Pellet Stove Installation

Of every hearth product, the pellet appliance is the only one that won't run without electricity — and that single fact reshapes the whole install. The auger that meters fuel, the combustion blower that forces the exhaust, the convection fan that drives heat into the room, the igniter that lights the burn pot — all of it draws power, so the install opens with a dedicated, properly grounded 120V circuit, not an extension cord and not a shared bedroom outlet. We install new pellet stoves and inserts to a showroom-grade standard, treating power, vent, clearance, and hearth as one engineered system rather than four separate afterthoughts.

Because pellet exhaust is cooler and under positive pressure — the combustion blower pushes it out instead of relying on natural draft — it has to travel through listed PL-vent pellet pipe with gasketed, sealed joints, never bare single-wall stovepipe or a raw masonry flue. We build the vent to the manufacturer's allowable equivalent length, keep horizontal runs short with the required upward pitch, and terminate clear of the listed distances from windows, soffits, and grade. Where a pellet insert drops into an existing masonry fireplace, we run a sealed liner up the flue so the positive-pressure exhaust can't leak through mortar joints into the home. Unlike pellet-stove-repair, which never touches a vent route or termination and works inside a stove the install already set, this build phase belongs only to the new-unit job.

Clearances and the hearth are the permanent, code-driven half of the install. We confirm the listed clearances to combustibles printed on the appliance label, add a listed rear or floor heat shield with ceramic standoffs where the room runs tight, and size the hearth pad to the stove's required floor protection — pellet stoves run cooler than wood, but the pad and ember protection are still code, not optional. An outside-air kit goes in where the home is tight or the jurisdiction requires it, so the burn pot pulls combustion air from outdoors instead of starving a sealed house.

Commissioning is what separates a finished install from a parked appliance. We load the hopper, trim the feed-rate and air to the pellet grade, run the igniter through a full light-off, and confirm the combustion and convection blowers and the vacuum/pressure switches all hand off correctly across the startup, run, and shutdown cycle. We verify the vent draws clean under positive pressure, run an ambient CO check, and walk the homeowner through hopper loading, burn-pot cleaning, and the ash schedule — because a pellet stove never commissioned to its fuel and never taught its maintenance is exactly the one that locks out on the first cold night.