Lopi Answer stove - Any complaints on this stove?

MyFyrByrd said:

Hello,
I'm considering purchasing a Lopi Answer stove to heat a 1300 sq ft ranch style home. Anyone here have any poor experiences with this stove. I realizee the stove has only a 1.6 cu foot firebox - Will I get sick of constantly tending the fire? The room this is going in is only 13 ft X 11 ft. (I think the larger Endeavor model would throw way too much heat considering we spend alot of time in this room. Any help or comments would be very much appreciated. I wan't to make a good purchase with my hard earned money.
Thanks

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Just buy the Answer. That is the stove you really want. It is a good purchase for your hard earned money. No one has reported any poor experiences with the Answer. You have already determined that the Enedavor throws out too much heat for the room where you spend most of your time. Let us know how it works out for you.

MyFyrByrd said:

Ok, how 'bout not being able to leave as much space between logs once you have a good fire established ?

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That's not necessarily a bad thing. You'll typically start by making a smaller fire when the stove is cold, to warm up the chimney and get a bed of coals. Then you'll put your DRY wood in on top of the coals. It will burn. If it's packed tight, it will burn slower and longer. You need some space under the tubes for the secondary burn to work well, but in a small stove it might be beneficial not to have too much airspace between the splits.

I really only have 2 complaints about my Endeavor.
1. The ash lip is too high. Sometimes it catches coals and makes it hard to close the door.
2. It has a really cheesy etching of ducks flying over a swamp on the glass.

I don't think there's a thing wrong with going with the Answer. There are a number of happy Answer owners here. If it's truly supplemental and for ambiance, a room heater rather than a house heater, then you'd be fine. I don't do overnight burns unless the power's out, (furnace works the night shift). Restarting a cold stove is not a big deal, so you might not even care if it doesn't always make it through the night. I would be happy with the Answer probably 90% of the time due to my burning habits, but I sure appreciate the flexibility when I need it.

I had a set of customers come in yesterday, husband and wife very nice folks. They were in a similar dillema. She was looking at the T4 alderlea (PE stove 'bout the same size as the answer) while he was more set on the T5 (endeavor sized unit). Space on the hearth was a concern to them, but after doing the math with the req clearances, the larger unit would only stick out 4" more into the room than the smaller unit. It was a back and forth between the two for a while about the size, how often they planned to burn it, and the heating capacity/burn time of each. I am pretty sure if I had leaned more to the T4 w/ the ol' sales pitch, she probably woulda pulled the trigger right there, but in the end, I was trying to lean them more towards his choice, the T5. Biggest reasons were:
1. they were getting their own fire wood, and since the box on the T5 is more generous, it would give them more wiggle room w/ uneven cuts.
2. Overnight capacity. The smaller stove will not run 8 + hrs, the larger would.
3. they seemed a little unsure about how much they wanted to do with it. At first, it was explained to me it was gonna be a suplemental knda heat, but then the questions started going about how much wood would be needed if it was going all the time, how much of the heat they could push to the rest of the house, etc. It seemed to me that it would probably start out as an evening burning stove, but after use the thing would be running 24/7 as they were really enamored with the idea of burning wood as a more primary source eventually.

so in the end, I may have lost a quick sale with a promise of "we'll be back" from them after collecting the brochures and install specs. But, In the end, I'd rather see them get the stove that would absolutly fill their needs then have them buy it quick and then be bummed a couple yrs down the road that they didn't get something with a little more capacity, especially given there is only a difference of @ 300 between the two stoves.

