i had a quadrafire 1000 in the townhouse before we moved. it kicked out some serious heat! the house we have now has 2 gas(propane) stoves. one fireplace (main living area)and one free standing (downstairs family room). neither really does the job of a pellet stove. i have been looking at the mt vernon 60k btu or the castille 30k btu's. both have a similar look. we were thinking of putting it in the main living area of the house (a bi level). we have a sun room off the living room and dining room, then a kitchen and a hallway with a bathroom and a bedroom on each side. total upstairs living space is about 1500 sq ft. the wife is concerned if the heat will travel from the farthest part of the living room all the way down the halls to the bedrooms.....the other concern was is the 60k way overkill? it has a programable thermostat....i was figuring that bigger is better as far as efficiency goes. also anyone have thoughts on the quadrafire or another option? my last quad gave me a good 15 yrs of service. we were thinking of selling the gas fireplace and stove to offset the cost of the pellet stove. thanks guys.....
jim

 

We replaced our propane fireplace insert with a Quadrafire Classic Bay insert last December and I love it! It heats our two upper floors (about 1800 sqft.) We do run electric baseboard heaters in the bedrooms when it's really cold out but for the most part the pellet stove does all the work. To me, the heat put out by the pellet stove is a warmer heat than you get from propane (our previous heat source was a monitor style propane heater). Plus the price of propane is leaping to catch up with the gas prices! We installed the insert in early December and it cost us approximately $600 for pellets for the rest of the season. Propane to cover that time frame would have run us in the neighborhood of $1200!! I'm really happy with the stove and the 40,000 BTU output is more than enough for our 1800 sqft.

BTW, while other pellet stove manufacturers may have good stoves, during my research to find a stove, I discovered that Quadrafire is undoubtedly the best. We even talked to a guy who sold a different brand of pellet stove but because the brand he sold didn't make fireplace inserts he recommended Quadrafire!

 

we starting thinking and like the idea of the free standing better, like we had before. easier to load pellets and work on if necessary. anybody else have thoughts......thanks wmr.

jim

 

No problem....I would have liked a free standing but we had no place to put it. Since we hardly ever used the propane insert we decided to go that route. It's not hard to fill but if it ever needs work it's going to have to come out to be worked on.

 

I just had a Quadrafire Castille installed 2 weeks ago.I haven't used it yet so I can't give any real feedback.All I can really say is that model has worked well for a couple people I know.

 

may i ask how much you paid? seem to start out close to 2600 or so around here. did you opt for any options? i was thinking of the logs, i believe they help retain heat and i think there might be a battery backup....also we were looking at the programable thermostat.....thanks....

oh, did you install yourself....seems like it shouldn't be that hard?

jim

 

I paid just under $2400 plus $350 for installation.I talked to someone who recently looked at them at the same place I got mine and they went up $300 or $400 since I got mine.If you can install it at least 5 feet from any windows you can just run the pipe out through the wall.I didn't have a good location 5' from a window so my pipe had to go out through the roof.That's why I didn't want to install it myself.I didn't get the programmable thermostat,just a regular thermostat.I probably should have got the programmable one but we'll see how this works.I can use the battery from the camper for back up.I'm not 100% sure but I think the logs are just an appearance thing??

 

Other MFG's: Harman, Breckwell, Lopi...These all make great lookin stoves. I work for a stove manufacturer but we don't produce pellet stoves of this caliber.

Sorta off subject but...What's sad about that cast stove is (though I don't work for that company, so I'm not completely sure but..) the castings probably come from China and is assembled here in the USA. I'll bet the actual cost to mfg that stove is prolly around 500-600 bucks...if that. I'm not knocking the stove, it's probably a fine working stove. It just kills me to see the price mark up on these things.

However, if it is indeed all US castings...HATS OFF TO THEM

Good luck with your purchase.

 

Yep, the logs are solely for appearances, they give the illusion of a wood burning stove. We didn't get them, maybe someday but for now the stove was enough of a cost!

Here's ours, taken when we first installed it, before we ran the cord for the thermostat. We did the installation ourselves, there wasn't much to it being an insert, the masonry and chimney were already there.

 

We heat our house with a woodburner; if I was to get a pellet stove, how much do the bags of pellets cost, and roughly, how long does a bag last?

Tim C.

 

Around here the cheapest I found pellets is $260 per ton.One 40lb bag is supposed to last a day.I expect the price of pellets to go up pretty soon, like everything else. Lately pellet stoves have been selling like hotcakes.

 

I get all of my firewood for free---the only thing that I have to pay for is the gas for my truck and for the log splitter. I was just wondering---I would imagine the the pellet stoves are much, much easier, but I guess I can still save money with my woodburner.

Tim C.

 

Pellets stoves hit a high several years ago which caused a supply and demand problem with pellets...Not enough pellet manufacturers. That's also about the time multifuel(corn) pellet stove sorta took off. Then when the demand for Ethenol strated, corn/multifuel units backed off or slowed way down.

Glad to see sells picking back up...maybe my job will also

 

We got our pellets at Ziggy's (it's a Northwest home improvement center a lot like Home Depot or Lowes). We paid 169.99 per ton plus Washington states outrageous sales tax. Came out to something like $185 per ton. You get 50 40lb bags in a ton. Usage, of course, depends on how cold it is outside and how well your house is insulated. From December 7th (I think that was the date we installed it) until we stopped using the stove several weeks ago, we used 3 tons plus 15 bags we bought toward the end because we didn't want to buy another ton and have it sitting around all summer. Our winter was very long this year and we just stopped using the stove at night about a month ago. I figure an average year we'll probably go through at least 4-1/2 tons. And FYI...an F150 can haul a ton of pellets! It squats down about an inch off the bump-stops but it can do it!!

If you get your wood for free, you will save money that way. Pellets are definitely easier though and it's something to keep in mind when you get tired of cutting/hauling/splitting/stacking.

 

i need one for my house