24/7 Burning with medium stoves - real world accounts anyone?

[cookin2night]

Hi Folks,

I'm looking for some real world advice on a replacement, non-cat stove that is 'friendly' for 24/7 burning; while working full time hours. We're usually away from the house anywhere from 8-10 hours a day during the work week and I need a stove that is going to easily spark back up upon return while delivering the BTUs throughout a good chunk of the time away.

I am considering stoves in the 2-3 cubic foot range - there is a local PE dealer not too far away and they usually put on some pretty good sales before the season begins.

House itself isn't that big...about 1000 sq ft on the main level to heat and another 600 or so upstairs. My current stove is centrally located in the middle of the house on the main level and heats alright when I am home to keep it fed with splits....it is a PE Vista. It gets somewhat cold here (-20 Celsius not uncommon in January and February).

The local dealer basically told me they won't sell me a Summit - I am hesitant to go for the Super 27 at 2.2 cubic feet. For you folks with stoves that are around 2 to 2.5 cubic feet, are you able to easily burn 24/7 with them? I'm leaning towards a Summit sized stove given the fact that I can always build smaller fires. Burning only hardwood here. Also, due to exceptional draft issues, I get no where near the burn times the Vista states...more like 3-4 hours of OK heat.

Any thoughts truly appreciated - thanks

I have a small to medium sized vermont castings Dutch west cat stove. Until I really learned how to operate it, which I'm sure I can still learn a lot more, I was getting 8 hrs max on it. Now that I have gotten better, great thanks to this forum, I'm going 18 hrs on a single load. I live in nj. It heats the whole house fine until it dips below 40f. After that I have an insert on the other side of the house. But I can get it burning well load it up to the top, maybe six splits, and leave it alone for the whole day. When I come back after work I still have a nice bed of coals to restart. Sometimes that's 14 hrs later. I believe that having seasoned would greatly increases the burn times. Good luck.

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[burninwood]

For those suggesting cats stoves, I got an over the phone quote of $2,900ish CAN for a BK Sirocco 30.1 - bare-bones on legs. Actually not as expensive as I thought they were here.

Something else to consider.

 

[flopit]

Hey Bruin
I'm looking at installing a wood stove into my house and was also thinking of going the secondary burn style stove for a while but once I looked into the cat stoves I realized that the bit of extra money up front would be worth it in the long run. I had priced out a Jotul and went back in today to chat with the guy about the BKs and the cost difference for the sirocco 20.1 was about 600 more. The long burn times are very appealing. I'm away from the house 10-12 hours a day so having a warm house when I get home is something I'm looking forward to. Which ever route you end up going I wish you good luck!

 

[Espartaco]

I'm running a Lopi Evergreen with less than ideal wood and I can get 8 to 10 hours and food heat and get a fire started up in the morning no problem. I have yet to have my furnace come on here in Portland OR. I have had to buy some Northern Idaho Energy Logs to supplement my wood supply and those have really helped extend the burn time. Either my wife or I are at home most of the day, she works mornings I work nights so arrive has been going 24/7 since October. Average temp in the house is usually 74, upper 60s when I get up at 8am

 

[Tar12]

For those suggesting cats stoves, I got an over the phone quote of $2,900ish CAN for a BK Sirocco 30.1 - bare-bones on legs. Actually not as expensive as I thought they were here.

Something else to consider.

That doesn't sound to bad a all...my BK Princess Ultra completely decked out was just shy of $3500...coming home 10-14 hrs later to coals and some wood left...Thats priceless to me!

 

[Attaboy]

Burninwood, like yourself I also live up in the great white north, the French section of it, I heat approximately the same surface you do, I own a PE Spectrum Classic, in 1999 its firebox was about 1.95 cu.ft, the box is a bit larger now @ 2.1 cu. ft.

At 22:30 pm I load my stove for the night with 3-4 splits in the 4'' - 7'' size, may add another split when the outside temp is going to be extra cold, you know that super cold air that we get that comes down from Alaska, I let the splits fire off and char for 20 - 30 minutes, I close the air control and go to bed, I get up between 06:30 - 07:00 the next morning the house is usually comfortable unless the outside temp goes below -25° or more, in the morning the stove always has loads of glowing coals to easily start a new fire with and the 2 stove top Ecofans are still spinning sufficiently fast to move the radiating heat from the stove.


No 2 houses are the same and no 2 geographic areas are the same therefore no 2 same results are possible but I hope this may help you with your decision. The wife and I are retired now so for us feeding the stove a few times during the day is a pleasant chore.


Note: having owned a east-west direction stove prior to the PE and having had a couple of mishaps with east-west loading including a cracked window I really prefer loading north-south, just so much safer IMO. From what I have read correctly maintaining a cat stove to keep it burning at 100% efficiency constantly requires at least bi-weekly maintenance or cleaning, additionally I understand that the cat's themselves last 2-6 years depending on owner maintenance and are expensive to replace which personally I do not care to do or spend $$ on.

Good luck with your decision,

 

[Chimney Smoke]

I have a 1600 square foot cape in southern Maine. My stove is a 2.2 cubic foot tube style. It will comfortable keep the entire downstairs 70-73 and the upstairs warm as well (not sure the actual temp because I keep my bedroom door closed so it doesn't get too warm. On the weekends I have to purposely not reload to often because it's gets too warm for me in the living room. I don't really like it any warmer than 72. If it's filled with hardwood it will definitely still be warm and have coals to reload after 8 hours. I usually burn nights and weekends though and supplement with the oil burner. I could heat 100% with wood but I prefer to not get up earlier in the morning to get the fire going and properly closed down before going to work. I usually go through about 300-350 gallons of oil per year for year round hot water and supplemental heat in the winter. This winter I've been starting a lot of fires because my wood has been from a very large, knotty, twisted red oak that I cut down 3 years ago. It's tough to fill the fire box because the pieces are all oddballs.