do the type of pellets you use make a difference in the heat output? In the manual, it says don't over fire it, the air coming out of the vent is only 180 degrees on the highest setting with the choke at it's max performance setting temp wise (I'm using a meat thermometer). The manual said only use the highest setting for 2 hours. Using it at setting 4/5 last night it only got the house up to 61 degrees. the house is 1050 sq ft and the heater said it could heat 2200 sq ft. I live in central michigan and the temp last night was just below freezing. Everything was installed to specifications, no more than 2 elbows and it's only about 6' of exaust pipe. Granted I live in a drafty house, but I fixed quite a few of the drafts and storm windows on all the windows. Plexiglass is next. My question is can I use different pellets to get a higher temprature/more heat out of this stove? I have a Breckwell big E stove. Please help, TIA, Dave

Yes, the quality of the pellets you use can make a big difference. First, make sure the pellets you are using are "premium pellets". They produce more heat and result in less ash. There should be a label on the bag that rates the pellets by BTU output — the higher the rating the more heat you get. Premium pellets are more expensive, but they last longer and you get more heat. If you open a bag of pellets and find lots of sawdust, either you don't have good quality pellets or the pellets got damp and broke up. Running all the dust through your stove can cut down on its efficiency. Second, are you getting a lot of soot on the window of your stove. That can be a sign that you need to make adjustments — a pellet stove that is operating correctly does not soot-up. If you continue to have problems call for service and get someone to help you recalibrate your stove settings.

I looked up your stove and from the specifications shown, it should provide more heat than you are getting. You do need to deal with the drafts. You also need to check for places where you are losing heat (a chimney or ceiling vents, etc.).

I lived in the High Sierras and heated my home with a pellet stove in the dining room and a woodburning insert in the living room. My pellet stove was an old Earthstove RP-45 (no longer made) and it kept my home very comfortable until the temperatures were consistently below zero for extended periods of time (not uncommon in the High Sierras). Having the woodburner helped to provide supplemental heat when it was extremely cold and served as a backup when we had extended power outages (also not uncommon in the High Sierras).

Good luck.

Over the last two years I have had several nightmares regarding family members that have come true, a few of which have really scared the h*ll out of me. The first one was of my grandmother (on my dads side) having a heart attack so I called her the next day and she said that she did have a minor heart attack that night . The next two dreams where of my grandfather and my great grandfather (now deceased), in both dreams I was sitting beside them and they where very sick ( That week we ended up taking him to the emergency room because he started to have problems breathing). The second dream was of me sitting on the couch while my grandfather was coughing and becoming very pale. While the other dream was of me as a young kid walking into my great grandfathers house during the winter and him asking if I would like a sweet potato (this is actually a memory and a dream that i hold very close) only this time when he turned to me hand me the potato he looked very old and pale and smelled like soil after it rains his voice was also very weak and I had a terrible pain in my stomach. That following year my great grandfather had a sharp turn in health and died very shortly after his 100th birthday.

One more thing that I think I should add is that my mom had a dream that someone got their arm caught in the de-boning machine in the pilgrims pride factory where she worked and the day after that someone did indeed get their arm caught in the machine.

Now I've heard of people having dreams about their day and then it actually happens, I have had one of those in middle school, but this is actually starting to worry me. Has anyone heard of things like this happening or does anyone know of anything that could cause someone to have such odd dreams?

*sorry for bad grammar and punctuation*

I can't tell you why but I've had things happen to me that I can't explain. Not so obvious or as numerous but they like your dreams were unexplainable. Don't worry. It happens and some people do experience it. We think it's "scary" but when you think about it cats and dogs sense things way before people do. That's why pets often save their humans' lives. There are many stories of them predicting their owners having heart attacks etc. So this doesn't mean that humans can't do it too. I think a lot of people are just so wrapped up in thie electronic desensitised world they don't realise that people have senses sensitive enough to feel things like that too.

Four times I've either woken up feeling very sad or had a terribly emotional and sensitive day to come home to find someone has died. One of the biggest ones I've had was about an animal but it was still freaky. I looked online to find the dogs at the local shetler here. I saw a photo of a bull terrier I fell in love with her immediately. I got in the car and raced off to have a look at her. I also took some blankets to donate. About half way there I felt so sad, and I started to burst out crying. I don't know why. I got really emotional. When I got to the shetler I wiped my eyes and walked in and I asked the person at the counter about the dog. She said the dog had just died in an emergancy surgery.

