Well the wife has spoken, time to find a new stove.

Ok, so I bought the englander on sale, but the wife vetoed it because it is not as wide and decorative as our franklin.....so I am basically starting from scratch here. I have been searching like crazy so I know some of this stuff has been covered. But here we go...

First the house is a 2000 sq ft ranch with a couple rooms with high ceilings. My franklin can keep up with this easily but that sucker eats wood like crazy and I really just don't feel safe burning it unless I'm home. Insulation is pretty typical, r-13 in the walls, plus 1" pine board and batten siding. Attic is R38, all double pane windows. Stove is centrally located so I can move the air decently although the living room where the stove is gets pretty warm.

Ok so now for the stove requirements... First and foremost from the wife, she wants it roughly the same shape/size as the franklin. I showed her the jotul firelight and the oslo as well as the quad isle royale, that is the type of size/style she wants, basically wider than it is deep, somewhat like the franklin. As far as brand/size I'm completely open to suggestions, I think i'd rather stay non-cat especially since i'll never have any bigger than a 15 foot chimney from the bottom of the stove. So far I'm looking at

quad isle royale
jotul 500 or 600

So please help me add to the list and for all you quad and jotul users out there, how do you like them? I'd like to stay around 2000 or less for the stove,but I would go higher if I need to, this is a one time deal and I might as well get something that will make all of us happy.


Thanks
Ed

Yeah I'm wondering if for 2000 square feet I should go smaller? As far as loading, I'm used to front loading so don't mind that. Where the stove is it has equal amount of room right or left, I have a 66" alcove. I guess if I had to pick I'd pick left side, but I really could do either.

Ah good point, anyone know what one of these is going for? the 500 or 600 with enamel finish?

DriftWood said:

Go big or stay home, size makes a big difference with these new wood stoves.

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So are you saying to go with the 600 or isle royale or that those might be too small also?

swestall said:

Don't forget to look at the PE Aldera series; the T5 or T6 might be something she would really like, and you would love them.

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Wow those are nice looking, and can you load wood in both directions in the T6? Seems a lot deeper than the jotuls. Anyone know what price range those are?

Hogwildz said:

Did you ever get the draft issues squared away?

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Well, not squared away yet, but partly figured out I think. I found that the top part of my chimney can be rocked back and forth for the last couple feet or so, essentially the last flue tile, which means it's leaking like crazy there. So between that and the fact that it needs to be 2 feet taller, I've come to the conclusion of either a liner or new chimney, especially cuz I'm worried that other parts may have gaps between flue tiles. Based on the thimble coming through the wall being 6" id exactly, I don't see how I can get a liner through there. So....right now I'm thinking new class A chimney, really about the same price as a liner for me, since I'll only need about 9ft of the expensive pipe, missed the dang home depot sale, all cleared out near me. The rest will be either single or double wall black pipe. And with that I should end up with about a 16 foot chimney foot chimney(from bottom of stove).

Thanks, I'll have to check that place out, hopefully get the wife out to start looking this weekend, maybe catch some end of season sales coming up. When we tore apart my dads walls it's was all 1 1/2 inch insulation, he lives down in waterford, we replaced it as we redid rooms, and the difference is amazing just going to r-13, the rooms that are redone get almost too hot now.

BeGreen said:

swestall said:

Don't forget to look at the PE Aldera series; the T5 or T6 might be something she would really like, and you would love them.

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I thought of suggesting the Alderlea, it would be up on my short list. But it doesn't go with the prime directive:
"First and foremost from the wife, she wants it roughly the same shape/size as the franklin. I showed her the jotul firelight and the oslo as well as the quad isle royale, that is the type of size/style she wants, basically wider than it is deep, somewhat like the franklin."

The Alderlea T6 is basically a cube. It doesn't have the leaner profile of the other stoves. So if you want a PE T6, be sure to take her to a store that has one and show it to her in person first. It's a real heavy sucker. You don't want to be moving it more than once.

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Yeah that's a good point, it is a foot deeper than the other ones. Doesn't seem like there are many that fit the bill of what she is looking for. So far I'm kinda leaning towards the jotul, mostly because of the log length it can take.... and it just seems like their customer service/reputation is pretty good. Still open to anything at this point, the plan right now is to get a handful of stoves in mind, and then go hit up some stove shops and see them in person and get a feel for the places selling them, i'm big on doing business in a place that treats me well. All kinds of great advice in this thread so far(as usual) thanks guys.

Hehe, trying to "warm her up to it" no pun intended right ;-). I may be able to talk the wife into the alderlea, since it does look the same from the front, but it may be a stretch.... are you looking to get a bigger stove? My only beef right now with the F600 is the double doors, would make it hard to front load. I guess side loading would work, I should have about a foot and a half clearance, it'll be going into an alcove. I'm worried the 500 wouldn't keep up, decisions decisions.

Well made it to a jotul dealer on our way to dinner tonight. They had quads too but only the lower end ones. Looked at the 500 and 600, and the firebox on the 600 looks a lot bigger and the wife likes it better too. I'm not crazy about the double doors and the little handle thing you have to use to open them. But the side loading seems like it would work really well. They have 15% off of what they have left in stock which would put me at about 1954 w/ tax for the 500 in blue/black enamel and 2209 for the 600 in blue/black enamel. Either of those in the black matte knocks 300 off the price tag. Gonna try and look at the quad tomorrow, wife isn't liking the PE so it's prob gonna be either the jotul or the isle royale. At this point I'm really leading toward the 600, the firebox looked tiny on the 500, and I can side load the 600..... Wife actually liked the black matte better...go figure, so that would be about 1900 out the door for the 600, sound like a good price?

Yeah I know the one you're talking about, I called them today, but they only have the smaller jotuls, nothing close to big enough for me. There's a new place on rt 9 near me(matchless chimney and hearth or something) and they have the isle royale, gonna go scope that out on monday since they're not open tomorrow.