the previous winter we only turned on the baseboard heaters in rooms as we used them with a min temp of 50 to keep rooms at least bearable. By my figures year over year minus the cost of pellets I saved $219.

Mike

 

[velvetfoot]

But you're looking good if there's a power outage, right?

 

[UNhappyMagnumOwner]

Hi,

I had stated that I would do a post once I had some experience with my Wiseway stove.

First some background on my situation. My house is an 1950's ranch with average insulation for its age. The windows are primarily aluminum framed single pane sliding windows. The exception is the living room and kitchen where the windows are double pane aluminum non opening windows. I plan on adding insulation to the attic (blown fiberglass) next month. The house has electric baseboard heating in all rooms. We live on the Olympic Peninsula in WA state which has a moderate cool climate and great electric rates at 6.5 cents per Kwh. Last year with the baseboard we kept my office (I work from home) and living room on a low setting turning them up when we were in those rooms. So really only one baseboard unit was on at a time. My wife would also turn on the one in her craft area when in use.

In looking for a stove we wanted something to back up the electricity during an outage as well as adding to our comfort level without costing more. I know that in some areas of the country just replacing electricity with pellets is enough. Since we are conservative in our electric usage we only added 150 a month for Feb last year to our summer cost. We only have a window AC for one bedroom so the summer cost is what I am using as a baseline. At 200 a ton for pellets we need to have a bag last 1.5 days to meet that goal.

Stove installation was done by the dealer. It was the first one he installed in a house. Likewise it was the first one the inspector saw. The stove was installed with an OAK, which is actually required here in my county so I had no choice on that. The installer used 3 inch duravent pellet pipe with two 45 degree elbows in the attic to gain clearance from the rafter. The ceiling joist and rafter did not line completely up with where we positioned the stove. Total chimney height from the stove to cap is 15 feet (3 - 5 ft sections, 2 45 elbows, cap, stove adapter, ceiling box, roof flashing). The stove was installed on a modular hearth that provides ember protection and meets the clearances from the manual.

Now for the stove review.

The first thing to note about this stove is it behaves more like a wood stove than a pellet stove. It seems obvious to state that since there is no auger feeding pellets, no combustion motor, no thermostat, etc the stove behaves like a wood stove where draft is important. I follow the lighting procedure from the manual that is to use a propane torch, let it run for a minute or so with no pellets to get a draft going, then add pellets and let the torch continue until the temp hits 300 degrees on the flue thermometer at which time I remove the torch and put the burn chamber door on.

At first (I made some adjustments noted later) if I left the stove on high (air damper closed) it would reach max temperature of + 700 degrees on the flue thermometer in about 20 minutes. If I opened the air damper putting the stove on low when it was at 300 degrees the stove rose to 450 in 20 minutes. On low it would slowly climb to 600 degrees after 2 - 3 hours. The pellet usage on high or low was 11 - 14 hours a bag. I felt this was a bit high and posted on the Wiseway forum and received guidance on either using a barometric damper or ordering the low heat basket. At this time I have not done either, although I think I will order the basket.

What I did do however was to make an unrecommended adjustment to my current basket. I found some old threads on that forum that mentioned that the basket should have 5/16 gaps in it. When I measured mine one was at 3/8ths the other two were a loose 5/16ths. So I tightened my gaps up to 5/16ths and have been pleased with the results. First I noticed that on high the stove will climb to 550 in 20 minutes and only reaches 650 after a couple of hours. On low the stove stabilizes around 400 degrees. I can adjust the air so that I can maintain 450, 500, 550. This is why I stated the stove performs more like a traditional wood stove and not a pellet stove. The usage seems to be about 2 pounds per hour on low and 3.5 on high now. Since I was not planning on burning 24x7 I believe that I can meet my stretching a bag over a day and a half.

I did include a picture since I am aware of the internet adage that without pictures it did not happen.

 

[UNhappyMagnumOwner]

I was just wondering if this stove has gotten any better our local store has picked up the line and we were wondering if it is better than our Baby Magnum Country side. The Baby needs about $2000 to run solar in these parts

 

[Tails1]

I personally wouldn't buy one as I think they are over priced but that's me. I see your in Canada and you have a dealer selling them up here now? How much in Canadian money are they?

 

[UNhappyMagnumOwner]

I personally wouldn't buy one as I think they are over priced but that's me. I see your in Canada and you have a dealer selling them up here now? How much in Canadian money are they?

About the same price as the Baby but if it run's quiet and without electric. I could sleep through the house burning down! much better

 

[Tails1]

I personally wouldn't buy one as I think they are over priced but that's me. I see your in Canada and you have a dealer selling them up here now? How much in Canadian money are they?

A quick search shows Home Hardware selling them now at 2599.00 Canadian. Must be ordered online. For that kind of money one can consider a Harman which is the top of the line. I wish they would start carrying Serenitys as I would buy one of those over one of these.

