Steel, large firebox, rear exhaust, & secondary burn - suggestions?

How much of an area to you want to heat? How well is your house insulated? How tall is your fireplace opening? Do you have pics of your fireplace? If the fireplace is inside the house heating up the bricks is actually not a bad thing as they will slowly release the heat into the room over time. That is what I see with my insert. I am also wondering why you see the need to "crank up" the stove so much. Even solid steel stoves will break over time if continuously fired to max allowable temps. A stove with a bigger firebox may be an easy solution there and last much longer then if not pushed to the limit all the time.

If burn times are important to you I would not exclude a cat stove. There is not much "fussing" with a cat anymore. Open the bypass, light the stove, get it up to temp, close bypass, engage cat, enjoy heat for up to 24 hours depending on wood, stove size and outside temps. With a non-cat stove you play around with the air control at least as much. Thus, ease-of-use would not be an argument for me against a cat stove.

begreen said:

They're not steel, but are serious heaters.

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Rear exit steel is pretty limited. I agree with begreen, maybe consider options other than steel. What is the height of your fireplace opening?

Sounds like an old Victorian house where you have a lot of room to heat. I know I will get flamed for this, BUT, if this is for only weekend use and you want steel you could go with an older rear vent Fisher free standing stove, put a baffle in it to make the emissions a bit better. I would also put in an inline damper if possible, at that height your stove is going to want to run away.

There are still some very nicely redone Fishers out there.

The Maine Stove Guy said:

Rear exit steel is pretty limited. I agree with begreen, maybe consider options other than steel. What is the height of your fireplace opening?

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Seems like there would be a market for that; The low maintenance of a plate-steel stove with the capability to be hearth-mounted and be vented directly up the masonry chimney. Must be a limited market or maybe with the tube stoves, rear venting doesn't work as well. Or possibly many of those places with masonry fireplaces are nicer houses, and they want a pretty stove. Our place isn't fancy but has a brick chimney. The first stove we had, a '84 plate-steel Englander 24 Radiant, had a switchable cover plate.

First, I agree with Begreen. Even in a moderate climate like DC, a 40 foot (especially if inside)pipe and 8 inch diameter is going to give you monster draft. Zone 5 with over 30 feet of 6 inch pipe I have too much draft.

I agree with Grisu, you are unnecessarily restricting yourself if you avoid a cat. Don't know how big your home is, but, for instance, a Woodstock Fireview heats easily 1600 feet providing all heat in a climate like yours. It is incredibly easy to use...has a one day learning curve for someone who has never heated with wood, I would say. Of course, with any stove as with anything else, the more you use it and the more you care about its performance, the longer your fine-tuning learning curve. Cat doesn't need to be cleaned more than once a year, incredibly easy to get at, takes maybe 10 minutes to clean. Cat stove uses less wood for same heat production. There are very good cat stoves from a number of manufacturers, many rear vented. Woodstock's Progress Hybrid or Lopi's Cape Cod, and Woodstock's upcoming Union Hybrid, should you have a larger home, will produce a ton of heat when burning at reasonable rates. They have large glass windows and heat a room quickly. I think any stove with a large window radiates heat pretty quickly. I'm guessing you want steel for rapid heat production...not necessary with the large windows.

Don't know why you want a fan if the stove is out in the room. Not necessary, is noisy, uses electricity, one more thing to go wrong and to maintain.

So, not suggesting you avoid steel, just suggesting you not restrict yourself by doing so.

Does appearance matter to you at all? How big is your home? Do you just want a fire for ambiance on weekends? Any chance you'll want to eventually heat the home if you find the stove easy to use, or are you in a situation where you cannot handle/store enough wood to do so? MANY end up heating 24/7 when they realize how easy the stoves are to use, and how comfortable the heat.

You'll be happy with a cat or secondary burn stove, if you get one you like the appearance of and that will do what you want it to in terms of producing heat. All the better stoves burn very well and give a great view of the fire. You can burn with an active (read very active) flame in a cat or non-cat stove. That's your call, any given day. The cat allows you to leave the fire burning very slowly while producing lots of heat when you are not in the room. Back in the room and you want active flames, you can just open the air a bit more and let the fire burn hotter.

So tell us what it is you want to accomplish, and we can be more helpful.

Are you actually planning to put a BK King in or is that just a future possibility? Is that not in the budget right now? The best bang-for-the-buck except maybe something used will be an Eglander NC-30 for $900 from Home Depot. Your fireplace is so large you could easily put the stove in and stuff a lot of Roxul around it:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/finally-got-around-to-insulating-my-fireplace.75755/ Then you will reduce the heat loss through the masonry.

lairdreed said:

the Roxul idea is a good one; but not so scenic however.

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That's true; the Roxul is usually used with inserts when the surround covers the fireplace. However, yours is that big that you could maybe put the Roxul around the walls and then put some cover (e. g. metalplates) in front of it. That depends, of course, how big the stove will be you want to buy. Where is the damper? Would you need to put the stove far in the back? I am not sure if you can get the BK King in there as the height is getting close and you say your opening is arched. Do you have any pictures of your fireplace? What special feature(s) got you interested in the King in the first place? Maybe there are alternatives.

Have you taken a look at the Hearthstone Equinox? It has a 4 cu ft firebox, rear vent, uses an 8 inch liner and gets burn times that rival a catalytic stove. It is soapstone, not a cranking steel stove but otherwise would fit perfectly what you need. You could close the fireplace opening behind it except for the pipe and thereby reduce the heat loss to the bricks tremendously.

Usually we also suggest to put the stove in the area where you will be most. Is the basement really the place you spent most of the time or could maybe an upstairs fireplace be used for a smaller stove?