Heating a 1100 sq-ft house

Hello All,
I am looking for some input on a wood stove I am contemplating buying. I will close on the purchase of a new (used) house on June 1. The heating costs for fuel oil in this part of the world (Alaska) are very expensive. I am going to install a wood stove in the house to save on heating costs. It is going to be a challenge to put a stove in the house that won't drive us out of the house from being too hot. My wife likes the kind of stoves that look like a fireplace, but are airtight. We installed an RSF Opal in our last house (3000 sq-ft) and it was perfect. We loved the looks and performance of the stove, but think that this stove might be too much for our new little house. I am looking at the Security BIS Tradition CE. This is a small compact stove that appears to be similar to the RSF in appearance. Does anyone have any comments on the stove good or bad? What about the suitability of it to heat a small ~1100 sq-ft house?
2 - A second question ties into the first. The new house house at one time had forced air heating. The furnace for the forced air heating was removed, but the ducting for the forced air is still present in the crawl space, and runs to each of the rooms. The Tradition CE stove has a "Central Forced Air Kit" available which is basically an insulated flex duct and fan. I was thinking about connecting this to the forced air ducting and using this to distribute heat to the bedrooms. What do you think? Is this something that any of you have done, and how effective is it. Seems like a great idea to me, but I've said that before and been wrong.

I appreciate any input that the knowledgeable folks on this forum can provide.
Thanks,
Greg

Slow1 said:

Hmm... if you have the duct work for central heat and the furnace has been removed, have you considered a wood furnace?

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Hi Slow1, Not sure I know what a wood furnace is. I do know that this is a very small house for the 5 of us, and there certainly isn't any space to carve out room for a new furnace. The old oil fired furnace has been removed. I would like to install a wood stove and have electric baseboard as a backup. (Set the thermostat at 50 deg so I don't have to get out of bed in the middle of the night to feed the stove).

Backwoods Savage said:

Welcome to the forum Greg. I've not seen the stove and setup like you describe but it doesn't sound bad. I wonder if this is in the basement where you'd put said stove or on the same level. If the basement, then consider how you will get wood to the stove and if you have to carry the wood down a stairway, that get old really fast.

For that size house I'd recommend a radiant heat vs convective. Many stoves would fit the bill and you could install it in the upstairs to really enjoy the heat. I also like soapstone for this size. Like our Fireview. It is radiant heat and won't blow you out of the room. It is also a very clean burning stove and easy on wood. We use half the wood we used to burn in our old Ashley.

In addition, if you plan on heating next winter, you need to get the wood NOW so that it has time to dry. Don't make the common mistake that most folks do and that is to get the stove and installation and then think about the fuel. This is not like buying oil. Good luck.

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Hi Backwoods Savage, thanks for the welcome. The house has a crawl space, no basement. The stove will sit on the main floor (the only floor! I do have some trees on my other lot knocked down already and seasoning. They should be good come this next winter for firewood. I do enjoy having the stove on the same level as us, and we are really looking forward to having a stove. We don't have one in our current house, as we are renting now, and it was a big deal last winter. We lost our power several times. Luckily the power came back on after a couple of hours each time, but my wife and I said never again. In the next house we will have the ability to heat 100% with a wood stove.

Ba

begreen said:

BIS makes decent units. For clarity's sake, this is not exactly a wood stove, it's a zero clearance fireplace. If space is tight and the intent is to add a chase on the side/end of the house then this would be a decent unit. At 2 cu ft it is not a giant, but it should carry most of the heating load. I'm not sure how well it will work tied into the existing ducts. If the ductwork is sealed at every joint and well insulated you may see some benefit from the tie it. But that really depends on the heat loss in the crawlspace.

Also, if building a chase for this unit, you might consider putting in an alcove with a free-standing stove as an alternative.

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Backwoods - Good point. The wood is still in the round. I need to get it split asap to let it air dry a bit before winter. All I have is spruce here, and it seems to dry out pretty quickly when split. I had not considered that it is a lot slower drying as a log.

Begreen - You too are correct. The BIS is not really a free standing wood stove. I hesitated to call it a fireplace, as to me a fireplace is an open box with a chimney that uses combustion air from inside the house to burn. They are pretty, but aren't real effective at heating a house. The RSF Opal that I used to have, and the BIS Tradition CE are sealed units with a gasgeted door, that use outside supplied combustion air, and have the ability to circulate air around the firebox with a fan to maximize heat recovery. They seem more stove-like than fireplace-like. I might be mistaken, but I always thought that a fireplace insert what a device that you set into an existing fireplace to try to improve combustion efficiency. I got plenty of heat from the RSF Opal, and am hoping for the same results from the BIS.

As far as the placement of the fireplace, the house that I am buying used to have an oil fired forced air furnace. That was removed by the previous owner. The house now has in the living room a small Toyo oil fired heater sitting in a chase/alcove off of the living room. The Toyo is ugly, stinky, and not something that we want in the house, expecially as the focal point in the living room. Also, based on current prices, electricity is cheaper than oil right now in my town. The alcove the Toyo sits in looks as if it was constructed as a chimney chase. The chase runs up the outside wall of the living room, 17.5' from floor level, and is capped by a metal flashed cap, and extends ~5' above the roof level. My realtor tells me that the origional owner planned to install a fireplace/wood stove, but ran out of money after building the house. To make a long story short, we are planning on taking out the Toyo, installing electric baseboard heat, and a BIS Tradition. If I can effecitvely hook it into the existing duct work, I think it should be possible to heat the house mostly with the BIS, only using electricity late at night. Anyway, that is my plan if nobody sees any flaws with it. I have about 3 weeks to plan, then we close on the house. After that, my wife is going to be really pushing me to get it installed ASAP, so I need to make a plan now if that seems reasonable. Any problems with this plan you can see?