To Power Vent or Chimney Vent

Good Evening:

I am in the midst of installing my new Econo I. Well mostly building the hearth and the stove is sitting patiently by in my kitchen watching, waiting, along with my wife. I am now on the fence as to whether I should power vent or install a Metalbestos chimney. Can anyone provide their likes and dislikes on either option?
I have more than what I need of pipe, about 30', I was just thinking on maybe selling the pipe to fund the power venter. I just watched the power venter section of the LL video and I am now leaning toward this option. Arghh, decisions decisions, I just want to fire this stove up!!!

Thanks for any comments,

Mark

I installed a pv on my pioneer. I like it, there are +/-'s. The major plus was not installing a chimney and the assoc. cost
the venter run almost at the min. setting. you can't hear it at all. You can adjust the draft with no proplem. this weekend I shut the stove down and ran the shop vac through the pipe to remove some ash. I turn the venter to full power and flushed the pipe out. I saw a puff of ash come out of the vent. the venter is easy to maintain. I think it is safer for the family. when I clean the glass, or empty to ash I turn the combustion fan off and turn the pv up. I get almost no sulfur smell at all.

One of the issues I am wresting with is the noise. I am replacing a direct-vent pellet stove with this Econo I and really want it to be much quieter. I do realize the PV motor is on the outside as opposed to the present DV on the inside. Another concern I have is whether it is a "set it and forget it". Is my wife going to have to be educated on how to operate this? Is it transparent once it is set and no adjustment is required to match the heat output when the coaltrol thermostat is changed?

Mark

The power venter you get from liesureine is capable of handle a 180,000 BTU appliance. the power venter is set at
almost the lowest setting, you won't here it over the combustion fan. the combustion fan is louder and run's all the time. I set the pv so that the baro just barley move's. It is "set it and forget it". at full fire or min. you do not have to adjust it. have a carbon detector 10' from the stove and it never blinked. if you would like I could post a video of the power venter on high and low.

I have a pv on my LL Pioneer. The most noise comes from the combustion fan. I also have the pv at a minimum speed so the baro just barely moves. No problems. If you ran the pv at full tilt you would definitely hear it but this wouldn't be needed because most of your heat would be going out the pv. With this setup my stack temps after the baro have been running from 110 F on low to 230 F on a really high burn rate. Another thing I have noticed, the stove maintains a more even temp when set at one temp. I have mine on 70F round the clock. There seems to be a yo-yo effect and lag time when the coaltrol calls for heat and the stove is trying to either catch up or slow down. Hope this helps.

Mark,

Get yourself a manometer and permanently mount it along side the PV rheostat. This way you and her can monitor the draft setting. Just keep the draft setting above what is recommendedand you'll be fine.

My son's biggest problem wasn't the noise of the PV. We just had to set the timer on his Keystoker properly to limit the amount of combustion and convection fan running. But they knew that as long as those fans were running, their oil burner was not.

Here is how we did it on my son's install:

SWG Power Vent on a Keystoker

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Rick

How on earth are you setting the power venter so low?

I have my damper set to 4, per the instructions, and the lowest I can turn my power venter down to is about "10-10:30" if you think of dial as a clock. It is just about pointing at the top, left-hand screw on the box. If I turn it any lower, the damper closes and I get that sulfur smell.

I have tried to set the damper to 2, but the same thing happens.

I would love to turn my power venter even lower; the stove is in my living room and the less noise the better. I just can't see how you are doing it.

The placement of my stove is going to be in my kitchen but I have a very open floor plan. The kitchen, dining, and living area is one big room. The pellet stove I am replacing makes a fair amount of noise but it is mostly the convection fan.
What would be the bad part of running a chimney? The PV costs money to operate and there is an opportunity for mechanical malfunction, although I do like the simplicity of it. But my wife is not going to want to check/adjust the draft.
The pellet stove is on a thermostat and she has to do nothing with that.It just runs like a furnace. Transparent to her.
Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming.

Mark

In my "opinion" you may have good luck or bad luck with a chimney, It may draft perfect or it may draft to much or not enough. If it drafts to much thats alot of your heat up the chimney. If it's not drafting enough your Co alarm will be sounding. If you permenetly install a monometer near the reostat for a powervent it is vary easy to regulate. I leave mine alone 90 % of the time. But things do change so on the really warm days with stove ideling it may need to get turned up a little or if it's cold out and stove cranking I can then turn it down. I have placed the red and green arrows that come with the monometer and my 4 year old boy made it his job to "make sure the red juice is between the arrows" if not he tells me or mom. He checks all the time and this rarely ever needs adjustment. Around -.04 / -.05 I know I am not sucking to much heat out of the stove. That makes for a warmer cheaper heating season for me.
I am also new to coal this is just my take on how easy a powervent is to operate with the monometer
Chris H

Will a power venter allow me to run the stove longer into the spring allowing me make corrections to the draft on warmer days, where this would not be possible with a chimney?

the power Venter will maintain "almost" perfect draft without much changes to weather (warm or cold). You can run it at 0 degrees outside or 70 degrees outside. Only slight changes (if you have a draft gauge) you may have to make.
They do make it easier to maintain when you get severe temp. swings and/or spring/fall temps.

I have a DV (direct vent) on my Keystoker, and set the draft at the start of the season (I do have a manometer hooked to it), it maintains the same 99% of the time. I do check it every month or so, but it maintains -.03-.04 almost all the time.

It doesn't get any easier or quieter than a chimney and a baro damper. Once set you don't have to touch it. I don't touch mine all winter and I can burn when the outside temps are near 70 and I still have a good draft. On the other issue with combustion fan noise, if you pipe outside air directly to the combustion fan it will eliminate much of the noise.

Ok, thanks for all the responses, while I am not totally convinced,I have had a few people tell me to go with natural draft. Granted these guys are estimators that work in commercial construction field. They both said:

In the plumbing and hvac world you exhaust every single design scenario
to gravity drain a sewer or gravity vent a boiler/equipment. The
absolute last resort is to install a pump or a fan to do what can be
done by nature. Stick with gravity vent, it will never fail.

So I am continuing on with the install, wish I took pictures to share through the building of the hearth, and the thru the wall hole(s), yes holes. I originally vented the rear vent stove directly out the wall until I was advised by the Selkirk customer service engineer that I really should run at least a few vertical feet directly out of the stove prior to going through the wall. (Which kinda makes sense) So tonight I moved the hole(ARGH!!!)of course there is an outlet and stud right where I needed to put the hole(s). I am using the DSP pipe inside which is a life saver because it ony requires a 6" clearance to combustibles .

Anyways, maybe I will post some pictures tomorrow

Thanks for sharing all your experiences.

Mark

There certainly are plenty of factors involved. What is the power situation like in your area? Obviously you have thought about that being you have a stoker...but how much juice does the PV use and have you made sure to compute that into any backup power senario you have come up with? As far as a point of failure...I'm not sure how much, or IF, a stainless chimney would last longer than the PV before repairs are needed...there IS an electricity cost to be computed as well. These are all things you have to consider. A Masonry chimney with a Terra tiled interior would be the longest lasting but obviously MUCH more expensive and perhaps not practical in the location.

In the long run a masonry chimney will be the cheapest, easiest solution & it is permanent.It will outlive YOU.

(& if you burn nothing but coal it will never even need to be cleaned/swept)