Before a fortnight's holiday my parents were heading out the door and we were running late. They were yelling at me and tooting the horn at me impatiently but I randomly went and stood in the living room for ages like I was listening for something. I suddenly snapped out of it, shook my head like wtf am I doing and then was about to walk out and a bird fell down the woodburner chimney and was stuck behind the glass. If I hadn't been there and rescued it it would have starved to death i nthe two weeks we were away.

I'm adopted but people have said that my biological mother had experience like this too.

i just noticed this last night, my face is very puffy and swollen, particularly on my left side around my eyes

i have fair skin, so i usually have a slightly bluis ring under my eyes, but now they are abnormally pinkish and my cheek is blemishy

i doubt its an allergic reaction, i was not exposed to anything new, no new foods or animals or skin products

at first i thought it was a lack of sleep on new years, but i got a good 11 hours but my face is still puffy (and slightly itchy)

my mom thinks im getting a cold, but i doubt it

what could this be?
but im not allergic to anything, unless they changed overnight O_O

I know you're saying you don't believe that it's an allergic reaction — however, it's really the only explanation. You could take some Benadryl – the medication would probably work on the slight itchiness and swelling pretty quickly if it is indeed an allergy. It could be something as simple as a new deodorizer spray or something else in the air in your environment that you haven't thought of…The reason I'm feeling strongly about the allergy thing? I just recently had a terrible allergic reaction to some wood my husband used in our woodburner — teary eyes, runny nose, etc., and it didn't bother anyone else. It took me a couple of days to put it together and bingo — that was it!

I have a wood stove in my basement similar to this one: http://choosefireplacesandstoves.com/products/Napoleon_1400K_Medium_wood_stove_Porcelain_enamel_1100_1400_1900_DELUXE_EPA_WOOD_BURNING_STOVES_black_finish-2660-0.html

I know it won't heat my whole house (it's about 4500 square feet) but I want to know how to use it most effectively.

The stove is in my basement, right by the stairs, which are open to the upstairs. I'm assuming the house designer did this to maximize the heat going upstairs.

How should I use the stove in order to cut way down on my propane bill, which is about $1000/month in the winter? It's getting outrageous, so I'm trying to figure out how to use this stove.

How much propane will I likely be able to cut out by using this stove?

When should I burn it in order to have the most impact on the heating of the house? Should I let it burn overnight? Is it okay to use wood from a pile that's been there for 5 years?

Sorry I have so many questions– I've never used one of these before, so I'd appreciate any answer!

Don't be afraid to ask away. Is how you learn. To get you started you will need to get your chimney cleaned & A LOT of newspaper for starting your kindeling. I save all the newspaper & cardboard I can get. OK. First. Crumple up your newpaper into tight balls. Fill the bottom of the stove. 2nd. Open your top damper all the way & open your air vent in the bottom of the stove 1/2 way. 3rdly. Take a couple of the logs you have & cut them into kindeling w/ a sm. axe. Form a TP over the newspaper you have in the stove. While doing this, add sm to lg pieces of cardboard. The cardboard helps to get the fire hotter quicker.You'll start w/ smaller kindeling & go to bigger as you go. Use your own judgement going by the size of your stove. Once the fire is going well, close your bottom damper down so it's barely open. Do the same w/ the top damper. If you see smoke comimg out, you shut it too much. Let that wood burn down until you have a bunch of red coals. Then once again, Open your top damper (always do this first b/4 opening the door to put more wood in). Add more wood. You can usually add about as much as 1/2 of the size of the stove. Shut the door, open your bottom damper again just so air starts flowing through good & same as b/4, let it get burning good, turn down the bottom damper then turn down the top damper just so there's no smoke coming out. Check your chimney to see if the smoke is coming out well. If so your set. You'll catch on quick. I'm in charge of the woodburner in our house & it's the best thing I've ever owned. I heated a house of 3000 sq/ft w/ mine. As far as your wood, The oldest wood is the best. Cottenwood, oak, & ash are the best. The oak & ash put out the most heat & burns the longest. If you can keep the stove going, you will save a lot on propane. Ours hasn't kicked in once yet. Whatever you do, do not burn green wood or use those fake logs you can get in the store. It builds up too much creasole in your pipes & you could have a chimney fire. Good luck & let me know how it goes.

