johnny1720 said:
Kroozer
I worked on a design team that re-developed a line of pellet stoves. I know the in's and out's of the versa grate systems. And they just don't work. The amount of ash you have below your grate is more than if you simply unplugged it for the week. Also you would not have any unburnt "wasted" pellet fuel below your grate if your grate was disabled. Look at the different stoves on the market and you will have clear understanding of why so few of the other MFG's use that system. It is another object that can break or cause a call back. And when it comes down to the functionality of that design it really does not work as well as you think it would.
But you want to believe what a salesman told you by all means go ahead and don't listen to the people designing stoves.
Johnny
I just don't agree... I never have any unburned pellets under the grate... those in the picture were dumped by the auger while I was waiting 30 seconds or so for the grate to move so I could remove it.
I doubt there are many stoves that will allow you to run for 10-14 days without scraping, cleaning or otherwise attending to the burn pot and still have a good running stove. I can't go that long using Uncle Jed's pellets... but I can using Eureka's or Bear Mountain since they both produce less ash than the UJ's... seven days is about max with my regular pellet.
There's room in this industry for many different products and designs... top feed, bottom feed, etc. No one design is perfect... no one opinion is correct all the time. I come from the automotive world where there's always new and different designs being developed. Maybe a new Maybach is the best car in the world but I really don't give a flying crap... I like my '56 Ford F100 with the supercharged Hemi... my stove is an older, low tech model and I like that.
I spoke with the SERVICE dept. at my dealer, too... the tech told me he prefers the St. Croix's over the other brands they sell...Harman, Enviro, Quad, Theilen, Lennox and others. Fewer problems and service calls. Since I used to be an ASE certified auto technician listening to the guys who repair the stoves was important.
I'd buy another St. Croix in a heartbeat... my stove is 9 years old. I've owned it for three seasons. Except for screwing around with damper settings and forgetting to tighten the ashpan resulting in a poor burn and a plugged stove (my fault) it's been almost perfect. Keep most any stove clean and it will give years of great service.
There are other stoves I'd look at, too... I'm not a "brand snob"... I try to buy the best product for the price.
No offense... but listening to just the designers would mean I could have also owned a Corvair, Vega, Pinto, Edsel, Yugo, Fiat, Chop-o-matic, Shamwows etc.
