Looking for a woodburning insert

wallpaper79 said:

To start I will give you all the situation. I have a 2100 sq ft house on the east coast of Canada. The house is approximatley 100 years old. The house is broken up into 4 smaller rooms on the main level and 5 on the second level. Since there seems to be no relief in sight, with regards to the price of oil, I am planning to install a woodburning insert.I hope by doing this that I can cut my oil bill significantly. I have looked at the Pacific Energy summit insert, along with the Vermont Castings and Napoleon 1401. I guess what I am wondering is, will a 2000 sq ft rated insert do the job, and what one would you recommend. All replys welcome.

Thanks, Peter

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From what I've been told, you are going to have a hard time getting heat to all areas of the home with one stove with an old home layout. I have the same setup to a certain degree. The main portion of the house is segmented into three sections on the first and second floor with a main gallery the goes the length of the house and exit to an "L" shape where the family/den/summerkitchen room is located.

I am buying two stoves. The stove in the family/den/summerkitchen room will heat that room and hopefully move down the gallery. The one in the kitchen should warm up the kitchen, master bedroom (above the kitchen), dining room, and second bedroom. But the living room and main stair case and third bedroom will probably not get a lot of heat.

At the very least, it should cut down on my oil cost by quite a bit... and I get to play with fire all winter, which is an added bonus.

BeGreen said:

You can make this work. The Summit sounds like a fine choice. I am guessing that with an average home box or table fan you can aid circulation enough to warm the kitchen/den. If you can post a simple floorplan I can suggest a location for placement.

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Well hell, I've got the same problem, I'll take you up on that! I'll try to post a floor plan in the morning. It should be a challenge.

BeGreen said:

You can make this work. The Summit sounds like a fine choice. I am guessing that with an average home box or table fan you can aid circulation enough to warm the kitchen/den. If you can post a simple floorplan Iwe can suggest a location for placement.

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I put together a quick floor plan. Remember; the first floor and second floor are only seperated by exposed beams and wide plank wood flooring. There is no insulation or drywall seperating the first and second floor. Also, the kitchen, dining room, bedroom 1, and bedroom 2 are stone with 20" thick walls.

Also, there is no basement.

BeGreen said:

BB, the picture really helps a lot. It sounds like a beautiful place, but does not look like it was designed with area heating in mind. This home would be a big challenge to heat with a single stove. The heat have to travel a long distance to reach the living room and that is through a corridor lined with lots of windows. Was the home built new or is it a converted stone barn?

Wallpaper79 Private Message me. You can put the file in the PM as an attachment.

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It was built in 1741 and it is a traditional stone farmhouse. I am planning on installing two wood stoves; One in the summer kitchen and the other in the kitchen.

In a perfect world I would install one in the living room and one in the kitchen, but the stove would just eat up too much space in the living room and we spend a lot of time in the summer kitchen, kitchen, bedroom1, bedroom 2 and dining room.

BeGreen said:

That must be beautiful. I've always admired these old stone houses when driving through the PA countryside. Do you know how it was is originally heated?

A second stove will help. Then a fan at the livingroom end of the hallway blowing towards the family room will start circulation. I am a bit concerned about heat loss with all the windows in the hallway. Do you have insulated curtains on them at night? How is the house heated now? Is there a basement or crawlspace underneath? How many sq feet total?

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I have no idea how it was originally heated. I would have to guess that it was just wood burning fireplaces as there are three chimneys (the one in the living room has been sealed off and does not have a fireplace opening, just a chimney column. We plan on opening it back up and create a stove insert setup in that room, but that is far beyond the budget for this year)

Square feet: about 2175
Basement/crawl space: none
The hallway/gallery: windows are double paned. No curtains though.

House is currently heated with oil. I am trying to cut oil consumption down from 1100 gallons to less than 500. The stoves will be run 24/7 during the winter.

This will be the third winter in this home and I am excited to actually have a couple of warm rooms during the winter. We have kept the temp in the house at 60 during the winter (the first winter because we just moved in and were unsure how much we should budget for oil in an old home, and the second year was because heating oil doubled in cost. This year is, of course, worse).

BeGreen said:

Sounds like a couple mid-sized stoves will do. With a walkin fireplace I'm assuming you are looking at a freestander for the family room. Is that correct? What have you picked out? Are you looking at an insert in the kitchen or freestanding?

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The Family room will have an older model VC Vigilant that I just bought off of CraigsList. The kitchen will have an insert to maximize space, otherwise I am forced to go with a smaller model like the VC Aspen. The inserts I am looking at are the Osburn 1600 and the Napoleon 1100. The fire place dimensions are 35” wide, 26” high, 27” deep with the back tapering down to 25 inches. I would like a firebox a bit larger than what the the Osburn and Nap offer, but I haven't seen one in their price range. If I can get them to last 7 hours without restarting the fire, that would be optimal. 8 hours would be great.

The vigilant will be replaced in 2-3 years with a more efficient, newer stove.

Depending on what heating oil does and how comfortable the house is with the two stoves will determine when we reopen the chimney and tear out 150 year old cabinets in the living room and build a fireplace with a stove insert. I'm figuring 5-8 grand to build a nice hearth/firebox/mantel and clean up the chimney with liner. Plus another 2 grand for a good stove insert.

If you're specifically looking for an insert, I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not looking at the Jotul inserts. I'm not saying they're better than anything else mentioned, but they're definitely worth a look...

FLASHMAN said:

If you're specifically looking for an insert, I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not looking at the Jotul inserts. I'm not saying they're better than anything else mentioned, but they're definitely worth a look...

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I like the look of the 450 Kennebec and the 350 Winterport. I would like to believe one of them is in the $1300-1500 price range, but if I were a betting man, I'd say they run about $2500-3000. Which is out of my price range.

BeGreen said:

Do the 2nd fl stairs come down in the middle of the kitchen area? How large is the opening for the kitchen area?

The large hallway between the kitchen and bath seem goofy. What function does it fulfill? Looks like wasted space to me.

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I agree but for some reason that idea was popular here and built into several homes in the 70's.

BeGreen said:

The large hallway between the kitchen and bath seem goofy. What function does it fulfill? Looks like wasted space to me.

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Come on BG, this is an easy one!

Obviously the architect saw that s/he could have just had a direct door from the kitchen to the bath. So why not?

Hint: NOT because the folks in the bathroom would find the odors or noises from the kitchen unpleasant!!

BrowningBAR said:

FLASHMAN said:

If you're specifically looking for an insert, I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not looking at the Jotul inserts. I'm not saying they're better than anything else mentioned, but they're definitely worth a look...

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I like the look of the 450 Kennebec and the 350 Winterport. I would like to believe one of them is in the $1300-1500 price range, but if I were a betting man, I'd say they run about $2500-3000. Which is out of my price range.

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Well, when my brother in law and I went to pick up my father-in-law's new Oslo, I saw the 550 Rockland insert on display, and that one was $2795... So my guess is that the smaller ones are less expensive... How much less, I don't know, but always remember, you get what you pay for...