PE Summit LE for me?

[snaple4]

One of our local shops has a PE summit LE base model. No ash pan or blower. It has legs. They have it marked down to 1600 but said they might go just a bit lower to get rid of it before the epa date. I know these are well built stoves but I don’t know what a good price for this is (I have been eyeing a BK or Woodstock but don’t have 3-4 grand).

Can these stoves work well on low output? Can you add a ash pan to these if it doesn’t have one? I have a cheap Summers Heat 2k and use the ash pan a lot.

 

[begreen]

That's a great price for a great stove. FWIW, we haven't used the ash pan for a long time. The Summit is a pretty flexible burner. If draft is sufficient it will burn cleanly with a 3-4 split fire. Our friends up north have heated their place solely with a Summit for the past decade and love it.

PS: Will this replace the Englander or is it for another location? If a replacement, why?

 

[snaple4]

It would be a replacement. Mainly because the SH isn’t very controllable, doesn’t seem very efficient, can’t take the longer splits I have without going at an angle, we keep hitting the thin baffle board, and I am constantly having to reset the door pins or something else. Don’t get me wrong, I am very thankful to have the SH; It does heat the house, it was for a great price, and it looks nice. If I can’t scrounge up enough to buy it or they sell it then I will happily keep the SH till I can get a better stove.

The shop said they are worried this may over heat the house. If I load this up and turn it to low will it put out that much more heat than my 2.45 cuft SH?

 

[begreen]

Well, Arkansas is not like Wisconsin, but our climate is mild too and we are heating with the T6 which is the same firebox. How large an area is the SH heating? How is the comfort level?

Design-wise the Summit's baffle is awesome. It's tough and easy to clean and remove. Also, the firebox floor doesn't have the front hump that the SH 001 has.

 

[snaple4]

The living room is 24x20x8 and is open to the dining room and kitchen which measures about 30x10x8.

Comfort so far has been good. A few days it didn’t quite do so well and some others it did get a bit too warm. The air control is nearly impossible to tell where you are. Even when shutting it all the way down I rarely get just 2nd burn only.

 

[snaple4]

I guess my big question is if I should get this stove for around that price or continue to save up another 2-3 years for a BK or WS.... If I do buy this stove a new stove will be out of the question for a long time.

 

[begreen]

Do you heat solely with wood? Do you have a heatpump?

 

[snaple4]

Do you heat solely with wood? Do you have a heatpump?

I have a 2 stage furnace on propane. I might Frankenstein my condenser and turn it into a HP this fall but not sure I want to put that much effort into it. I want to heat primarily with wood and just leave the back rooms to use the furnace only as needed. This year my wood was still on the moist side (1 year hardwood) so I didn’t burn 24/7 (but it was on the colder days).

I shot for 78-80 in the LR and that kept the bedrooms around 68. I did not use a fan in the hallway much so I could probably keep the bedrooms warmer if I tried.

 

[begreen]

Your call. The Summit won't put out a lot more heat than the SH unless you want it to. You can run it like a 2 cu ft stove in milder weather. In very cold weather if you want it to, it will run hotter and longer with good dry hardwood. Fully seasoned wood being the key, regardless of stove choice.

 

[snaple4]

Thank you begreen for you info. I’ll call them the back at the beginning of the week and see if I can get the price down to something I can buy it for.

I did notice the efficiency of Summit is 74% my SH is listed as 72. Some reason I thought the PE stoves were closer to 80? Would there be much difference in wood usage with only a 2% difference?

Your call. The Summit won't put out a lot more heat than the SH unless you want it to. You can run it like a 2 cu ft stove in milder weather. In very cold weather if you want it to, it will run hotter and longer with good dry hardwood. Fully seasoned wood being the key, regardless of stove choice.

 

[begreen]

Thank you begreen for you info. I’ll call them the back at the beginning of the week and see if I can get the price down to something I can buy it for.

I did notice the efficiency of Summit is 74% my SH is listed as 72. Some reason I thought the PE stoves were closer to 80? Would there be much difference in wood usage with only a 2% difference?

Not for that difference, but you might use more wood if the winter is colder and you need more heat. The new Summit LE is a bit more efficient @ 74%.

 

[Nigel459]

One of our local shops has a PE summit LE base model. No ash pan or blower. It has legs. They have it marked down to 1600 but said they might go just a bit lower to get rid of it before the epa date. .....

Are you sure it's an LE model? Something is not adding up here as the LE is the new model, which they can sell after May 15... if I'm not mistaken. Maybe they're just marking things down in general at the end of the season.

 

[snaple4]

Are you sure it's an LE model? Something is not adding up here as the LE is the new model, which they can sell after May 15... if I'm not mistaken. Maybe they're just marking things down in general at the end of the season.

I may have said LE incorrectly then. It is the base model pre-2020.

 

[begreen]

So, I did a small fire today, even though I thought the season was over. It was 45º this am. This was a 4 split fire started at 8am. At 11am the house is cozy, but not too hot. 70º in my office, 73º in the living room and 71º in the kitchen. Stove temp is slowly declining. Peak temp was around 525º, now at 400º Outside is now 53ª and partly sunny so I will let the stove die out. If it was a cloudy day with a high of 50º I could put on a split or two around 1pm.

 

[kennyp2339]

I say pull the trigger on the PE, repaint and sell the Summers heat on craigslist next fall when demand is higher, use that money to offset the PE for more savings. I think with the pe you will have more control of the fire, I'm not a big flat gasket kind of guy and feel that a knife edge gasket around the door is far superior for redeced leakage giving better overall control of the burn.

 

[begreen]

If there is leakage at the door gasket, something is wrong. The Alderlea T6 has the same firebox but without the knife-edge seal. The door gasket is much narrower on the Alderlea with the flat seal. 3/8" vs 7/8". It works fine. I've run both stoves and they have an equal amount of control. The key to the good seal is the OEM gasket.

 

[Highbeam]

The integrity of the gasket on a noncat is not quite as important as the door seal on your cat stove Kenny. The cat can be damaged by an air leak on a cat stove and in fact that leak is supposed to cause 95% of premature cat failures. The noncat has no such weakness and its firebox operates on a surplus of air from all of the uncontrolled air inlets such as the very common, though not on this summit, doghouse air hole located just inside the door and dumping air into the fire.

I think both gasket types, flat or knife edge, can work fine if the door and stove are flat.