wood stove or insert for living room?

Living room considerations -- do you mind dust and splinters of wood? Gas is pretty much instant heat and more controllable.

We have both, gas insert in living room, wood stove in family room/kitchen. We prefer the wood for heat output and ambiance, she did not want wood in the living room. Wood stove burns 24/7, gas insert burns only when we are in the living room.

Well...

In the cottage, we have a 14x20 living room which opens to a NARROW hall off of which are a bathroom and bedroom, and at the other end, and open to each other kitchen and dining room (picture an "H"). We have a Lopi Republic 1750 stove and use it for heat, and because I like how it looks. Our cottage isn't exactly "tight" (bad windows, little insulation) but unless it's over 40 out, it doesn't get near being "too warm", and even at more than 40, it can be controlled with less wood and smaller fires.

In our old house, which we will sell when the cottage is reno'd, we have a NARROW living room that's open to an equally narrow dining room (I think the LR is about 12' long by 8' wide). We have a gas stove in there because we lacked the clearances for wood. It heats the downstairs of an @800 sq ft two story as one of two stoves as exclusive heat sources.

I prefer the wood stove, because I think it's more controllable, and you can enjoy the fire more (we've heated ourselves out with both mind you, but the gas one more so).

I think if you size your stove properly, you could have a wood stove no problem.

Again though, if it's occasional ambiance and you don't enjoy the work of wood, gas is nice too (by work, I mean the wood bits, ash cleaning, wood hauling and storage, etc).

Welcome to the forum schnoodlemom.

I have no idea why the contractor thinks a wood stove would be too hot! fwiw, we heat our home entirely with the wood stove as we have no furnace at all. We have no problem keeping it nice and warm and that is how we want our home to be in winter. I see no good reason to have to wear extra clothing while in the home. Just make sure you have good fuel to burn.

Although I'm not the most experienced, I'd have to agree with Backwoods... even with my ham-handed burning and poor habits, I've only made the 1st floor uncomfortably hot once, and that was by a drastic overfiring (misuse) of my stove.

I'd suggest you do some reading here and learn what some folks with similar needs are doing.

I have a livingroom a little bigger than yours and I had someone come out to sell me a woodstove and said the same exact thing to me. I am not going to put a gas in just because I have wood to burn. I am still thinking about a woodstove but I want enjoy sitting in the room without having 85 degrees. Alot of good advice on this website and I am sure people will give you some good ideas.

I always forget if I've done so already, but if I haven't . . . welcome to hearth.com.

I think it's the nature of the beast . . . the room with a woodstove or insert will be warmer than surrounding rooms since that is the room with the actual heater . . . I know in my own case the temp is typically in the mid-70s with the adjoining rooms in the high 60s or low 70s (it's amazing how you soon grow to be accustomed to these warmer temps in the winter.)

If you size your stove right, burn in cycles and are aware of how much wood and how often you need to load the stove depending on the weather (i.e. how cold it is and how cold or warm it will be during the day) it is quite possible to not over-heat the place . . . generally I only get in trouble if I either attempt to load the stove too soon when I should be allowing the coals to burn down and the temp to drop a bit more or if I reload when I should have just had one fire due to the warmer forecast temps during the day (this most often happens in the Spring and Fall).

Growing up, the living rm was the room where the TV was, where guests would congregate and also served as the conduit to the upstairs stairwell. Nowadays, I guess folks have two rooms - one for formal entertaining (and thus seldom used) and another for family slumming. I call mine a living rm and it's where the TV is, where guests congregate and serves as the conduit to the bedrooms (house is a bungalow). It's also about the same config as the OP.

That said. Today, the crew is installing an RSF Opel 3 zero clearance wood fireplace that will be tied into the heating plenum to get heat throughout the house. I really hate being cold in the house and like mentioned before, I see no good reason to have to wear additional clothing indoors just to stay warm. The basement woodstove is awesome but the heat doesn't get upstairs where we spend most of our time. The living rm will be warmer and a vacuum every so often will keep the wood bits to a minimum.

Personally, I can't wait for the first fire!

schnoodlemom said:

Thanks everybody. I guess it comes down to personal preference and if you have wood. Lots to think about!

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Yup! I think the best thing you can do is visit a few stove/fireplace dealers that have various models burning in their showroom and see what you think. Before we bought the gas stoves, we went to a few and picked based on looks and price, as well as clearances and how the installs looked at the showrooms. We passed on one stove we liked from Vermont Castings because the local dealer's installs in their own showroom sucked. I like our Lopi, but I still like the VC's look better for the one stove (Heritage Bay)-but the Lopi dealer's showroom showed quality of work. (we had them do the install or that wouldn't have been a factor) I had to buy the Republic woodstove on faith because neither local dealer has theirs burning, just the Endeavor (the more expensive version of course)-and I didn't know the one even had the stove on the showroom, so we bought it from pics online.

I think seeing the unit burning is even more important with a gas unit, because some can look much more "realistic" (as in, like a wood fire vs a blue flame heater type look) when burning. Log set ups, "embers", etc can all effect what you'll see, and pics online and in brochures can be deceiving.

Our house has room sizes and configurations similar to yours. Family room opens to kitchen which opens to dining room, in an L configuration.

We put a Jotul Castine F400 in our family room and it's not too hot. The fireplace is on an exterior wall and it really soaks up a lot of heat. And it doesn't get as cold here in South Carolina as it does where you live.

Get whatever you think will look better or suit your lifestyle better.

We put our Jotul Oslo in our living room that is approx the same size as yours and our dining room and kitchen layout is almost the same. We have had no issues with the room being to warm. The dining room is very comfortable as well. As far as the dust and wood splinters go...we have had to dust a little more often, and I sweep the floor in the living room once in the morning. If we were gonna have company I would just do a quick sweep with the dust mop right before. I would have no issues putting a stove in what you described.

Personally I would go with freestanding wood stove if you have the room because you would get more radiant heat from all side of the stove. Were as an insert you would only get radiant heat from the front and you would have to use the blower for the insert all the time to get the maximum amount of heat out of it. If you have a wood stove or insert you most certainly are going to have dust and dirt. There is no way around it. If you are worried the slightest about dust and dirt, don't even think about burning wood. I love my wood stove but hate all the dirt myself(Mr. Neat and Tidy) so in the winter when the stove is going we clean and dust this whole house everyday from top to bottom.