Overnight burns with small footprint stove?

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eegs2k

New Member
Feb 9, 2011
6
Central PA
Hi,

I am looking to replace my propane stove in our family room with a woodburner. Tired of paying the high bills and looking to get back to wood. Grew up with an old franklin and a woodstock soapstone. Our last house had a regular fireplace, but this one does not.

The house is a 1700sqft ranch. The stove will go on the complete opposite side from the bedrooms in a family room that was an addition.

Its not going to be my only source of heat, but I'd like to push it as much as i can. I have an oil burner as well, but I'd love to get something that would burn overnight.

My issues is the family room is not that big. Its around 12x21. I cant really find the space to drop an Englander 30 in because of how deep it is. :)

Any recommendations for smaller stoves with longer burns?

Thanks!
Dave
 
For small footprint stoves you'll really need to be looking at those stoves with small rear clearances. The physical size of the stoves doesn't really vary that much. What's 6" anyway?

So your close clearance stoves are going to be the PE line, check out the alderlea T5 at 4", the blaze king princess is also very close, my heritage is a pretty shallow stove and only needs 7" rear clearance. The PE and BK have excellent burn times, the hearthstone will go overnight.

The woodstock line's largest stove is still underrated for your home but would likely be good enough. The problem is that it will have to be mounted way out in the room due to large rear clearance requirements.
 
The current propane stove has 11 inches from the stove to the brick wall behind it. it is 18" from the pipe to the wall.
Now this stove is only 16" deep though and that pushes to the front of the hearth. I can mod the hearth another foot or so to extend it, but thats about all the space i have. I can go wider though. My concern for depth was based on some of the bigger stoves being 24-30" deep.
 
For an overnight burn you need at least a mdium sized stove. I think Highbeam has it right - clearances are going to be at least as much of an issue as stove size. Get a medium to large stove with tight clearances on the sides and back. Add extra heat shields on the walls and you can further reduce clearance.
 
Lopi Endeavor only requires 4 1/4 inches for the rear clearance and it's 23 1/2 inches deep. That will put you about about 27-28 inches into the room which isn't much. It's a medium sized stove that will easily get you till morning with a real nice coal bed. Close clearance to combustibles was one of the things we really liked about this stove since our family room is only 11x16.
 
I have a Regency F1100 (the smallest one), rear clearance is about 6".
I went to work this morning at 6:30 AM, I returned at 6:30 PM, there were enough coals to relight with no problem. Maybe take a look at the F2400 next size up.
 
If I were going to buy a stove, I would seriously look into Lopi stoves. load E-W and most people on here recommend moving the cold air towards the stove. also install an outside air source so the stove isn't consuming inside air. to move the cold air quietly, a tower or squirrel cage fan will do the trick. Northern tool has a fan made by stanley that is small yet can move some air. With a good EPA non-cat stove, you shouldn't have any problems heating that amount of space.
 
We have a Jotul Castine that can burn overnight and has a pretty small clearance. We bought it because we needed it to fit in our old, shallow fireplace and not stick out into the room too far.

It does a good job heating our home. Basically we only fire up the furnace in the morning. When we get up it's about 60 degrees or so in the house. We fire up the furnace to bring the house up to about 66 or 68 or so and then load up the woodstove, burning throughout the day and up until bedtime. I'm fortunate because my wife is home during the day to keep the home fire burning [so to speak]. The furnace doesn't kick on again the rest of the day, as the house stays in the 68-70 range.

I'm a night owl, and generally stay up to about midnight or so, at which time I load it up wtih four or five pieces of wood before going to bed. The Castine has a shallow firebox, but it's wider than a lot of stoves so it can handle longer pieces. By morning, there's usually a few coals left that allows us to fire it up again around 7 or 8 a.m.

We love the stove. It does what we need. If space wasn't such an issue, I might have bought the next bigger model, but I have no complaints. Before this, we owned the smaller Jotul model, which was nice too but too small to hold a fire overnight.
 
