My opinion is - Turn it on and let it go. Shut it down for cleaning. A hot stove is doing it's job and a cold is not.

It depends on the stove design. My stove (Quadrafire) is designed to run off a thermostat. We have it on a digital one with night temp setback and love it. On the thermostat the stove will run for a few hours in the morning until the house is up to temp. Then it cycles on every couple hours to keep it warm.

Sorry, forgot to answer all the questions. Cycling via will definitely end up in less running hours for exhaust, blower and auger motors. That's less wear and less electricity consumed.

I have a Quadrafire, and they only work with a thermostat - you can't use them without one. I absolutely love the thermostat feature! It came with a cheapie little Lux brand thermostat, but I replaced it with a digital programmable one from Lowes - cost about $20. I have it set back a little at night time and during the day when we're not there - so the stove doesn't burn quite as much.

It's awesome - the stove turns itself on & off as needed - all I do is clean out the burnpot once a day and clean the glass, and add pellets. Takes about 5 minutes a day or less.

Is it difficult to install the thermostat? Is it a lot of opening up the wall to install wires?

Do you like your quadra? Is it a MtVernon or other model? My husband and I are looking at a Mt. Vernon but it has gotten a lot of bad reviews.
Opinion?
Tammyest