Good points as always Summit

You do not want to be like me and get the smaller stove only to realize that your burns times are not want you really want. I had my Avalon Pendelton for five months, then we had an October snow storm that killed the power for eight days. My family pretty much lived in our Florida room for that whole time and every night/day I was up every 3 or 4 hours putting in wood, jamming it here and there. The reason why I bought that stove was that I was a rookie then and listened to a half ass dealer called Heritage Fireplace in Lockport , NY. Yes I spit this name out whenever I can because their customer service after the sale was the worst I have seen, they missed out in having a good customer that would have helped them with sales. Now they can piss off as my Brit friends say

At any rate, you will love wood burning in this stove, and why lose some money re selling the Answer in a year or so when you'll want longer burn times and knowing that re splitting wood all the time is a pain. Once again, north and south burning is a real benefit, ask anybody that has one. Plus don't underestimate the advantage of having a bypass damper, this is huge in not only starting fires, no puffbacks, but most importantly cleaning the stove. If you are going to clean your stove yourself, most guys do unless it is a very steep pitch, it does not get any easier than having a bypass damper. Just open the damper when you clean the chimney pipe, and viola, all the powder comes into the stove and you are basically done. No taking off tubes or removing insulation blankets like I have to. That is a very big advantage in my book and should not be overlooked ;-)

If you get too hot in that room, crack a window like many have done. Putting in 3 or 4 smaller splits in a stove every four hours is not my idea of a enjoyment when it comes to wood burning. I have done this with pot belly stoves also as a kid and I don't care to do it anymore.

Like all have said, either way you will be getting a good stove, the Endeavor will just make life easier ;-)

Hey Firebird, don't know if you have made a decision yet or not but here is a link to my first burn in my Endeavor. My wife and I tried to figure out a way to explain the difference in the way the wood heat feels, she said it best when she said that it seems that the heat is hugging you instead of just heating one side of you. Anyway we work on a budget around here and I know this is not spectacular but so far it seems to work and we are looking forward to 100% wood heat next winter once I get the hearth finished.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/55869/

Firebird that stove has a rear exhaust, you can't tell be that the Endeavor with the top exhaust and only 4.25 inches of rear clearance will take up more room????? Now I am totally new to wood burning so take this with a grain of salt, this stove today when I fired it up put off such a soft "huggible" heat after we got it fired up and turned down to low that I can't imagine it running you out of your room. After loading it only one time, I am sold on the North/South loading feature. It sounds like we are both in the same boat as far as sq. ft. we intend to heat but I plan to heat solely on wood next winter. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions and we can talk on the phone.

I could post a pic of my close fit to the rear of my stove and I think you would actually gain more room in front of your stove.

4.25 inches to the rear With the exhaust out the top, this thing hugs the wall and I can hold my hand on the rear of the stove when it is running wide open.

MyFyrByrd said:

Reason I'm saying this is that the small room where it is in dries out to the point that my sinuses just can't take it. I am in this room most of the time. My thoughts are the stove is just too big or maybe soapstone dries the air out more that plate steel or cast does.

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I really don't think the stove material is going to help this at all. Air is typically dry in the winter to begin with, toss a stove into the mix and it can get really dry. I ran a steamer on the stove, had a humidify in my stove room, sons room and my room all winter. Even at that I would boil a pot of water on the stove every now and then to help out.

MyFyrByrd said:

I'll check that out.
Have put a down payment on it. We have a stove in the place where the new one will go. Its a soapstone stove which may be to large for us now. Reason I'm saying this is that the small room where it is in dries out to the point that my sinuses just can't take it. I am in this room most of the time. My thoughts are the stove is just too big or maybe soapstone dries the air out more that plate steel or cast does. I've tried humidifiers and the steamer on the stove, Nothing works. So this is why I'm looking to make a new purchase.

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I think your air quality will go down even more with the Lopi since it's a convection stove. It will suck in your room air, dry it out and return it back to your room. Your Woodstock is more of a radiant heater and shouldn't dry out the air as much.

You also need 8" clearance in front of your current stove.

Firebird, if the only reason you are getting a new stove is because of the humidity then maybe we need to hold off a bit and talk about fixing that instead of replacing the good looking stove you currently have.

The outside air kit should stop the stove from pulling in dry air from outside and then your humidifier can add moisture to your room. That may be all you need to cure your dry air problem and much cheaper than a new stove.