inquiring about Hearthstone Bennington

No interaction with a bennington, just wanted to say hi, and welcome.

Ditto on the welcome.

I did not buy a Bennington, but I did look at one very closely in my shopping this past spring. The floor model at the stove shop showed some sloppy factory assembly. The doors and ashpan door didn't fit quite right. No idea if this was representative, or just an unusually bad one.

That shop, despite selling stoves from 6 manufacturers, kept telling me that the Bennington was the only stove to buy, and that buying anything else was just silly. They claimed that it would outheat any other woodstove on the market (a dubious claim, since there are several others with larger fireboxes, including some in their very showroom!). That either means they REALLY believe in that product, or they had a bunch of them to unload. Don't know which one for sure, but it sounded a little sketchy to me.

I sincerely wish you the best experience with yours.

Another Bennington owner Welcome to the family! I have had mine now for 5 years now and pretty much have grown to love it. Like almost all stoves, the wood has to be extremely well seasoned. I've also learned to keep the splits to the small to medium size, larger splits just don't do well. A good draft is also very important, but again that is like most stoves. It will pump out heat once you get it going. I can expect good to ridiculously great heat production over a 6 hour period (depending on wood species), with plenty of coals left to get the fire going again easily at the 8 or 9 hour mark. I installed the outside air kit last year and I'm very happy with that as well. The stove doesn't heat any better but it has eliminated some pesky drafts in my house. There was a definite learning curve to this thing, but we have it dialed in now and it works great for us. Let me know if you have any other/specific questions about it.

I'm certainly no expert but Hearthstone requires a minimum of 13' (and a maximum of 30') so you are good there.

I have the same chimney, maybe 14, and it is ideal. You don't want it so long that your draft is too strong but not so short that your draft is bad. Being near the minimum length but completely inside the home and vertical is perfect. Your chimney won't cause you trouble.

The only reason I would buy a hearthstone is for the soapstone. Without that feature, and if I wanted a cast iron stove, I would be looking at the folks that specialize in cast iron like jotul or morso.