I have a sunroom (13'x18") that I need to heat. I was considering getting a free-standing vented gas stove, but with the cost of installation, etc, I am thinking that a pellet stove might be a better option, as I could also heat the main part of my house with it (the dining room, living room and kitchen). And I don't need a chimney, just an outside wall to put a vent in.

I picked up some information on the Harmon Pellet Stoves, and am considering either the Accentra Pellet Stove or the Advance Pellet Stove. The dealer said he could give me a break on the Accentra stove, and will sell it to me for $2500 + tax including installation and 15 bags of pellets (which sell for $4/bag from the dealer). The Advance stove will be $3000 + tax including installation. I will be checking prices with another Harmon dealer who is a bit further away.

Here are the specs:
Accentra:
0-40000 BTU, 50 lb hopper capacity, 150 cfm blower, feed rate of .75 lbs/hr min to 4.75 lbs/hr max, 370 lbs weight,
heats up to 1450 sq ft of living space in the northeast. (I'm in Connecticut)

Advance:
0-48000 BTU, 60 lb hopper capacity, 135 cfm blower, feed rate of .75 lbs/hr min to 6 lbs/hr max, 250 lbs weight.

Is there any advantage of the Advance over the Accentra, other than it holds 10 more pounds of pellets, and will burn more pellets, and weighs less? If I can get the dealer to come down on the price of the Accentra (the retail prices have a difference of $200)

I also called another dealer in the area, who sells Quadra-Fire stoves, and says that they are a higher-end stove than the Harmon. He recommended the Quadra-Fire Castille with an installed price of $3035 + tax + hearth pad, with the following specs:
8000-30000 BTU, 40 lb hopper capacity, 160 cfm blower, feed rate of 1.5lbs/hr min to 4 lbs/hr max, 258 lbs weight, up to 1500 sq ft of heating capacity.

I noticed after typing in the specs that the Quadra-Fire seems to be more money for less capacity (both in BTU's and in hopper capacity), for more money. Are there any advantages of the Quadra-Fire over either of the Harmon models?

If I should stick to the Harmon (I know that will probably be Xanndra's recommendation), which model is best, and is there another model that would be better? I do like the idea of having auto-ignite.

Thanks for all advice!
Rhonda

Bottom-Feed (Harman) has the advantage of requiring less cleaning of the firepot area (it pushes out ash and clinkers as it feeds pellets). There is inherently more danger of fire in the hopper with a bottom feed stove; just because of the way they are designed. Harman is an excellent product, by the way.

Top-Feed (Quadra Fire and many others) require more frequent cleaning of the burnpot (usually daily). Ashes and clinkers basically "pile up" until you clean it out. There is very little danger of fire in the hopper; because the pellets drop down a tube to get to the firepot.

I think the Castille is the highest-end stove in Quadra Fire's lineup because it's cast iron. Their other stoves have more output (BTU's) and more hopper capacity, but they aren't cast iron. The Santa Fe (same size as you are looking at in the Castille) runs around $2,000. The Classic Bay is the large stove; around $2700.

Whichever you choose, good luck. Both are good companies and make good stoves. My Pool dealer that services our pool sells Harman; but we ended up buying a Quad because we got a heck of a good price ($1600 for a floor model). We've been happy with ours; but I'm sure we would have been happy with the Harman as well. Make sure your dealer knows the stove inside and out and can service them!

Total maintenance takes me about 5 min per day. I clean out the burn pot, clean the glass, and load it up with pellets. Our electric bills this year are HALF what they were last year!

I am waiting to hear from another dealer that I visited yesterday, for their sale price. They are having a sale today through the weekend. Since I am also considering a wood-buring insert (Regency I2400), I am hoping they will give me an even better deal if I get both at once. Hopefully I will know later today.

Rhonda

What is the voltage of the thermostat you bought from Lowes?
In the Santa Fe manual is specified that a 12 V is needed, but I did not find anyone working on this voltage, all of them were on 24V.

Thanks,
Gopo

Second choice, same math: 8 KBtu implies less efficient, but more believable.

Third, quadrafire: 7.5 KBtus, still less efficient, but also more believable.

If you can get Pellets at $4 per bag, and the bag is at least 40 pounds you are getting a better deal than Walmart offers. In any case, don't think for a minute pellets are cheaper than gas or oil. But, if you can get for $200 per ton it may be close.

I've given pellet inserts some consideration, but am moving toward updating my wood burning insert. While it doesn't have an automatic feed, and hardwood (better than softwood) is messy, if one can get good seasoned hardwood split and delivered for under $200 per cord the cost of heat will beat pellets by 40%, i.e., cost 40% less for fuel.