 

[UNhappyMagnumOwner]

The local Kent store has them for $1900. Canadian do help solve problems and back what they sell

 

[cogger]

The local Kent store has them for $1900. Canadian do help solve problems and back what they sell

$1,500 Tractor Supply. The inventor seems to have sold out to USSC, which list on their website out of stock. After researching 6 hours today I have decided to buy an try. My old NEw englander pellet stove has seen it days and needs a overhaul, Both blowers are shot.

 

[MacSierra]

$1,500 Tractor Supply. The inventor seems to have sold out to USSC, which list on their website out of stock. After researching 6 hours today I have decided to buy an try. My old NEw englander pellet stove has seen it days and needs a overhaul, Both blowers are shot.

Tractor Supply here in Minden Nevada is 1,605 + freight and tax which puts it over 1800.00. The Wiseway is manufactured in china now and that brought the price down a bit.. Don't know if that's good or bad...

I have two 10 year old Breckwell's and just today had to cannibalize the old one to keep the newer one going.. LOL.. The new stoves in the Breckwell price range are identical to the Breckwell's I have now so it's easier to buy parts and keep at least one going. Better blower motors, augers and boards are available as replacements now as well..

I'm looking for another stove to replace the one I pulled out of service last winter and maybe the Wiseway would work as I have a vertical 4" pellet flue already in place in a large room with plenty of air available. Without forced induction clean hot burning pellets are a must from what I have been reading in the Wiseway's. A basic understanding of combustion physics is also helpful using them... Also, US Stove has said they made some improvement tweaks to the #1949 unit.. Home Depot here has Wiseway's for 1605.00 and free freight + tax..

 

[Deezl Smoke]

Tractor Supply here in Minden Nevada is 1,605 + freight and tax which puts it over 1800.00. The Wiseway is manufactured in china now and that brought the price down a bit.. Don't know if that's good or bad...

I have two 10 year old Breckwell's and just today had to cannibalize the old one to keep the newer one going.. LOL.. The new stoves in the Breckwell price range are identical to the Breckwell's I have now so it's easier to buy parts and keep at least one going. Better blower motors, augers and boards are available as replacements now as well..

I'm looking for another stove to replace the one I pulled out of service last winter and maybe the Wiseway would work as I have a vertical 4" pellet flue already in place in a large room with plenty of air available. Without forced induction clean hot burning pellets are a must from what I have been reading in the Wiseway's. A basic understanding of combustion physics is also helpful using them... Also, US Stove has said they made some improvement tweaks to the #1949 unit.. Home Depot here has Wiseway's for 1605.00 and free freight + tax..

In my personal experience, it is not the fact that is made in China that matters. It is how the factories in China are ordered to make them by the American and European companies that matters. China can make some fine products when and if they are ordered to. Perhaps, similar to the Castle brand, the Wiseway is ordered to meet realistic quality? Time and forum discussion will tell.

 

[JRemington]

I had a customer come in the store yesterday who had bought one at Tractor Supply and couldn't get it to work. His chimney he installed went up three feet and 90d out the wall and then a 90 up one foot. He has cathedral ceilings so based on common sense I told him to go straight up 10 feet inside and then just one 90 and go out one foot and cap it. Should that chimney work for him? It appears there is no customer service with these stoves.

 

[Mt Bob]

I had a customer come in the store yesterday who had bought one at Tractor Supply and couldn't get it to work. His chimney he installed went up three feet and 90d out the wall and then a 90 up one foot. He has cathedral ceilings so based on common sense I told him to go straight up 10 feet inside and then just one 90 and go out one foot and cap it. Should that chimney work for him? It appears there is no customer service with these stoves.

It might burn ok,but IMHO should be installed same as a wood stove,flue above roof line,as it is a natural draft stove.I think of them as wood stoves you cannot put wood in.

 

[Landspeeder]

My propane furnace is down for repairs, so being in Canada and its cold here I looked into a main source. The wiseway stove is the one we picked. They are quite expensive up here but living near the MI border I went to a Tsc store and got one for $1300. Even at 30% on the dollar it's a super deal. Got some 3inch pipe etc. and hooked it up. It's been a month, my place is 2200 sq feet and the stove is holding at 18c.. It's been down to 22c outside... At that point I added a couple whole room radiator heaters to help. You have to learn this stove, I've had it go out, run at 350, smoke a bit etc. Main thing is to clean it, I pull the chimney pipe off the top and put small diameter vac pipe down it to get the upper pipe and vacuum the lower. Scrape the burn basket clean and it will run at 600f all the time. I am using it 24/7 .. I use a bag and a half a day, not as cheap as gas, but not bad. Hopefully furnace is working soon, part backorder, but this stove is OK in my books

 

[Landspeeder]

We live in a old one room school house that different owners, over the years, have made changes that makes it hard to believe that it was a school. It's over 100 years old and building codes then we're not like today's. Anyways the 3in pipe comes off the stove starting with a elbow, runs horizontal 3ft then another elbow, then a 6 ft horizontal run to a 6in pipe adapter, then a 6in elbow and straight up the old chimney, that's 16ft ,and out.
I did the feather up the pipe test for draft, feather disappeared, hooked it up and it works awesome. People a 100yrs ago build great chimneys. So bottom line is keeping the stove clean... Also make sure that you have a good chimney.

