Leisure Line, Harman Magnum or P61 Pellet

With the temperature drops below zero happening, it brings up some of the shortcomings of my current stove. The Thelin Parlor Pellet can barely keep my basement - concrete - 1300sq ft - open floor plan - no insulation - at 64 degrees with stove at full tilt.

I was considering the following options - Leisure Line Pioneer top vent, Harman Magnum Coal Stoker or the P61 Pellet. I have two dealers for Leisure Line that are in the running due to their great support on this site. Leisure Line is the one and only manufacturer that had a detailed DVD on their product. There are also two Harman dealers in my area - one supports either coal or pellet - the other says don't bother with coal - dirty, filthy fuel. I have checked with my local municipality - City of Syracuse - and they would accept the ash in reasonable quantities.

I don’t want to consider wood due to the maintenance, constant adding of fuel, and being away from the house 8 - 10hrs a day(the fire would go out and the dogs who are in the basement would freeze). I was originally considering the Mt Vernon, but have a Castille on my first floor and I am not overly thrilled with the performance and quirks of this line or product.

I have made some incremental investments within the past year on the basement stove, and want to make a final investment that will last me numerous years. They are all in the $2700 price range, so price isn’t a determining factor. I don’t want to buy one of these and a year later kick myself for not buying the other as it performs better under adverse conditions.

Have you thought about adding some insulation to your basement. If it is uninsulated block walls you are going to lose most of your heat through the block no matter what stove you have down there. If you get a larger stove that is able to keep up with the demand you will be wasting a lot of money by burning large quantities of fuel.

I was also wondering on the quantity of ash per hopper. With a 100lb of fuel, how many pounds of ash would I expect?

With my stoker boiler 100 lbs of Anthracite pea coal produces 18.8 lbs of ash.

Yanche

Yanche wrote:With my stoker boiler 100 lbs of Anthracite pea coal produces 18.8 lbs of ash.

Yanche

It is hard to find the good stuff, but in my area I have found coal that is as low as a 7 to 8 ash (7 to 8 lbs per 100 lbs of coal). Of course I have also purchased some that was a 25 ash and that is from suppliers that take the old piles of coal and mix it in with the good stuff.

Best bet is to talk to folks who run stokers and buy from dealers in your area to find out who has the good stuff.

As far as stove reliability I have seen many 10 year old Harman Magnums still working. They are heavy and built like a brick S#$@ house. Then again I have also seen lots of the old style Alaska Triburner stokers and they seem to keep on running with just a little work and are half the weight of the Harman.

My advice is to buy from the dealer who has the best service. And since Liesure line is the only one who has the guts to come on this forum and represent their product (thanks Jerry), I would say they are probably the best in that department.