If you have natural gas, I would guess a direct vent NG heater would cost a lot less. If you have to install a new gas line from the "street" the guess didn't take that into account. I bet you can get some NG fireplace-like devices for about what a pellet stove costs. What am I missing?

I would tend to disagree with you on a couple counts.

I need to address some of your assumptions about BTU's, the btu rating on pellet stove's is for the btu input, not the output. The output of most stove's is an actual mystery. Many manufacturers claim an "overall" efficiency rating of 80% ish. So the companies who advertise these numbers take the combustion efficiency (nearly 100%), The electrical efficiency (nearly 100%), and most importantly the the heat exchange efficiency (varies greatly from stove to stove) and average them for the overall rating. The most important number is the heat exchange efficiency and Harman is dramatically better then Quadrafire in this deparement, you do not need to be a rocket scientist to know when it is running it has more hot air coming out the exhaust than out the heat exchangers. I would be shocked if a quad is over 50% heat exchange efficiency.

About the overall cost versus oil, electric, or gas, no contest if you have the right floor plan. Houses with open floor plans that will work with a central heating source will save a lot of money over oil particularly. If you house is chopped up and you have small opening from room to room it can be difficult to use a central heating source of any nature.

The only common fuels that rival pellets in cost would be coal or wood (but not at $200 a cord) A ton of pellets and a cord of wood have about the same BTU value, but wood stoves do not have the combustion efficiency or the heat exchange efficiency of their pellet stove counterparts. Wood burning is only cost effective when you have a cheap source of wood, like when you harvest it yourself.

@ $200 a cord you are going to pay more money for less, uneven heat, and do a lot more work to get that heat.

As for Harman vs Quad. The quad is a quality product, but it lacks the efficiency that you would expect from this type of appliance. The harman is more efficient when it comes to heat exchange. The Harman is one of the top names in pellet stoves, and so is quadrafire. I have owned both and the harman IMO is significantly better. The harman has a t-stat built in, and it is much more sophisticated the than the simple set back on and off. It senses how far behind it is and adjust the stove accordingly, it also slows down the stove before it hits its target temperature which equals a more constant room temperature as compared to the simple set back controls. The down side is it is not programmable.

Pellet stoves are among the best heating sources going in terms of cost and comfort. Pellets can be had in the off season for $170/ton, a typical 1400square foot house in the north east could expect to use 3 tons a season. That would be $510 a year for heat, that would buy you about 170 gallons oil.

One closing remark, when looking for a stove it is a long term investment, I would pay less attention to initial costs and get the most efficient, quality unit you can find. I would look at Harmon, Dell Point, and St. Croix.

Sky Rocketing Interest In Pellet Stoves (at least in my area):
I purchased my stove at Fuel and Flame in Woonsocket, RI. http://fuelandflame.com/ . At the beginning of June the store received an order of 48 stoves, 17 were Harman Accentra inserts. When the installer arrived with my stove on June 13th, he said they only had 4 Accentra inserts left at the store. He also said that the order of stoves for the Jul/Aug time frame had been pushed back by Harman to mid-Sept. because they can't keep up with demand. I only researched Harman and Quadrafire but, my advice to all who may read this, if you've made up your mind to buy a Harman, don't wait or put it off 'till next month. Do it today before the rush is on when the weather starts to turn!

Harman vs. Quadrafire:
Again, I only researched Harman and Quadrafire pellet stoves. Incidentally, I've heard through the grape vine that Quadrafire has bought-out Harman but I haven't seen this in print yet. Anyway, I know 10 people that have purchased pellet stoves in the last 5 years and only one of them bought a Quadrafire and he likes the Quad very much. The other nine bought Harman. Three of those nine people own two Harman pellet stoves (they have 4500+ sq ft homes). One of the nine (who has 2 Harman's) is a very close friend whose opinion I trust and is also a well respected home builder/developer in RI. He told me to not even look at any other stove but a Harman. You know, it is possible to research this stuff to death. But after telling me he's had one stove for 4 seasons and the other for 1 season without a problem and would do it all over again if given a second chance............. enough said, that was good enough for me, I bought a Harman as well.