 

[kyenski9iron]

Hi there all! So this is my first post to this forum. I bought the wiseway pellet stove last year with the hopes of using it as a primary heat source for our house (1900 farm house). The house has forced hot air, but fuel oil is too Damn expensive. We followed the reqs when installing, and started running it. Was not impressed at all with the heat from it. Little did I know that this stove was made for soft wood pellets, and here I am trying to burn hardwoods. So once I switched to the the easy blaze blend it ran much much better, but still not too impressed with its heat output. Was losing a ton up the chimney. Oh well I ran it for a winter with that set up: easyblaze blend, 8ft of 4" pipe with no bends, and no outside air intake. It ran decent but not great.

This winter, we did some upgrades. We added a Magic Heat inline with the stove pipe. Used a 3 x 6 adapter off the flu, then put the magic heat in, then reduced it back to 4 in with a 6x4 adapter. Ran 4in pipe another 8ft up. Added on the outside air intake. Ran this about 3 ft from stove. WOW What a difference, this stove just cranks out the heat. We've only been in the low 30s so far but my furnace has yet to kick on. And right now I'm getting about 20 hours per bag on med to high heat setting. Straight high setting is more like 14 hours. I've attached a pic so you can see the set up, hopefully it comes through. Anyway, its a 2 thumbs up for me.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

Hi there all! So this is my first post to this forum. I bought the wiseway pellet stove last year with the hopes of using it as a primary heat source for our house (1900 farm house). The house has forced hot air, but fuel oil is too Damn expensive. We followed the reqs when installing, and started running it. Was not impressed at all with the heat from it. Little did I know that this stove was made for soft wood pellets, and here I am trying to burn hardwoods. So once I switched to the the easy blaze blend it ran much much better, but still not too impressed with its heat output. Was losing a ton up the chimney. Oh well I ran it for a winter with that set up: easyblaze blend, 8ft of 4" pipe with no bends, and no outside air intake. It ran decent but not great.

This winter, we did some upgrades. We added a Magic Heat inline with the stove pipe. Used a 3 x 6 adapter off the flu, then put the magic heat in, then reduced it back to 4 in with a 6x4 adapter. Ran 4in pipe another 8ft up. Added on the outside air intake. Ran this about 3 ft from stove. WOW What a difference, this stove just cranks out the heat. We've only been in the low 30s so far but my furnace has yet to kick on. And right now I'm getting about 20 hours per bag on med to high heat setting. Straight high setting is more like 14 hours. I've attached a pic so you can see the set up, hopefully it comes through. Anyway, its a 2 thumbs up for me.View attachment 231806

Again, I hit the like button, but can only hit it once. I wish I could hit it a hunnerd times.
Thank you very much for sharing this experience. I am amazed how much better it runs with your chimney changes. But this stove relies pretty heavy on a correct chimney design. No combustion fan to compensate.

 

[kyenski9iron]

I completely agree with you, this stove really does seem to be all about Its chimney set up. I really was unsure if reducing it back to 4in was the best idea or continue from the magic heat with 6in pipe. But the 4in seems to do the trick.

I also can't stress enough about the pellet choice. I know every stove acts different but my God...I think I went through 7 or 8 pellet companies before I found the easyblaze. Now that being said I tried both. I tried the easyblaze blend and the easyblaze super premium (just softwood) and damned if that stove didn't run like crap with the super premium. I put the blend in next and it burned hard!! There was so much more heat with the blend. So I will at times pick up a couple bags of drycreek or barefoot and mix that with the easyblaze and it really does seem to burn hotter.

 

[kyenski9iron]

Oh I forgot to add this, cleaning is a definite as I'm sure anyone that has this stove knows. But I think I'm going to add a second door to my stove. I'm a CNC guy and have access to a plasma cutter. I can completely clean the 1st and 2nd elbows but its hard to do the top. I already have a second door ( took glass out and welded a solid piece back in. Now next spring I'm going to cut a second door opening on top tubing and make that just an access door to clean it more thoroughly.

 

[TheGirlofallTrades]

A few questions for you if you don't mind...
First off, I loved your posts here!! And that picture was fantastic! (Yes, I would also hit the "Like" button 100x if I could.) I have been doing so much research on this stove and am ready to buy one, but am trying to figure out a few things. If you were to start over and install this Wiseway stove in a rancher, straight thru the roof, would you go with 6" pipe all the way? I see your modification, the Magic Heat, then reduced back down to 4". I am starting from scratch, so I was wondering if you would recommend 4" or 6", now that you've used it for a while and know that the updraft is so important.
Also, I have the easiest access to hardwood pellets, (I work at Lowe's), should I even bother with the hardwood pellets, or try to find a place that sells softwood and go with only softwood...?? If I'm going to be frustrated with the issues that come with hardwood pellets, as I'm reading about on so many reviews, I would rather not even get them.

Thank you so much in advance if you get to reply to this.