Keystoker 65 K question

OK, I'm getting ready to put a metal chimney in, and was thinking about the Hitzer 50-93. Now I have another consideration to think about. My daughter has a Keystoker 65,000 stove that she doesn't use. I have a 1800 sf ranch as I have stated before . Anyway would this stove work OK in my house? I don't know much about the 65K as most people get either a 90K or the 105. The stove will be placed almost center of the house, so that should help heating evenly. I have been told that you can dial down the stokers better than a hand feed so you can use them on days that are a bit warmer? Any thoughts about the stove would be greatly appreciated. Will it do the job? Thanks

Hey woody, I dont know for sure but I would have to say yes. We have successfully heated my mothers house for years with a 48k btu wood pellet stove, the house is 1650 sqft 2 story and very drafty. Good luck...Jim

Ours is the 90K and heated our old 2 story (1800 Sq ft) exclusively for 2 winters with around 2-2.5 tons for about 5 months.

On warm days, you just have to watch your draft, ours was a power vent, so the chimney or outside temp really didn't matter it had a constant draw. You can dial it down quite low, about 1#/hr just idling....it still kicks out some heat even at idle.

WNY , I will be using a power vent. About how much increase in your electric bill did you see. When the unit is running low , is the vent running the same as if the unit was on high? ty

The power vent on our keystoker runs constant weather the stove is cranking or on idle to remove the exhaust fumes. Nice thing is you don't really need a large chimney, just a few pieces of pipe.

The electric bill probably went up a few bucks. I checked the power draw on the with a watt meter, I think it was around 180-250Watts most of the time. Our gas bill went down to next to nothing, since we didn't use the furnance and everything else was electric (Stove, Dryer, hot water tank).

gas bill from other house.
http://nepacrossroads.com/files/gas_408.jpg

Anything else just ask!

WNY wrote:Ours is the 90K and heated our old 2 story (1800 Sq ft) exclusively for 2 winters with around 2-2.5 tons for about 5
months.

WNY, your stoker was your 24/7 source of heat all 5 months and you only burned 2.5 tons? Wow, that is amazing effciency compared to my hand fired (5 tons whole winter)

YES! I would always tweek it for feed rate (about 1.5-2 turns) and with the programmable thermostat, it really helped.

We didn't have it up real high, 64-66 Deg in most of the house, stove room was 70+ deg. We weren't home most of the day, so it was setback to like 62.

We will see this winter in the new (older) much larger Victorian house how the new Hyfire I keeps up (Thanks Greg!). I will have the Keystoker as backup and/or for my garage.

I have a bigger stove (HyFire I - 130KBTU) and a CoalTrol, we will see how the comsumption will be this year! I will monitor.....time will tell!

I am keeping the Keystoker as backup or in the attached garage to possible heat the back of the house...of course I just replaced 15 windows in the upstairs....that shoudl help alot!

WNY Dave, I wanted to ask did you use the coaltrol on your stoker also? I'm thinking about putting one on my Stoker 65. I have heard good things about them ,any feedback? Tim

I never hooked the Coaltrol to the Keystoker, I did put a digital thermostat that worked pretty good with it, probably not as accurate as the coaltrol.

I am hooking it up to the hyfire this winter and will post results,since that stove has no thermostat, just the variable speed controls.

WNY, Thanks for the reply back I appreciate it. Looks like we will both find out this winter. There is a coal stove place near me that is having there annual open house in Sept. and the guys that make the coaltrol will be there. I'm thinking of picking one up then. Tim