14 hours with the 30

Only got up to 47 here today.

I'll give that a try. I'l weigh and do some measuring next time I use large slabs. It will give a better understanding as to what I am working with.

One man's large is another man's small when it comes to splits. But a pound is a pound. It gives some people a better idea as to how much wood you are actually throwing into the stove.

This was actually a north/south load with one split in the back laying e/w for support. The large slabs would not fit e/w.

Start looking at the end of February through the end of June. The last few years the price has dropped to $649 with free shipping.

You are correct, though. During colder temps, having the stove sit at 250-290 degrees for a few hours would not provide enough heat to maintain temps for most homes. Today's highs were 47. Up until noon we were below 40. Kind of a shoulder season day.

I know. It's unbelievable how easy it is to heat the place with our 2.3 ft3 insert now that the outside temp is 37F. It was REAL difficult when it was -6. I wish I too had a big freestanding stove.

Well I can say I got 24hrs out my King between reloads, But I didn't have a great experience. I loved the heat. But, I missed the beautiful fires, the clean glass and just plain getting to mess with the fire. I'm a fire bug and I love these things.
I could have a furnace or a B-King? They both perform great, neither give a great fireview?, or let you mess with the fire. The 30 sounds good, so do other non-cat stoves. The cape Cod is kinda in the middle of the road!

That's half the fun of it!

I wanna say "that's what my wife said" but I don't wanna incriminate myself...

One man's small is another man's "I was in the pool!"

4 cord?? I have been burnin mine 24/7 pretty much all year and I am at 2 cord!

And as for the burn times. I can get 12 hrs of "usable" heat easily. No our stove top is not 450* like a King at 12 hrs, but 250* is usable heat.

I have loaded at 10pm and not reloaded in the A.M., only to get home about 4-5pm and have enough coals to relight VERY easily. 18 hrs and enough coals to throw on a few smaller/med splits and walk away. Only to return 15 min later to a good fire.

Sometimes it's not the stove, but the operator and the fuel

I'm curious on a couple points. I'm curious as to how much a 30 can hold and that # will determine just how efficient it is. Kinda like if I told you my 30" Elm was burning 12hrs but it has a 5.5 cuft fire box. Now I never pack it full but if I did then 12hrs might be expected from a large load of wood and not necessarily from an efficient stove.
In the past when I've seen really good burn times it was going into a warm sunny high pressure day and thermal gains where doing most of the work. If its 20 degrees or below and 25mph winds ect. there just ain't going to be any long burns cause I'm reloading at 500 stove top which is roughly every 4-6hrs.

From what I've read on here pushing a cat hard will only result in what I've got

Coaxing a couple of those big knarly yellow birch uglies in for the night burn is also proving to give good results.

The Defiant and 30 can both take very large splits. But, what fits in one stove doesn't always fit in the other.

It's also a 4+ cubic foot stove, it should be able to have great heat after 12 hours. If I had a King I have no doubt I could go 24 hours between loads(or real close) even with the zero degree type temps we had last week. Not many stoves in the Kings league as far as size goes so it's not a fair comparison.

The environment the stove is in means a lot, performance of the same stoves vary greatly on this site.

OK , so when every one talks about large splits, are ya talking 8" diameter and 20" long or what ???
And is a 4" diameter considered a medium split ??

4 cords ?? Does your neighbor have a big house ??

I am in the range of 8"-10" for large , 5"- 7" medium, 2" to 4" small.

We all know splits are not perfect shapes that these numbers are approximate.

Splits above 10" I dont know what to call those.

Splits less than 2" Kindling

Rounds , are a whole other beast, I just would like to split them if I can.

The type of wood has sovething to do with how large I have my splits, very large pieces of Oak take a large bed of coals to get going but a large split of Green Ash, Cherry, Elm or Silver Maple will lite up much easier.

What ? Green ?

8 cubic feet! Wow!