Both brands have good and not so good aspects.
1. During a power outage, Harman requires a power inverter and a deep cycle battery to operate. I believe the Quad only requires just the deep cycle battery (probably uses DC motors). Either set-up will run the stove for about 8 hours with 1 properly sized battery. Add a second battery in parallel and get 16 hours etc. Also, quality power inverters are nearly silent. A mid-priced, properly sized, power inverter and a sealed, non-out-gassing, deep cycle battery will run about $600-$800. About what a mid-line, home owner version, gas generator would cost. At $4+/gal, I'm not even considering a gas generator with its noise and safety concerns (fire, CO poisoning etc). But you know, I can't remember the last time the power was out for more than 2 hours in my area. (Massive tree trimming program by the power company over the last few years). So maybe aspect #1 is moot.
2. All Harman's are cast iron. Some of the Quad's are all cast iron and some have only a portion of the stove that is cast iron.
3. Harman has only one pellet insert. Quad has four to pick from.
4. Harman pellet stoves are single fuel pellet stoves, Quad are multi-fuel pellet stoves.
5. There are more pro's and con's to each. Do your DD and find out what's best for your situation.

Pellet price and availability:
In my area, over the last 5-6 weeks, the price for premium hardwood pellets has gone up about $10 to $20/ton. While the increase in price stinks, it's not a huge amount to be concerned with. What gets my attention though, is the longer and longer delivery dates. I already have my pellets so I'm all set for the 08/09 season. Some of the pellet distributors are taking orders now (June) and can't deliver until September! One guy won't let you pay ahead to lock in the price at the current rate either. Ordering now only assures you that you will get pellets but not at the current price. (Sounds just like the oil man!) ;-) I am concerned though, about availability and price in the future. There's only a finite amount of saw dust created. You can't dig this stuff out of the ground. With the home building industry in the dumper (furniture and flooring is where most of the hardwood sawdust comes from)...... are we in for a shortage? Living in the Northeast, with a larger than average woodworking industry, people up here will probably be OK.

Anyway, my main reason for writing this is to convey my experiences from the last few weeks in my area. More and more people are inquiring about pellet stoves everyday. Fuel and Flame said better than half of the people that walk into the store are asking about pellet stoves. So if you're waiting to purchase a pellet stove and pellets.................DON'T WAIT TOO LONG.......or you'll be caught in the rush when it starts to get cool.

Hope I've helped you,
Carl in RI

thanks.

Hope I’ve helped,
Carl in RI

I know that we won't get one for this year but I'm thinking about what to do for the year after. Just had the oil company out to fill up the tank and it was almost exactly a grand. Ouch!

For a year I dithered between pellet and wood. I was going to put in a pellet stove last year, but circumstances prevented it. Glad it happened that way: it gave me more time to evaluate the options. A regular wood stove won out; I just ordered it and it will be installed in November. Because there is a huge demand for pellet stoves right now, wood stoves are easier to find. In my case, the delay is for scheduling the installation of the chimney, because all the chimney guys are booked so far in advance.

Here is why I decided on wood:

1. Businesses and corporations have or are switching to pellet and have contracts with pellet companies, which ties up a lot of product. Price of pellets have gone up and that is not likely to change. Availability of pellets depends on increasing manufacturing capacity and availability of raw materials. Though pellets can be made from non-wood materials, there is a huge question mark about how that is going to affect markets for other uses of those materials or the land needed to produce them.

2. Efficiency also needs to take into account the energy costs of manufacture, packaging, and transport. The fuel you choose may vary depending on these factors. I know that in some areas pellets are made of straw residue that otherwise would be burned. For folks in those areas, that might be a responsible choice. It wouldn't be for me.

3. I live in New England. At this point, pellets for home consumption are actually being imported from the midwest (at least it's not the mid-east!). With a wood stove, I am not dependent on a manufacturer. I am supporting local guys who earn their living cutting on sustainable woodlots. For years a lot of those woodlots went unmanaged because there wasn't a demand. Now there is a resurgence of small-scale local industry and jobs. I like that.

4. Electrical outages due to wind and ice and lightening strikes are not uncommon where I live, and sometimes last for several days or longer. My wood stove requires no electricity to run. I stay warm.

5. I did the math for me: the cost of the stove, chimney and installation (pro installation is required here) will be paid for within 3 years by the difference in fuel savings (assuming oil continues to cost what it does now). It would take a lot longer with a pellet stove, and with both stove and pellets costing more, I am not sure it would ever happen.

And ask any wood burner: after a while we develop an inbuilt sense of when it is time to stick another log in that's as automatic as any thermostat.

I bought this house over four years ago, and I think when I get that wood stove in, it will finally become home.

Dayle Ann

http://www.hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=121383

Quadrafire Mount Vernon insert. (60,000 btu)