4 comments

• Comment Link Thursday, 23 February 2012 16:02 posted by Charles Grubbs

  I'm in my 4th heating season with a Big E Home Heater (1700 sq. ft. 2 story home with basement in NH).
  
  From a home heating point of view, I have been extremely pleased with my Big E. The cost reduction from heating with oil is great. We keep the house warmer with pellets than we ever did or would using oil.
  
  I clean the unit weekly; this is an easy chore.
  
  From a heater operations point of view, I have two comments.
  
  One, I have been very pleased with the ease of operation and cleaning. We fill the hopper extension with 7 or 8 bags & its good-to-go for 3 or 4 or 5 days depending on the Heat Level setting. The physical structure of the unit seems to be standing up well.
  
  Two, I have been disappointed in the quality of some of the motors used in the Big E as measured by their short life span. I had to replace the Convection Blower last season. I had to replace the Auger Motor this season. Fortunately, it has been easy for someone without general handyman skill to replace these. However, I did not expect to have to replace 2 of the 3 motors in the unit within 2 or 3 years of their first use.
  
  We're burning about 4 to 4.5 tons of pellets each heating season. We assembled a metal shed outside the basement door & keep the pellets stored there.
• Comment Link Saturday, 09 April 2011 00:03 posted by Doug Barnhart

  This is year three for big e . great stove . i have hooked to cheap thermostat . I clean once a week . Have burned about 4 tons of hammer pellets and getting 4 more tons this week for next year . The room that the bige is located is about 76 degrees . my gas hot air furance did not run at all. This is the best money i have ever spent .
• Comment Link Thursday, 31 March 2011 03:53 posted by AJ

  Ladies and Gentlemen as my 2nd season of pellet burning is coming to a close, I thought I'll drop this update off on the Big E.
  We fired up the stove at the end of October and continue to run it as we are having uneasonably cold nights here in Green Bay,WI.
  The stove has preformed well with no issues to speak of. We've gotten to know eachother alot better this season and the lighting issues I had in the beginning are a thing of the past.
  House size 2200 sqft on 2 levels.
  Percentage of heat vs. my boiler, 100% pellet heat this season. :)
  Average home temp throughout the heating season was 73 degrees.
  Pellet consumtpion will be 6 tons of Badgerland Brand. I'll be starting to test run other brands this next week or 2 as the Badgerland are no longer available from my supplier.
  Cleaning was done on a weekly basis as prescribed by the manufacturer. I firmly believe that all the negative reveiws out there regardless of brand are due to the "set it and forget it" mentallity. These stoves need tlc just like any other piece of equiptment. If you neglect them they WILL fail!
  I was apprehensive about the Big E at 1st but so far so good, another season almost in the books and our pellet heat is amazing to say the least. I love it when guests come over in T shirts and complain how hot it is in here as they are used to 63 or 65 degrees burning there Natural gas furnaces and spending more money. And yes I will kick it up a notch now and then to drive the point home, it's well worth the 50 cents worth of pellets to see them sweat, lol.
  Thank for looking.
  Until next season.
  AJ
• Comment Link Sunday, 19 September 2010 04:56 posted by AJ

  I wanted to get into an alternative fuel source for our family home to get out from under the instability of natural gas prices and my own destain for the monopoly supplier in my area. I spent countless hours reading hundreds of reveiws trying to make the most educated decision based on what my budget would allow and as much intel as I could gather and local availability.
  We settled on the Breckwell Big E to get our feet wet in the pellet burning realm, It is a reasonably priced unit that we felt would be a good starter stove. We choose to go the pellet route verses regular wood because of the ease of storage and use of pellets as we get older.
  We have used the Big E 1 season so far and are anticipating to another cozy winter as we head into October here in Wisconsin.
  I purchased the stove and a few things to set it up right away, the PVC for intake air and a few feet of double wall exhaust pipe for the short run to the chimney. We had the stove set up and running in under 2 hours.
  We previously were running a natural gas boiler to heat our home, there is no duct work to buy a pellet furnace which given our bugetary constraints made the stove a logical choice.
  I placed the Big E in our basement and am heating the basement and the 1st floor with this unit, approximately 4000 square feet. The basement sits at 75 degrees and the 1st floor at a comfortable 72-74 degrees with the unit running on setting 3 out of 5 at nght and setting 1 during the day while we are at work.I have not hooked up an upstairs thermostat up to it yet.
  The Big E has performed flawlessly for us, I had a few isues with lighting in the beginning but please remember I had no pellet burning knowledge at that point at all.As I learned more about the art of pellet burning and trust me it is not a set it and forget it solution to heating at all. Once you figure out the "needs" of whatever pellet burner you buy are you'll have it made.
  I've read alot of negative reveiws on many different makes and models and concluded that now and than parts go bad but mostly owners do not follow the cleaning and care schedules the manufacturer send along with each unit.
  Being new to the whole game last season, I followed the care and cleaning schedule to the letter and had no troubles with my Big E at all. We settled on Badgerland wood pellets after trying many different local brands and a couple national brands.The ash in the firebox with Badgerland was sooo much less and finer that it was noticable to even my untrained eye. The other motivator is that I khow where the sawdust comes from they make the pellets out of comes from, and my pallet supplier brings the pellets to me with my pallet loads.
  All in All I'd give the Bid E a big A+.
  Ease of setup,middle of the road price and great operating manual for the novice pellet burner.So for no mechanical problems and I've gotten over my lighting issues by learning about what my stove expects from me.
  Heating 4000 square feet broken into 2 floors to 72-74 degrees of wood heat is a wonderful experience!!!