Insert or Freestanding – I just can’t decide!

Here is mine.

Bigg_Redd said:

Bigger logs/splits = longer burn times

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With the air control on todays stoves you can hold fire well with smaller pieces. Smaller pieces mean more surface area burning, This means more complete combustion cleaner burn and more heat produced per pound of wood.

Redd has is right. Larger splits or rounds will always outlast a load of smaller pcs.
Just have to make sure they are dry and ready to burn, otherwise you are in for a long night of low temps and smoldering mess.

Hogwildz said:

Redd has is right. Larger splits or rounds will always outlast a load of smaller pcs.
Just have to make sure they are dry and ready to burn, otherwise you are in for a long night of low temps and smoldering mess.

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Bigger pieces might give longer burn if your stove is leaky. If the stove is tight size should not matter. In fact you can put more pounds of wood in the stove with smaller wood.(Smaller wood drys better) Less open space. Think or the sand and stone demo. The smaller wood will burn more completly giving more BTUs per pound of wood. If your stove will not hold over night on small stuff check for leaks. Check that door gasket with a dollar bill. If its a cast unit check all joint fro the claen wash marks where the air is coming in. good gasket sealed joints will let you get the most out of your stove.

kmcgovern said:

Is there any reason, if a freestanding stove will fit, I can't push it as far back into the opening as i can? This is a full masonry fireplace.

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This is directly out of my stove installation manual:

"We do not recommend placing the stove inside the fireplace, as it would be difficult to access the control levers, load the stove, and much of the heat radiating off the stove would not circulate into the room."

Another big Insert CON for me is cleaning the flue. A fireplace mounted stove usually has a convenient cleanout "T". I'm not sure how it works with an insert, but it seems it cannot be as easy.

fire_man said:

Another big Insert CON for me is cleaning the flue. A fireplace mounted stove usually has a convenient cleanout "T". I'm not sure how it works with an insert, but it seems it cannot be as easy.

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Most new stoves can be cleaned with the liner attached. Remove baffle assembly or opoen bypass damper and brush flue. Some of the stoves Harmun ect you will nedd to pull the combustion chamber apart to clean it others with baffle plate and tubes you cal usually pull one or to tubes and remove the baffle. Shovel dirt out and replace parts you are good to go.

I prefer the free standing stoves. I've had an insert (buck) and it worked well, but I like the stove....hard for me to think of an insert as a "stove" sorry guys, no offense meant. I guess if I want a fireplace, i'd have a fireplace. even my insert didn't have glass, just a solid front. bottom line, you gotta go with what you want.....and of course your spouse......because you guys have to look at it and use it....not us.

gholler said:

Bigger pieces might give longer burn if your stove is leaky. If the stove is tight size should not matter. In fact you can put more pounds of wood in the stove with smaller wood.(Smaller wood drys better) Less open space. Think or the sand and stone demo. The smaller wood will burn more completely giving more BTUs per pound of wood. If your stove will not hold over night on small stuff check for leaks. Check that door gasket with a dollar bill. If its a cast unit check all joint fro the clean wash marks where the air is coming in. good gasket sealed joints will let you get the most out of your stove.

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Larger splits give less air space between the splits than a load of smaller splits will do. There are many enough on here that know and use this practice as tried and true. Has nothing to do with air leaks, and everything to do with air space between the splits. The only way your going to get the same burn with a load of smaller splits as you will with a bunch of smaller ones, is if the smaller splits fit damn near perfectly tight together which ain't never gonna happen with split cord wood.

"Bigger pieces might give longer burn if your stove is leaky." ... This statement alone says all that need be said. If smalls burned the same way, then what difference would an air leak mean on big splits Vs. small ones?
Again more air channels and air air to wood surface with smalls Vs. large splits.
Burning the same stove with a load of large splits Vs. small splits will yield shorter burn times with the small splits with or without an air leak.
It is all in the air space between the splits. Typically more air space = hotter burning, and shorter lasting burn.
I also know that a load of too many large splits are loaded, the wood will actually burn poorly due to lack of air to wood surface & flow of the air.

"With the air control on todays stoves you can hold fire well with smaller pieces. Smaller pieces mean more surface area burning"

Again, you are contradicting yourself. You said yourself smaller pcs mean more surface area burning. Which also equates to faster consumption.
The one thing small loads will do is burn hotter, and faster.

And 6 months split and stacked wood is no where near enough time in PA for wood to burn. I don't care where you got the info, they are misinformed.
Try and burn some oak, hickory etc after only six months split( unless maybe if you splits 1" x 1" splits). I guarantee you will not be happy with the burn, and be one of those on here complaining the stove will not get a high enough temp, blaming the stove for crappy performance, and have a ton of creo at sweep time. Throw a full load of those size splits in your firebox and let us know how long that burn time is, and how hot that temp skyrocketed to.
I would not even burn pipe only after 6 months, nor poplar.

Fourty years experiance with only wood for heat tells me small splits work well. You can dry most woods(not hickory) pretty well in six months if split down. I try to be a year ahead. If you can control the air coming in you can have a hot fire and still hold for long burns. If you start out getting the stack up to about 400-450 for ten miniutes you get the stove hot enough to burn the tars in the stove. once this has stated you can shut down pretty hard and get long burns. Six to eight hours depending on the type of wood. As to creosote in the chimneys. I clean about 300 to 400 hunred a year and see all conditions. Bad chimney conditions are the result of wet wood or stove shut down before the burn gets developed. The hot burn to begin with and good wood will make the chimney much cleaner. Chimney must be clean to start this process or you stand the chance of liting it off.

You ain't drying oak in 6 months. I don't give a shitload what you say!
You ain't drying it in a year.
In two years it is about so so, but still not as dry as it should be.
I don't give a crap what your experience is. I don't give a crap how many chimneys you have cleaned.
Bad habits for 1 year or 75 years is still bad habits.

There are many old timers that have burnt wet wood for years and feel they are "experienced".
And they are used to burning the old smoke dragons, so no fault of their own. Simply know no better.
And anyone can buy a chimney brush and rods and go clean chimneys.
Your description for your theory or habits for burning wood are exactly what is the wrong advice to be giving.

A stack temp of 400-450 for tens minuted has NOTHING to do with burning "tars" off. That merely indicates your running the stove wide open air, with the flames licking the top of the box and heat flying up the stack.
The burning of the "tars" as you call them, happens inside the firebox, by the secondaries, or a cat. And they can burn off for 1 hours to several hours depending on the load species and size. Unless of course you burning a pre-EPA stove, then your heat is just going up the stack, along with the "tars".
6 to 8 hours is piss poor for burn times, unless you have a smaller stove, or a wood chomping smoke dragon. What stove are you burning anyways?

Lets be nice, what works for one might not work for someone else, I think we are here to listen to others opinions. That being said, I have a jotul f100 fully inside my fireplace, I was going to do a small hearthstone but the company suggested not to. My stove has rear and bottom heat shields so it gives up less heat to the bricks and has not only radiant but also natural natural convective heat. It was installed with smooth walled flex stainless, top and bottom block off plates and the space between pipe and bricks filed with vermiculite. works great in my small 1760's house.

I think your gong to get answers all over the board about insert vs freestander and the pros and cons of both. Personally I think a freestander looks awesome when the firebox is one of those huge oval top type where it looks like it sitting in an alcove. When you have a small fire box that the stove just barely fits into I like the looks of an insert (thats what I have). I suggest you take a pic of your fireplace and photshop every stove your considering into it and see what you like the best. As far as the better heater, Unless the frestander is all the way out of the firebox I can't see how it can heat any better than an insert.