Ugly rear ends

[Lake Girl]

Ex: Calculate the cost lay out of the pellet set up and then how much more for the gas unit. Sorry to confuse but we love our pellet stoves around here but also try to offer Gents like yourself up front and honest scenarios also. ...
If you go with a gas conversion you will spend more, mess with nothing, and not have a fire to sit in front off.

My sister has had two NG fireplaces installed in her Craftsman home - one in the living room; one in the basement family room. Electric baseboards originally and could have gone with a NG furnace but wanted the ambiance of the fire... Haven't seen the basement one yet but the upstairs one has a beautiful oak mantel that is consistent with the original woodwork of her home.

So, as bags said, everyone has preference/reasons...

 

[BronxBoy]

This has been an interesting journey and having this forum has clarified my thinking. I started on a "save the world" frequency and now I see that this is a budding hobby which my wife and I will enjoy.

 

[BronxBoy]

Just to bring closure, we bought a (broken link removed to http://www.ebay.com/itm/Comfortbilt-HP22-Pellet-Stove-Fireplace-50000-btu-Special-Intro-Pricing-/321561043364?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ade8821a4). It was on sale this weekend for $999 with $99 shipping.

It is far from the pretty multi-fuel thing we had originally envisioned but it puts out a lot of heat for a low price and the purchase and delivery process was easy.

Based on the feedback we received here, pellet stove heating may or may not be for us. If we find we love it, and with a season of heating behind us, we can purchase a dream unit next year. If we find chickenman was right afterall, we will have saved some oil money after a season, have a stove we can sell on Craigslist, and walk away with just having to patch up a hole in our wall.

Thank you everyone for your help in this process.

 

[Ashful]

Re: ugly stove back... You live in the Bronx. You're not used to ugly, yet? [emoji12]

 

[BronxBoy]

Joful, c'mon Philly and the Bronx got to stick together!

The Bronx is beautiful with more parks than any other boro in NYC. Pelham Bay Park is the largest park in the city, dwarfing Central Park. We had a beautiful autumn:

And the people here are truly beautiful

My stove and pellets get delivered today (the hearth pad came yesterday). Installation right after TG. Can't wait. My next door neighbor (mirror image of our semi-attached home) is very excited about the stove idea and is considering doing the same thing.

One pellet dealer has 8 clients in the Bx, the local stove man says he is installing 1 or 2 stoves a week in the Bronx. So we might become the capital of stoves!

 

[Pascal_Maertens]

pS45 is pretty, lots of options.

Thanks for understanding my situation--a bit. No cornfields in the Bronx but plenty of garbage. In fact it's our #1 export. My hunch is that as wood pellets become more popular and prices go up, bio fuels from things like urban recyclables will be a wave of the future.

One more Q, gents. Thin is a plus in a 15ft wide room. Any suggestions about low depth stoves? Again my wish list is quiet, low maintenance, multi-fuel, pretty and thin.

Could make it to the St. Croix dealer today, perhaps tomorrow. Is it true about their poor service? I will check out Thelin.

BTW, Chickenman, my wife was showing stove brochures to our daughter)in-law.

well try to find a good Piazzetta dealer, there not multi fuel but they are very good looking, they are slim and very efficiant there is also models with separat blowers for extra rooms that can be run at different speed

 

[BronxBoy]

Don't know why this posts sideways or upside down.

Installation is next week.

 

[BronxBoy]

The technician came on Tuesday to scope the place and give an estimate.

I could have kissed the guy, or at least pht him on payroll. He walked in and saw the stove and the wife, first thing he said was, "What a beautiful stove!" He asked what I paid for it and after I told him he said, "What a grew price for this quality stove." When he saw the placement if the stove and the hearthboard he said, "What a great location, perfect!" "Boy, you guys are going to live this stove and you're going to save so much on your heating bill!"

Any remaining pieces of my wife's skepticism just melted away and she beamed.

 

[Ashful]

Any remaining pieces of my wife's skepticism just melted away and she beamed.

You've done good. Took me 3 seasons to get the wife fully behind it, the primary objection being the time required to harvest and process wood.

 

[bags]

Wait until she feels the cozy heat and gets all warm and fuzzy. Then you have it beat without a doubt.

 

[gfreek]

Looks real nice...get that stove fired up..

 

[BronxBoy]

Link Removed

 

[BronxBoy]

Finally up on Friday. Great installation process (Advanced Chimney) in NY.

Had to increase the exhaust voltage a couple of notches to accommodate the Lowe's Nature Heat brand. Glenn Turley, the Comfortbilt dealer, has been great to work with. He responds right away to my texts.

Glenn suggests that we set the thermostat to 63...but the first floor has been at a very comfortable 75-77. Weather in NYC has been mild (36-40). We will see what happens when we get a cold spell but the stove is keeping the hole house comfortable (except the basement, natch).

Did my first maintenance so I feel like a pro.

My wife is VERY pleased so far!

I have a few questions but will save for followup post. Thanks for all of your help.