Is there a little heater that is more efficient and least expensive (in terms of electricity use) than others in heating a room? I have problems with my heat pump–it takes several hours to warm the house from 43 degrees to 50 degrees, and so I don't want to use it. I'm wondering what the alternatives are.

Also, does anyone know a solution to the problems of using a fireplace? I understand that unless there is a direct source of oxygen near the fireplace, that the fire in the fireplace will use up all existing oxygen in the room it is heating, and this creates a vacuum, which results in cold air being sucked into the house from outside through every crack and cranny in doors and windows to replace that oxygen. This therefore results in colder rooms in the rest of the house that are not being heated by the fire in the fireplace, since they now have cold air streaming in from outside in response to that vacuum created by the fire in the fireplace. So is the solution to remove a brick from the back of the fireplace everytime you want a fire, so that it gets oxygen continuously? Or some other way, like leaving a window open in that room–which seems to me to contradict the purpose of the fire, which is to heat that room. A bit hard to do with cold air blowing in to sustain the fire.

thanks for your responses.
Well, that first response made me laugh, certainly original. Thanks to the second responder, you sound like my younger brother, who has a science background. He also touted the idea of a wood-burning stove, although he wanted to cut a hole in the ceiling and roof to vent the smoke.

thanks for your help!!

I've always heard that theory about the fire using up the air in the room and having to draw in air from the cracks, but I've not noticed that in actuality. My brother and I both heat with a back up wood stove with no outside air input and it has no problem heating the house by itself (1500 sf) . I use ceiling fans and keep the doors open to distribute the heat from the centrically located wood stove.

My brother uses the wood heat exclusively. My sister uses a fireplace almost 100 days out of the year, with also no complaints of cold spots in the house.

I think when they use the argument of the fire consuming more oxygen and pulling in air from the vacuum that they haven't considered the other things occurring. First of all there is an amazing amount of radiant heat coming from the fire that warms up dark surfaces all over the room regardless of distance from the fire. Also the fire heats the air which makes it expand. Warm air takes up more space than cold air, So whatever air is needed to be pulled in by the "vacuum" of burning oxygen in the room is replaced by warm air that takes up more space than the cold air it is sucking in from outside. Since the fire expands the air by quite a bit, especially at the flame source, it might be safe to assume that the fire actually generates a positive pressure inside of the house rather than a negative one from the oxygen consumption.

Remember the formula for gases is P1V1 / T1 = P2V2 / T2 , which basically says if you double the temperature of a gas, you also double the volume of that gas. So scientifically it appears that a fire in a room with no outside air source will double the volume of air that it comes in contact with especially close to the fire.

So the real net effect is the two probably just cancel each other out causing no net positive or negative draft in the house.

My house is heated to a great amount by solar heat during the day and since my wife is a smoker, I will notice smoky air migrating toward the open window during the day. For the air to go from inside to the outside could only mean there is less pressure outside than in. The times I have run the woodburner during the day and have opened the window, I have not noticed the air coming in either. If you stand outside you can see the slightly smoky air (from my wife, not the fire) exiting thru the open gap in the window.

The ultimate solution is to drill a hole from your fireplace bottom and pipe to a exit point outside. Put a flap so you can close it when not needed and screen it so varmints don't enter. But like I said , I really am not convinced of the argument to use an outside air supply, though I agree it couldn't hurt to have one.

Have you ever seen window sill solar heaters? They are small solar heaters that mount outside your south windows and when the sun shines the heat moves into your room and at nighttime the sloped panels just shut down. Real simple and cheap designs . Check out "Mother Earth News" magazine and alternative energy area and look for windowsill solar panels.

In regards to your heat pump, something doesn't sound right. At a temp of 43F that should be a great range for your heat pump to work very efficiently. Perhaps your evaporator outside is clogged with debris or is low on refrigerant.

Then lastly, check your insulation, especially windows. Walk in front of a window and see if you feel a draft. I bought an infra red thermometer from Harbor freight tools for about 40 bucks and I walk all over the house measuring the temperature of walls, ceilings, glass ,skylights etc. It is always the glass with the coldest temperatures. If it is 25F outside, the inside of a thermopane window is around 50F. So that means a have a cooler operating at 50F cooling my room toward its temp. So even on my thermopanes I put a piece of that tight shrink plastic on them. The tremometer immediately picked up from 50F at the glass to about 65F on the film surface. Amazing and cheap and stops drafts you didn't know existed. I leave it up all year around because you can't hardly see it and it works great in summer to keep air conditioning bills down