If the goal is to heat as much of the house as possible, then I would get at least a 2 cu ft stove. The mid-sized Englander 13NC would do, but it will need side-shielding and a hefty hearth to make it fit in a smaller room. The Pacific Energy Super 27 or the Napoleon 1400 would be my next choice. Both have tight clearances and easy hearth requirements. The PE Super 27 (or Spectrum or Alderlea T5) has an excellent long burn time, N/S loading and will burn fine with a partial load of wood. Another alternative would be a catalytic stove. By combining the cat with soapstone you can get a nice soft heat and long burn times at a lower heat output setting. Woodstock stoves owns this turf almost exclusively.

What is the ceiling height in the family room? Does it have a large opening into the rest of the house? With a table or box fan, located on the floor in the hallway, pointing toward the family room, you can get decent heat distribution. The trick is to blow the cooler air, down low, towards the warm air.
 
Jimbob said:
Also look at the Summit and Super 27. They both have 4" rear clearances, and they'll take you overnight, too.
Click to expand...

+1

I would also add the Summit Classic and Alderlea stoves too.

One thing to be careful of is getting a stove that will roast you out of the room too. Soapstone stoves offer a nice even heat. It sort of acts like a thermostat - dampening the spikes and giving-up heat to the room as the temperature dips. Hearthstone soapstone stoves are beautiful stoves and I think have some close clearances.

Good luck,
Bill
 
BeGreen said:
If the goal is to heat as much of the house as possible, then I would get at least a 2 cu ft stove. The mid-sized Englander 13NC would do, but it will need side-shielding and a hefty hearth to make it fit in a smaller room. The Pacific Energy Super 27 or the Napoleon 1400 would be my next choice. Both have tight clearances and easy hearth requirements. The PE Super 27 (or Spectrum or Alderlea T5) has an excellent long burn time, N/S loading and will burn fine with a partial load of wood. Another alternative would be a catalytic stove. By combining the cat with soapstone you can get a nice soft heat and long burn times at a lower heat output setting. Woodstock stoves owns this turf almost exclusively.

What is the ceiling height in the family room? Does it have a large opening into the rest of the house? With a table or box fan, located on the floor in the hallway, pointing toward the family room, you can get decent heat distribution. The trick is to blow the cooler air, down low, towards the warm air.
Click to expand...

The ceiling is cathedral and reaches 14 ft at its highest point. I have a ceiling fan to help push the hot air back down.

There is a 6ft opening to the rest of the house right next to the stove location. On the opposite side of the room there is another regular doorway.

You mention the Englander 13NC needing a hefty hearth. Can you explain?
 
I looked at an Avalon Spokane 175 over the weekend at a local shop. It has 4.5" clearance with double walled pipe. It seemed like a good fit.
Does anyone have thoughts on that stove? Search didn't find too much.

Is it the same as a lopi?
 
eegs2k said:
I looked at an Avalon Spokane 175 over the weekend at a local shop. It has 4.5" clearance with double walled pipe. It seemed like a good fit.
Does anyone have thoughts on that stove? Search didn't find too much.

Is it the same as a lopi?
Click to expand...

Here's the webpage on them:
http://avalonfirestyles.com/product_guide/detail.aspx?id=248#Specs

I think it would be alright. You are buying it locally so if there is any problems it should be easier to get them resolved.
 
Jimbob said:
eegs2k said:
I looked at an Avalon Spokane 175 over the weekend at a local shop. It has 4.5" clearance with double walled pipe. It seemed like a good fit.
Does anyone have thoughts on that stove? Search didn't find too much.

Is it the same as a lopi?
Click to expand...

Here's the webpage on them:
http://avalonfirestyles.com/product_guide/detail.aspx?id=248#Specs

I think it would be alright. You are buying it locally so if there is any problems it should be easier to get them resolved.
Click to expand...

Should I expect problems from Avalon?
 
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