My wife and I just moved to Rapid City South Dakota and are new to wood burning stoves.
After purchasing our house we gutted the basement, had a new chimney installed and a SBI Flame wood stove installed. We have been pretty disappointed with the SBI stove and the dealer is returning our money. We burn pine up here in SD but even with pine I am only getting 3 hours burn on a full load of wood and it doesn't seem to throw much heat either. I believe the model is an NXT-1 which is a 3.0+ firebox.
Since this stove is getting returned I decided to do some research this time before buying a new one on a recommendation. I have narrowed it down to the T5 or T6 but can't decide if I really need the large stove. We are in the process of finishing the basement and once done there will be insulation and some rooms that will break the space up. Below is a description of the house.
Built in ~1978 it is a long narrow ranch of 3000sqft, 1500 main floor and 1500 in the basement. The wood stove is installed in the corner of the basement on one side and is directly across from an open staircase. The rooms in the basement will be on the far side away from the stove with about 1000sqft remaining open for our entertainment area. Going up the staircase the kitchen is on one side and the family room is on the other side. Past the family room there is a hallway leading to the bedrooms and bathroom. Currently the top of the staircase is enclosed but in the future we are going to remove the wall in the family room and replace with a railing. This will open the staircase completely to the basement for airflow.
The chimney is a 6" dura-vent that basically goes straight up from the basement through the back of the laundry room out through the roof. It is total of 16' I believe and only the last 3-4' are outside the house. I seem to have a very good draft as I hardly ever have smoke coming into the room from the stove. I plan on installing an outside air supply during the basement remodel.
The PE dealer here is pushing me towards the T5 but I am concerned that this is going to be too small. The basement/rec room will be a main living area so we don't want to heat it so much we can't use the area. We normally keep our house around 67-68 degrees with our gas burning insert upstairs and our baseboard heaters.
I am leaning towards the T6 but I question whether I can really turn it down enough to reduce heat and still have an efficient fire that burns all the wood.
Thanks for any suggestions you have.
After purchasing our house we gutted the basement, had a new chimney installed and a SBI Flame wood stove installed. We have been pretty disappointed with the SBI stove and the dealer is returning our money. We burn pine up here in SD but even with pine I am only getting 3 hours burn on a full load of wood and it doesn't seem to throw much heat either. I believe the model is an NXT-1 which is a 3.0+ firebox.
Since this stove is getting returned I decided to do some research this time before buying a new one on a recommendation. I have narrowed it down to the T5 or T6 but can't decide if I really need the large stove. We are in the process of finishing the basement and once done there will be insulation and some rooms that will break the space up. Below is a description of the house.
Built in ~1978 it is a long narrow ranch of 3000sqft, 1500 main floor and 1500 in the basement. The wood stove is installed in the corner of the basement on one side and is directly across from an open staircase. The rooms in the basement will be on the far side away from the stove with about 1000sqft remaining open for our entertainment area. Going up the staircase the kitchen is on one side and the family room is on the other side. Past the family room there is a hallway leading to the bedrooms and bathroom. Currently the top of the staircase is enclosed but in the future we are going to remove the wall in the family room and replace with a railing. This will open the staircase completely to the basement for airflow.
The chimney is a 6" dura-vent that basically goes straight up from the basement through the back of the laundry room out through the roof. It is total of 16' I believe and only the last 3-4' are outside the house. I seem to have a very good draft as I hardly ever have smoke coming into the room from the stove. I plan on installing an outside air supply during the basement remodel.
The PE dealer here is pushing me towards the T5 but I am concerned that this is going to be too small. The basement/rec room will be a main living area so we don't want to heat it so much we can't use the area. We normally keep our house around 67-68 degrees with our gas burning insert upstairs and our baseboard heaters.
I am leaning towards the T6 but I question whether I can really turn it down enough to reduce heat and still have an efficient fire that burns all the wood.
Thanks for any suggestions you have.