 

[johneh]

Dang wish I could get my stove to hang from the ceiling like that
Just kidding nice stove keep warm
Maybe a nice mod will turn it around for you ! THE PICTURE

 

[bags]

Great! I was wondering if it was a real deal. That stove will keep your place toasty in the coldest temps.

 

[gfreek]

I was wondering how you were making out, looks real nice, enjoy the heat.. Update us occasionally..

 

[F4jock]

Kudos!

 

[BronxBoy]

Thanks. will do.

 

[BronxBoy]

It's now part of my morning routine: shut the stove down, wait 30 minutes for it to stop, dump and clean the burn pot, vacuum the interior and ash tray, clean the glass. Takes about 15 minutes including the trip up and downstairs to fetch the ash pail and ash vacuum. No big deal. And my wife is still very, very happy.

Weather has been 30-40 degrees these two past weeks. Will have to observe what happens when the weather gets colder. Glenn had advised me to get hardwood pellets but, alas, none were available for delivery here in the Bronx and I would have to pick them up myself in Long Island or NJ. So I'm burning L's softwood pellets. I have no measure of comparison but I've gone through about 40% of a ton already which seems excessive to me given the mild winter so far. The ash is not bad but each morning there are clinkers in the burn pot.

My only complaint so far is the temperature readout on the controller which is always 10-degrees off. My guess is that there is faulty centigrade-to-fahrenheit conversion formula in the software. When I have some time I will see whether the centrigrade reading is accurate.

Question to chickenman: how do I check for fine ash build up in the horizontal section of the flue?

Thanks, guys, and have a great holiday.

 

[bcarton]

I'm not expert enough to help you here, but your stove should be just about roasting you out of your 1200 sq ft home at the rate you're burning pellets. I'm burning barely over a bag a day, in roughly the same temps you're having lately, and it's very warm here in my house. It sure sounds like you're not getting the benefit of the heat your stove is generating.

Hopefully some of the more experienced folks here can chime in and guide you to getting more out of your stove. Is your stove's manual available online for download somewhere?

 

[BronxBoy]

Hi everyone,

A Happy New Year to all the great burners here.

Really enjoying the stove and so is my wife. The house is ideally heated for our needs.

Following chickenman's advice we are keeping the stove on low and letting the oil burner share some of the load. Glenn has been super supportive and we have fiddled around with some of the controller settings. I will post them when I get a chance.

So here are some unintended observations:
1- Residue. We notice a very thin film of dust around the house since we started burning. Is this normal for all pellet stoves? The dealer wants us to check the vent joints to make sure silicon caulking was used during the installation. Will check on Wednesday.
2- The basement. An unintended consequence is that the basement is chilly (60-65) despite the hot water baseboard heating we have there. I guess we underestimated the contribution of the steam pipe that runs through the basement ceiling before it hits the radiators upstairs. We keep a couple of electric heaters on just to take the edge off. Any suggestions?
3- Clinkers. Tomorrow we are going upstate where we can pick up some hardwood bags of pellets. Maybe the change of pellets will result in fewer clinkers.

Thanks again, guys!

 

[bags]

A 50K BTU pellet stove should be able to cook you out of 1,200 SQ FT with no other heat sources unless you have a window open or very poor insulation, bad windows and doors, and things like that. You speak of a basement or going down stairs. How big is that? Another 1,200 below? If so you have a 2,400 SQ FT area. I know places are smaller in New York for various reasons. Is your place truly 1,200 SQ FT? If so your stove using that many pellets and other supplemental heat being used also then you might need some adjustments. All I am saying is that a 50 K BTU pellet stove should be more than enough to heat that space more than toasty without other heat sources.

I think the residue or dust you might be mentioning could be from the fine puff clouds you can get when dumping pellets into the hopper. If your exhaust vent was leaking you would know. Anything is possible but pay attention as you load the hopper. Wipe areas off just before next loading. Then after the loading go back some time later and look at the fine dust film that is acquired from dust in the pellet bag. Just tossing out possibilities.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Everytime I see the thread title....'ugly rear ends' I think of a fat girl's rear view.....

 

[Snowy Rivers]

From a girls perspective, well a country girl anyway.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKS ?????????????????? MY GAWD.

WARM IS THE KEY WORD

I have never seen any pellet appliance that looks nice out back.

I have an idea.

A lovely pair of cool little light weight fabricated walls that are maybe 3 inches thick and the same height at the stove (one on each side) and Faux paint them to look like brick, stone or whatever she likes.

These can be placed as close to the stove as the clearance specs allow and fastened to the house wall with a couple little brackets/screws.

Sort of a quicky alcove if you will.

I have done the faux paint thing around one of our stoves, and it does wonders.

Here is a piccy of one of our installs

Good luck

Snowy

 

[woodmakesheat]

Is that the full size of the house?
If so Mr b is right, no more than a bag/day.
How is your insulation?

A bag a day is the equivalent of maybe 3 1500 Watt space heaters (closer to 2 counting efficiency losses.)

But since I have a full basement, I guess I'm heating 3000 sq ft with 2+ bags a day.

I like this new math!