1.85 or 2.4cu ft. Firebox for 1100sq ft home ?

On my second year running a 1.8 cu/ft model on the main floor of my story and a half. 750 sq/ft on main level. I highly recommend going with a larger stove. Mine heats the place fine. Even on below zero nights. However, you need to be a insomniac to keep up the re-loading! Not nearly enough burn time. Got a path beat between my spot on the couch and the stove! It gets old.

Plus, the coals start building up then and you can't put as much wood in when you really need to.

Does the larger one load front to back? I really like that.

I'd vote for that one.

I can get 4 hrs and have a decent coal bed for reloading. More than that and the stove is mostly out. Ash control is a learning process on these little guys. Adding two small splits at the tail end of a burn with plenty of primary air helps to consume/shrink down the coal bed significantly (learned that trick here). Overall I love the little sucker but I am definatly moving on to a better/newer design for less babysitting. Looked at the BK Princess but it seemed aweful large. Absolute Steel sounds impressive. I need to see a BK Ashford 20 as it likely is sized more correctly for me.

@Jason763 , have you considered the Englander 30nc? On sale big time right now at HD (there are several other threads running about this right now)

I heat 1200 square feet. It's a 1 story rancher. You have a much colder climate there than I do, but I'd be cautious buying a radiant stove in a small house/room. I know nothing about the stove you are looking at but I have learned that I do not like the temperature spike of cast iron stoves and steel stoves. The Blaze King I have now does a perfect job controlling the fire on a long, slow burn that doesnt run you out of the room. It is a steel stove with a cast iron jacket around it and I think it works great for this size house.

What you're questioning is where I was two years ago when my Vermont castings had to be replaced. So happy I went with the jacketed stove! I think Pacific Energy stoves are jacketed and non cats, would you consider their stoves at all?

Jason763 said:

Can I run a larger stove with a smaller fire hot enough to get secondary burn, as to run efficiently?
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To some extent, but it will never be AS efficient. What you might find with a larger stove, to keep from cooking you out, is that you end up letting the stove go more cold more often. Building fires more frequently from scratch mean less efficiency, as you get mare wasted heat and wasted fuel (unburnt smoke). Considering you are well-insulated and like room temps on the cooler side, I would consider the smaller stove.

Personally, I don't mind the house at 70-80f, and would get the larger stove for longer burns and more output in deeper cold spells (but if you don't mind running the furnace a bit during those spells, then not a problem... I heat 100% with wood, so bigger is essential).

But the ideal scenario might be the larger firebox in a cat stove, rather than non-cat. This will allow more control, fewer inefficient start-ups, and fewer unwanted spikes in room temp, especially in the cool but not cold months. For example, the Woodstock Absolute Steel that I'm currently beta testing would fit the bill... 2.4 cu ft box, but as a hybrid with both cat and non-cat burn technologies, I can have a very low-output burn that is still highly efficient.

Go with the biggest unit you can fit, you can always build smaller fires for milder temps, but when it's cold you'll be happy you have a fire box large enough to last through the the night for a matchless reload

I only ran an EPA non cat for one winter up here. Clean burn and quick heat yes, long burns, not so much. But mine was c 2000 technology. The newer stuff reads like it operates better than mine did, but you can't have my long burn champion catalytic stove until you pry my cold dead hands from the bypass lever.

Do you got kids at home? If yes, definitely the bigger firebox. From whenever they are old enough to reach the doorknob, until they have paid their own utility bills for two winters kids leave doors and windows open a freakishly huge amount of time. I don't think the EPA (or whoever) allows for that when they say for X many square feet you need Y BTUs which means Z sized firebox. If you got kids at home that haven't been out on their own for two winters, get the bigger firebox.

Firebox size, like many other things- the old adage holds true: it's better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it.

Go with the larger one as long as clearances/ footprint are ok.

Small hot fires are not a problem, in fact it's the only way to run a non cat in the shoulder season. I have 3 sticks of pallet wood in mine now, the stove is at 425° and giving a gentle heat to keep the chill out.

I have an over sized firebox and I'm very glad to have the extra firepower when it's super cold. I also appreciate having extra room in the firebox for longer splits. There are a few tricks you can do to keep from over heating the house. As stated, build small hot fires. I like to leave a lot of densely packed ash on the floor of the firebox. This helps insulate and keep coals for longer periods of time. Be sure to fully close down the air intake to limit the amount of cool air entering the firebox. Another trick is to burn hard wood in the shoulder season. I know a lot of guys like to burn pine and soft woods during the spring and fall, but I like having some hard wood in the box to help hold a good coal, as I wait longer between reloads during that time. I especially love burning pine on super cold days, so I can reload more frequently without any over coaling. Hope that helps.

Jason763 said:

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong , I'm new at this; so with a larger firebox I can still get the stove up to the proper operating temperature with a smaller load of wood and not cook us outta the house?

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It is really going to depend on the specific stove and the wood size/dryness/etc. But don't worry whether every single fire achieves a perfect secondary burn... the main thing is that you give the smaller fire enough air to burn hot and with less smoke even in the absence of great secondaries, and even if that means a shorter burn with a bit more heat up the flue. A smaller stove, as well, is still prone to a bit less efficiency in the warmer months.(Cat or cat-hybrid stoves will be the exception... big or small, they can be dialed down to cooler burning temps while still burning smoke for greater efficiency.)

Here is another thread that discusses it in a bit more detail:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/big-stove-small-fire-smoke-clydesdale-in-full-test-run.71750/

Either size stove will require experimenting and experience to get the desired and most efficient results, but the bigger stove gives the benefit of longer burns and more output when very cold. The number of people who regret getting a too-small stove probably outnumbers those who regret getting a too-big stove by 10 to 1, if not more. (During the week or two of below zero the regret tends to be more pronounced.)