P43 burn duration ?

Welcome to the forum Sam!

 

Well explained and I get it just different circumstances for myself . Looks like I will be getting a hopper extension as the P43 was only had about another hour of burn left and I got home in exceptional time today as traffic was surprisingly light , had there been any traffic it would have certainly gone out. With the weather coming this week I will have to turn it up a bit which means it would run out of pellets before I get home. Great stove very happy with it just need to get the oak installed as the parts are coming tomorrow, silly me never looked to see what size it was and i had planned to take the existing one and just hook it up . NOPE not happening as it was only 2" , oh well live and learn or maybe not maybe live and spend more. Seeing that this is a brand new stove I am going to do some research about the hopper before I pull the trigger daw gone expensive for some tin, I could probably have a tin knocker make me up one which wont cost me anything but not to chummy with the tin knockers on this job as I was on the last two , go figure.

 

X3

 

If I ever decide to put in a system that allows the P61a to run my FHW system, with the propane boiler as an in-line back up, that would be an awesome set up.

 

Luney, sorry if I missed it but just wondering if you wouldn't mind providing some info about the burn time you experienced. Not sure how many burns you have done or how many bags you have been through but if you recall, how much burn time long did you get out of a bag of pellets? What settings are the P43 stove running on? Room Temp or Constant Burn, and what are your feed and heat dials set to?

 

In total 12 hour burn time or as close as I can estimate as there was still what i figure to be about an hour left when i got home. The stove is running on constant burn with about 4 feed rate and 5 setting on constant burn toasting Ambiance hardwood pellets. Should be fairly accurate TT well as accurate as my old mind can have it, was kinda timing it but with work have a crapload of things bumping around in the old noggin.

 

Agreed Bogie that would be something to strive for !

 

What is the distribution fan on ?? High , medium , low ??

 

Before the hopper extension was added last year we ran our P43 using the Skytech 3301 thermostat in thermo mode. Wife and I would both be gone by 8AM, I'd get home around 3, she at 5. Room temp mode, ignigter set to manual, feed rate 3, fan set to Med. had Temp set to 6 just to have a safety in case the skytech failed/ battery died. Thermo would set back to 66 at 8am, at 2pm would kick up to 72, at 11pm drop to 68, 5am up to 72, stove goes into maintenance burn between calls for heat. Depending on outside temps 12-16 hrs on a full hopper. Weekends it was set to 72 7am-11pm, 68 over night. 10-12hrs on a hopper full.

After wife had to retire, she wasn't going to be able to lift bags or scoop from a barrel, so the $$ for the hopper extension made sense for us. Now I leave the Skytech on Run most of the time, still Room Temp/Manual ,Temp on 5, adjust fan speed and feed rate based on outside temp. Above 30 fan on Low, in the 20s or lower Med. On 30+ days I will switch back to thermo mode if the house gets too warm as the maint burn does keep place comfortable if it's 30-40 out. I just usually add 1 bag every day to the hopper, seems like there is usually 2/3 of the lower hopper section full w/pellets. This upcoming week with below zero temps every night I figure it'll be 1-1/2 to 2 bags a day.

We have a small cape-like 2-story house, about 1600 sq ft. It's a center chimney (P43 replaced a very old wood/coal stove) and the stove sits at the side of the open staircase to the 3 bedrooms & bath upstairs. 2/3 of the downstairs is open floor plan (basically a reverse L). LR has a 1/2 vaulted ceiling (house was originally a salt box, addition added bedroom & bath upstairs, 11x20 room downstairs off kitchen we use for LR). This room has a ceiling fan and I added two 5" doorway fans to move the air from the stove room out to the kitchen/TV room area. From those and the return air flow from the heat rising up the stairs most days it's 75 downstairs, 71-73 up (bedroom over stove room get warmest naturally). No basement, slab foundation, house is very well insulated and I shrink film the windows. 1/2 the house has newer windows but I was amazed at how even they were drafty and the shrink film drastically cuts that. Main heat is baseboard electric, when prices shot up 4-5 years ago, we decided to go pellet. Have not regretted it at all.

Thanks for all the welcomes, been lurking about for a year. Live in Kingston, NH.

Sam

 

OK that makes sense. You are running it harder than we do. Here the feed rate is on 3. On the P43, when in stove temp mode, the heat dial is generally set between 1.5 and 2.5 - that's all it takes to heat the area we have it in, and with those settings we will get 24+ hours from a bag. On some cases where the weather is super frigid - single digits or negative overnight, we will bump the heat dial up to 3 or 3.5 - Running it like this keeps the area heated at or near 70 degrees all the time.

 

Hi Sam, welcome to FHC - glad to see you here. Think I recall seeing you on another forum a long time ago. What kind of pellets are you burning? Do you have a particular preference?

 

I've been using Vermonts mostly. Great heat, low ash. A bit pricier (paid $290/ton early buy this past march) but they work for me.

Sam

 

Nice one. The Vermonts are my long standing favorites too. Even though they are pricier than some other offerings, they are one of the only pellets we feel they are well worth the extra $$$ they cost.

 

Some day after a lot of work on the old house I hope to run my stoves a lot softer, just have to run them hard to have an effect with the amount of insulation or there lack of I should say it requires some serious heat. Got bumped a day on the Oak parts which I know will help some but when it is this cold (last night -3 tonight probably -10 and a high tomorrow in the single digits) I have to really crank the stoves up. Have decided that somehow someway I am going to install an oak on the P68 as well to try to help with the drafts . Wife may not like the way it looks but she does not like being cold even more and its only for the heating season and it will get removed. Jeez Lord help me I just tried to explain to the Mrs the importance of the oak in our old leaky farmhouse not once but twice and I dont think I succeeded......

 

Sorry Will initially missed this the distribution fan is always on high, correct me if I am wrong but if the heat is not being distributed it goes up the flue ? I have it on high to try to send the heated air to all parts of the cellar especially the wife's cold bathroom. I am heating a 2600 sq. ft. old,leaky farmhouse.

 

I like the house really warm, but if I ran my stove on a heat setting of 5 and a feed rate of 4 I'd die of heat stroke.

 

-2 outside both stoves working hard a balmy 60* inside I am thinking Sub 60* is not what you would consider even close to being really warm. If I were relying on my oil system it would be 50* and it would be running constant and would have burned a heck of a lot of oil, ill burn pellets instead.
No threat of a heat stroke in this old house thats for sure.

 

How's your insulation?

 

At 6am -4 outside, 74 downstairs, 71 upstairs.

sam