Small/slim stove

If you want to get away from the looks of a euro style stove there is the Jamestown J 1000, It runs off a thermostat and cycles off and on but no battery backup built in.This is the stove I was gonna go with but ended up getting the Ravelli cheaper.But again it's over 1400
J1000 Stoves Archives - Jamestown Pellet Stoves

 

Ok so we've decided to wait a little bit and get a few things finished in the room we'll be putting the stove. We both like the European styles stoves especially the tall skinny ones like the mini but that might be out of our price range. We're going to go to a stove shop soon and have a look at some that are in operation my wife is not familiar with pellet stoves at all so I've decided to slow this way down for her benefit as she will be the primary operator during the week. I really appreciate all of the responses to my questions and I have a bunch more cause I'm not really that familiar with them either. Would I be able to exhaust a pellet stove through a brick wall and just run a 5-6 foot "chimney" up? Exhaust and maybe an oak are my biggest concerns. I am very limited in space for this and it pretty much has to go in one spot which is in a corner at the front of my house and I would like to be able to just vent it straight through wall.

 

It's always good to have the Boss on-board Matt - if she is involved with care & feeding of the wood stove (as my wife was here), there shouldn't be any problems operating a pellet stove, I think she will like the convenience.

One of my wife's biggest concerns when we started out was the 'hands-off' factor of pellets vs. wood - going from a wood burning appliance where you open the door / feed & tend the stove, to something that normally remains closed during operation can be daunting.

Once I showed her the amount of fuel being burned, which is literally a handful of wood pellets at any given time, and if there were any issues, the door to the stove fire box could be opened / the fire extinguished quickly, she was on-board 100%.

At this point my wife can get the stove brushed & vacuumed, the burn pot cleaned, and back up & running quicker than me.. And she does an excellent job at it.. Deep stove cleanings /venting cleaning (and general pellet lugging) she leaves for me.

Just some info I thought might be useful to you. Hope your stove search goes well.

 

CleanFire thats some great advise thank you. My wife currently runs the woodstove while I'm gone and she does good with that when I told her pellet stoves are electric she gave me a funny look and said so there's no fire? The concept was very confusing for her as she has only been around wood stoves but I told her I would be a lot easier than the woodstove so she's willing to have a go at it. (She wanted to put a woodstove in this room)

 

Excellent, then hopefully this will help relate how a pellet stove works, vs. a wood stove:

All stoves need air, fuel, and ignition to work.

In a wood stove, there is an air intake, fire box, and exhaust. A pellet stove is no different, same concept, with some extra needed components to keep the fire burning.


Starting the fire:

In a wood stove, you ignite the wood manually using paper, fire starter, or a combination of both.

In most modern pellet stoves, there is an electronic igniter (which works like an electric stove heating element) to heat the wood pellets, to the point of ignition, in the fire box.
(Some older pellet stoves, and some pellet furnace models may require the fuel be manually ignited, you see those listed on CraigsList.)

Controlling the fire: (Draft)

In a wood stove, once the fire is lit, you typically control the combustion temp. with an intake air damper, flue (exhaust) damper, or combination of both. You adjust the amount of airflow through the stove, to produce heat output from the stove, and create good draft @ the flue exit.

In a pellet stove, once the fire is lit, the stove controls combustion temp. using an exhaust motor & draft impeller assembly (aka combustion blower) at the flue exit of the stove, to pull intake air through fire box.

A typical wood stove uses natural draft to control burn, a pellet stove uses forced draft to control burn. ( * Depending on the manufacturer / model of pellet stove, there may also be a manual or automatic intake air damper used, to help fine-tune airflow through the fire box. )

Controlling the heat: (Fuel)

In a wood stove, depending on the draft setting, more wood is added to increase heat output from the fire box, or less fuel is added to lower the heat output - the fuel is added manually by the operator.

In a pellet stove, depending on the heat output desired, one or more mechanical auger assemblies will take stored fuel (wood pellets, corn, etc.) from a storage hopper, and direct the fuel into a burn chamber, consisting of either a burn pot or burn plate, situated directly inside the fire box.

The fuel is fed -automatically- into the fire box via the auger(s) by one or more motors, timed to feed the correct amount of fuel based on a heat setting, controlled by an electronic board, and user panel.

Conveying the heat: (Forced-air convection, Radiated)

In a wood stove, the heat generated from the fuel in the fire box is absorbed by, and radiated off the stove panels, and if equipped with a room air (convection) blower, may be directed out into the room. The mass of fuel inside the fire box of a wood burning stove allows for the heat to be absorbed by the stove panels.

In a pellet stove, the heat generated from the fuel is directed to a Heat Exchange assembly, typically located above the burn chamber in the fire box. The Heat Exchange assembly may be a flat plate style, or a series of tubes, running through the upper portion of the fire box.

Air in the living space is taken into the stove, passed through the Heat Exchange assembly using a motor/blower assembly (aka Convection Blower), and passed back into the room.

The mass of fuel burning inside the fire box of a pellet stove is generally not sufficient for conveying radiated heat: the stove must use a dedicated heat exchange assembly w/ forced air convection, to convey heat from the stove into the living space.

* There are pellets stoves on the market that do supplement/afford radiated heat along w/ forced-air convection: it depends on size/style of the stove, size of the fire box, and materials used (steel, cast iron) in construction.


Operation of the stove:

A wood stove, unless using a room air blower, does not need electricity to operate.

A pellet stove requires electricity to operate the combustion air blower, the convection (room) air blower, the pellet auger feed motor(s), the electronic igniter, along with the stove's electronic control board / user panel.

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All pellet stoves share these basic principles - the difference being size / BTU output, styling, and features.. Very much like different models & styles of wood stoves.

Knowing these principles when visiting stove shops -> looking at different manufactures & models may help to keep everything in perspective. * This is how I explained the differences of wood vs. pellet stoves to my wife when we were considering our first pellet stove, hope it is helpful to you & your wife also.

 

I don't think that is entirely accurate. I want ro say that the new testing methods have some of those non heat exchanger pellet stoves, where it is just a box basically, have higher efficiencies than the harmans.

 

Check out this Englander smart stove. It's has a higher efficiencies than the p43. They are pretty comparable BTUS I believe.
P43 HHV 69.5
Englander 71.8

 

I can attest that the castle Serenity which just has a plate inside the firebox for a heat exchanger is one heat throwing beast and because of the simplistic design it's super easy to clean with not ash traps or passages to worry about.