That is one thing about these forums, no shortage of help and/or opinions. As long as the discussion is reasonable folks will keep sharing their thoughts and experiences.
Firstly, thank you. And I can see now that even with my descriptions it might still be worth it to draw out as little diagram, just so it's all clear.
Indeed - pictures and diagrams help a lot. Keep in mind that most of us will consider the whole problem and try and see if we can help find the optimal solution even taking into consideration factors you may not have. There is a tremendous amount of misinformation and a lot of misconceptions out there that lead folks to dismiss solutions without serious consideration. Sadly many dealers are not fully aware of all the options or the value of different technologies.
1. A couple people have mentioned CAT's, but I'll point them to my OP and say I've decided against those, weighing pro/con. Same for the free-stander, which I recognize would work best, but is out because of our desire to keep the hearth as is.
I'm one of those who suggested a cat stove to you. I did see your dismissal of the cat stove however I hope you will reconsider after evaluating the information presented here. You cited complexity as a primary concern with cat stoves - I believe this is a myth that is often reinforced by dealers who don't care to sell or support them. While it is true that one does need to learn the proper operation of a cat stove, the same is true for any stove if you are going to be burning well. The baseline assumption I make is that anyone who shows up here looking for information on their stoves is the type of person who will go on to learn how to properly operate and maintain whatever they do install. Neither cat or non-cat stove is overly complex and both can do well.
2. 80 degrees sounds pretty damn hot to me, if that's what it would take to get the far flung rooms to 65 with no assistance. But given we have base-burner zones with different thermostats, I would just toggle the fire down and let the boards go on in those far areas.
And this is why folks are suggesting you re-evaluate your decision against cat stoves. If yow desire to spread heat throughout the house without having one room peak at a much higher level then you are likely better off having constant heat in that room at a lower level. This can be achieved by running the stove 24/7 at a temperature that is high enough to heat but not so high that it can't be spread out of the room as fast. With the non-cat stove you will have greater peaks and valleys in the temperature swings - particularly if you do a larger stove with small fires as is being suggested. With the cat you can fill the box and then burn the whole load over 12 hours (or more) at a lower temperature output and still burn clean. I suspect this would go farther in terms of heating your home with less total work than having to limit the peak heat output in that room of each fire and then building multiple fires during the day.
3. I'm finding it interesting reading all the comments about "going big" and toggling the fire down, because I've hear/read elsewhere that these things are essentially meant to run within a certain burn band, beneath which you're losing efficiency, and/or sooting the glass. I'd love to hear more on this topic specifically, please.
Smoke burns somewhere over 1100*f I believe - so in a non-cat stove that is the temp you have to achieve in the secondary burn area (top of the stove where the burn tubes are) in order to burn clean - this translates into a surface temp in the 500ish range. A cat stove can burn the smoke considerably lower (around 500*f range) which translates into more like 300ish surface temp. These are the minimums to burn clean during the peak outgassing phase (obviously both stoves will cool lower during other parts of the burn and can go higher as needed). IF you are burning a stove to push as much heat as possible then the difference between the technologies doesn't matter much as you lose much of the cat benefit btw.
Now larger vs smaller - when you burn the stove you want to burn clean. To burn clean you have to hit the temperatures where you burn the smoke (whatever technology you are using). So, if you burn a larger stove and try to reduce the heat output by turning the air down to the point where you are not burning the smoke then you will dirty things up (chimney etc). However if you have dry wood and simply build a smaller fire, let it burn hot and then burn out in a shorter time you can burn clean. What you end up with though is a peak temp then a cool period. It is different than setting a thermostat at a given temp and staying within 2-3* of the set temp as in you will have the room heat up 5-10* perhaps and then cool down before you build the next small hot fire. During shoulder season you may just build one fire a day - depends on your needs.
To some degree this is in fact not all that different if you are burning a cat or non-cat stove, it is just that the minimum peak temp you achieve for clean burning is lower on the cat stove thus in theory at least you can reduce the peak temperature differential in the room and with the same amount of wood in the stove you should be able to have a longer burn (the amount of heat energy in the wood is the same after all, so you either get a lot in a shorter time or lower heat over a longer time).
Many thx to ALL, please keep comments coming (especially regarding point #3 above)!
- Nudge
You asked for it
heh.. enjoy and happy reading.
You may soon realize if you haven't already that much of what is "right" for you situation will depend on your desired 'wood burning lifestyle.' Do you want to play with the fire more and load more often? Do you want to sit and watch a fire show? Or do you want to feed the stove once or twice in a 24hr period and forget about it? Likely a bit of alll of these, but which is more important to you is well, personal eh?
You think the stove choosing discussions are fun - start asking about buying wood
ha! (I do hope you have some wood already cut and stacked btw).
