Would like some info on the best wood heat stove.
I'm not made out of money, but don't want to cheat myself either. For example, I COULD have a compter with a 500 gig hard drive, but that, of course, is not the "bang for the buck". A 200 gig would be...
I assume catalitic is the way to go..
House is 3200 square foot living area.
So... have some of you done some homework I can get the benefit of?
I think folks need some more info on what you would like before they can give you some recommendations...
Are you talking about a plain wood burning stove? Since you mentioned catalytic, I don't think the outdoor furnaces ( which is what I have ) have any catalytic ability so those are out.
Are you thinking of putting this in the center of the house and using fans? Tieing it into the existing forced air furnace with a heat exchanger or something?
Ours is a Hardy outdoor furnace, it works well. It heats water around a fire box, the water is pumped into a heat exchanger in the forced air system when needed. It sits about 10 feet from our house ( I wish they had installed it a bit farther away ) but it has a 15 foot stack on it so the smoke never is a bother.
The outdoor furnaces do use more wood, I would estimate I go thru a cord a month if the weather is cold. Maybe a bit more, maybe 1.25 cords a month.
Opps, Thanks. I didn't realize I'd left so many blanks. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
I will be putting a simple stove in the center of the house for heat only. Simple install, no tieing to ductwork etc.
I also realize I won't be able to adequately heat the whole house, so will be looking for someting in the 2000-2500sq ft range.
Some stuff I've gathered in the last few days.
Vermont castings seems to have bad reviews at hearth.com
hearthstone gets good reviews
The catalytic stoves seem to be in about the 1500.00 range.
Lowes has a century heating 2000sq ft stove without catalytic for 700.00
Sooo, it seems if you want catylitic, your almost stuck with cast iron. If you get cast iron, the price seems to shoot back to the 1500.00 range....
Sooo,,,,, to much info. I just want a quality stove, little maintainance that is pretty enough to please the wife.
I have a Buck wood stove in my house. I didn't choose it so I have absolutely no attachment to the brand, but it works great. My house is about 2400sqft and it puts out plenty of heat and I can warm the whole house with it - if I put fans in the hallways and such [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img].
It is not plumbed in to our central heat / air ducting, although the thought has occurred to me...
I would suggest looking at pellet stoves if you're planning on buying wood (rather than gathering your own). They have some nice features and are less messy.
I really like the way the stove heats the house though. It probably costs me about the same $$$ to buy wood that it would for me to heat the house with propane (my other heat option) but I just like the stove. I'm sure you can find one that the wife will like [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]...
When you start looking at quality stoves at a dealer its pretty well six of one or six of another.
Designs are pretty well the same. They should all have a listing on the emissions and design output.
One note-all cast iron is not created equally and origin of casting should be looked at.
Ps: If She Whom Must Be Obeyed makes the choice all will be well and you will have the best stove. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
rcrcomputing, you don't say what area you are in so the efficiency you need is hard to evaluate. I have recently finished building my new home. (It is actually a converted pole barn... see photo's in the barn section here) The house is a single floor 1500 sq ft unit on a concrete slab floor. I have an electric heat pump, but also wanted a wood stove. I did in fact purchase the Century model from Lowe's and installed it about a month ago. This thing really does a great job, we have had some night in the past 2 weeks where it got down in the low teens and it heated the house fine. The stove is in the living room, so it is not centrally located, 20 feet from one end of the house, 30 ft from the other end.
The stove is located about 10' from the 'cold air return' for the heating system. I have a blower on the stove pipe which is aimed toward the 'return'. When the stove is really 'roaring, the living room gets up in the high 80's - low 90's, at that point I run the fan on the airhandler and it does move the heat through the house. I insulated the house well enough that once it is heated up, a slow burning fire will keep the house warm all night. I vented the stove straight up through the ceiling with a triple wall chimney system, works really great.
There is an optional blower available for this stove which I do not have, but if you go this route, you may want to get it due to the size of your home.
I use a vermount casting resolute. I heat 18oosq ft. A couple of fans in strategic places moves the heat around the lower section of house - stairway and open grate to upstairs does the rest.
I've used this stove for 4 years and have had no complaints. I burn 2-4 cords of wood a year. It is my main source of heat with oil/hot water baseboard as back up. My home is old and drafty but I do stay warm,
almost too warm at times.
Joutel is another good make of stove. Non-catalytic stoves can handle a variety of wood with various degrees of seasoning.
Hope this helps.
Oh, the stove was bought used. Nice thing about a vermount stove is the design has not changes and parts are available.
I heat about 2,000 sqft using my wood stove. I have Napoleon, the biggest model and use any wood from tamarack to white fir all from my 60 acres forest. The stove works like a champ, I clean the chimney once a year. Most of the times we have the air intake at one half or lower. It has been between 5 and 20 hare for last 10 days.
We just bought a QuadraFire Mt. Vernon - easy to install, works well, maintenance is very easy; three or four times a week know out any "clinker" (unburned pellets) and vacuum out the entire stove once a week. We've been going through a bag per day (40# bags). 3 tons should last the heating season. The downstairs stays warm but our place started as a carriage house, converted to a Cape, then to an expanded Cape then we put on a 1,200 sq ft addition so the upstairs gets a little cool - but that's the time to snuggle up. I'm thinking of putting in an antique heat vent in the ceiling of the l/r to get some more heat upstairs.
The furnace still kicks on a couple of times a day but right now its in the single digits and its only come on 4 times today - not like last year when it would come on every 15 to 20 minutes.
All in all I'm happy with the stove, its VERY efficient - 280 pounds of pellets make about 5 pounds of ash. It heats up the house nicely BUT the fan can be annyoing at times, so I have to turn the fan down to low when we're watching TV which in turn creates clinkers at a faster rate. There is a nice glow from the stove and I imagine that the ceramic log set would make it look nicer, but they have to be cleaned weekly.
Out of a scale from 1 to 10 I'd rate the quality of the stove a 8 and our satisfaction a 9.
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