HHT-"New To Me"-P61>P61a-2 Install finally - Right Location Right Stove!

Hello
Location, Proper Venting and type of stove are the most important items with wood pellet heating, in that order! Maybe this time! I always knew I had the right location in the center of the house in the center of the basement. However all I had was a cinder block chimney with a orange clay liner!
Pic 1 - A free Franklin Wood Stove left in the garage when I moved in!
Had that for a couple of years

Pic 2 & 3 - Very popular Vermont Castings Consolidated Dutch West Federal Design Coal/Wood stove!
Had that for 19 years but used only 3 years. The last year I installed a SS Flue for the Oil Burner so the stove had the chimney all to itself. Still I did not get enough heat.

Pic 4& 5 - Travis Avalon Astoria
Had it 4 years - Good heat but chimney got dirty. The last year I installed the Selkirk DT Masonry Conversion Kit.

Now I had the right location and the right venting, jut need a stove that put out a little more heat and be a little easier to take care of and a little more automatic but not cost a fortune!

Pic 6 - An old year 2K Harman P61 painted Golden Fire Brown with Gold Trim that would not Auto Lite!

Pic 7 & 8 - Harman P61 transformed into a P61a-2 with new Black Door, Nickel Trim Kit and Hopper Extension and a Auto Ignition Kit(New Burn Pot with ignitor, new Control panel and Ignition wiring)

 

Hello

Adding some pipe and a vacuum cleanout was difficult!
I had to order a 12" adjustable DT pipe and cut it! Then I ordered a regular 4" Selkirk Pipe and cut it!

The hopper holds 2-1/2 bags with the after market hopper extension for $85

The results are good. 140 Deg F out of the floor registers upstairs as opposed to 130 with the Astoria. Then tonight the house started to feel cool. I went down to see about starting the stove up and low and behold it had already started and was just lighting up! Amazing!

 

It would be too high if it were 3" diameter but 4" diameter is fine. I am learning about bottom feed and knocking down the ash with the burn pot tool once a day.
Do you have to scrape the burn pot on your bottom feeder Dexter?

 

So Don, what would that ENTIRE install cost an average person (NOT your dealer cost). Stove, auto ignite kit & parts, all piping, adapters, etc, etc.?

 

The stove brand new is $3299, I am installing a new one for my customer this Saturday.
The chimney venting is expensive with the Masonry Conversion Kit approx $1200.
The custom made heated hearth with 900 watt 220v kick space heater and tiled wall with mantel and rope lighting is easy $1,000 for materials!

If you want to add at least another $1,000 for labor then the total is $6499 but still less than my new Buderus cold start, triple pass oil boiler with an outdoor reset for $8,000 ! ! !

Granted, it is a little more than the Free Franklin wood stove I had there 25 years ago! LOL

Which reminds me, I spent $1500 building the wall and installing two metal fire doors around the boiler so I could tile the back of the pellet stove wall! LOL

 

Hello

Thanks for sharing.

 

Good point, but I bought these stoves old and broken so they really did not cost as much as a furnace.
I may be wrong but I think a furnace may use alot more pellets. With two stoves I can use one or the other or both when needed to save on pellets.

 

There is still a recommended LVL using 4". Will have to review my notes but 4" LVL recommended by Harman is 25 or 30. I am not sure off the top of my head.

I would also watch for excessive cooling of the exhaust gases due to the direct vent piping. If the gases fall below 200 degrees there is a good chance of creosote forming in the pipes. I do not use that pipe for that reason.

Eric

 

I've been averaging less than a bag a day lately with my furnace, keeping the whole house at 70 degrees. The furnace has been running on level 1 or 2 of 5. When it gets cold out (dead of winter), I go up to about 1.5 bags a day. My house is 1700 square feet on the main level, fairly well insulated, with half the basement connected to the ducts also, so I'm heating somewhere around 2500 square feet total. My pellet usage did go up over when I started using the furnace as opposed to the insert, but the whole house was warm and I don't need fans going everywhere, nor space heaters in the end of the house when it got really cold out. My electric bill went down last season when I got the furnace as the space heaters in the basement and my daughters room got put away.

I'm into my whole setup for about $2k. Granted that was a used furnace and not using DT venting, but even if I went with a new furnace I'd be looking at about $4500 all in, which still gives me a $2k savings over your estimate of running two stoves. We'll knock that down to a $1k savings as I didn't need a custom lit hearth with a baseboard heater built in. Another factor is a pellet furnace is listed to be connected to ductwork. I'm not so sure the pic of the duct in front of your basement unit meets any type of code or would pass inspection, nor do I think the P61 is rated for any type of ductwork connectivity.

Not knocking on running two stoves or your setup in general, just commenting.

 

Good info!
Sounds like you have a great setup there. One of my stoves is a Demo stove which is really why I have it. You did well to get a really nice used furnace, they are much harder to come by.
Good work.

 

Good info on the 4" EVL, I think that is Equivilent Vertical Length. I do have an LVL in my heated shed, that is Laminated Veneer Lumber. Do you have a link to where the EVL for each type of 4" vent pipe is? I would really like to calculate the 4" EVL

I understand that the burn air is warmed up from the exhaust gasses which means the exhaust gases do get a little cooler. That would be a disaster for a wood stove, but wood pellets do not have the bark, like cord wood does where most of the creosote resides. Also the Selkirk DT pipe has a more anti-corrosive formula.

So far so good on the DT except I did find that the DT pipe will not work with the Magnum Baby Countryside stove do to the way the stove was designed. That is the only stove I know of so far.

Also I did have an Enviro Maxx that I rebuilt. The optional ductwork kit would be perfect to attach into my ductwork. I decided to pass on it because it did not have the pot stirrer so I think there would be more to the cleaning regiment. I wish I had more time to test the Maxx, it seems like a really good stove. My customer did buy the ductwork kit and will have fun installing it.

 

It was morning when I typed this, Yes you are correct I should have used EVL not LVL but did it require all that?

Eric

 

I did not need an LVL in my shed but luv the nice head room and it was cheaper than all those collar ties too!

 

As for creosote in a pellet stove yes I have found it numerous times and is caused by incorrect air fuel mixture allowing the gas to cool to much prior to leaving the stove and in exhausts with to much pipe allowing the gases to cool to much. Bark is not needed to make creosote and it will happen with wood.

Eric

 

We used LVLs in the house but I have a steel shed.

Eric

 

I could not find the notes but Barry Boyer from Harman Training emailed me back that it is 30 EVL with 4".

Eric

 

So, we finally know what the 4" is....good info. Is each piece of 4" pipe "rated" the same? 90 degree elbow = 5evl, etc....?