Pellet Stove Install

Christi and I decided to purchase a pellet stove to help in heating the
house this winter. Although our house has radiant floor heating downstairs (yes, the floor heats up, thereby heating the air above the floor), it is not necessarily the quickest way to warm up the house after a significant drop in the outdoor temperature.

We did quite a bit of research, and then decided to go with a pellet stove (they burn little wood pellets that kind of look like rabbit food) instead of a more traditional wood stove due to the inherent simplicity of the pellet stove. No wood to cut, season, chop, split, stack... I think you get the idea. This way we buy bags of pellets, dump them into a hopper, and let the stove do its thing.


Unfortunately, the store where we bought the stove did not have anyone available to install the stove for more than a month. . So, as per my general willingness to undertake projects quite over my level of expertise, I decided to install the stove myself. It only gets to be slightly chilly up here in the winter, and I am cutting a couple of holes in the side of my house. What could go wrong?

The expert at the store assured me that the job was only about a 3-hour install. Turns out, not a 3 hour project after all - a bit longer, actually. Quite a bit longer.

I intentionally took on the project at a quite slow (and steady??) pace. The most difficult part turned out to be getting the 350+ pound stove off the back of my truck into the living room, and to properly position it where Christi would be happy.

After finding studs, and very carefully NOT cutting through them - although when you plan for a 7" hole, and the installation instructions ACTUALLY call for a 7 1/2" hole, well, let's just say that my very carefully planned hole came coming pretty doggone close to the studs. The black square on the wall is an insulated wall "thimble," keeping the hot exhaust pipe from contacting the combustible wall innards.
Assembling the stove pipe was pretty easy, just liberally applying dishsoap to the gasket, and three little screws for each section. I then hung the pipe through the wall thimble, affixed it into place, and pushed the stove into the chimney adapter.
Not pictured is the fresh air intake vent, which is basically a 3" dryer-type hose that allows the stove to bring in outside air for the combustion process. Most houses here in Alaska are sealed, with HRV systems that circulate the air around the house, but don't allow a lot of movement of outside air inside, and vice verse. Makes sense when you are trying to keep the warm air inside and the cold air outside.
All that remained was filling the stove with pellets (also not shown), and firing it up. After a couple of false starts (wait, read the instructions to start the stove??????) on my behalf, we got our new appliance up and running. Smells pretty darn great, also!