I'm looking to purchase a wood stove for our new house. It will be going into a 1600 sq. ft. basement that is basically wide open besides a couple rooms. I am planning on buying the stove locally so the brands I have to choose from are Harman, Lopi, Vermont Castings, Quadra-Fire, Hearthstone, and Avalon. The stoves I am interested in are the Harman Oakwood, Lopi Leyden, Quad Isle Royale, Quad Cumberland Gap, and Hearthstone Heritage. If anyone out there owns any of these stoves or has any insight on the matter, your advice would be much appreciated. My experience with burning wood is only three years of 24/7 burning, so I'm only an amateur. A couple of these stoves are downdraft from what I've read and can be difficult to operate. Thanks to everyone in advance for their help!
Advice for buying a new wood stove?
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My Oslo heats my home
Minister of Fire
I know the purchase of the stove is one of the most important parts of the process, and maybe the most fun to get involved in. But my question to you is about the logistics of your basement install. Do you have a placement location in the basement? Do you know what kind of route the pipe will take to get the gas/smoke out? Are you doing this yourself? I understand this is a new house so was anything put into place during the building process to accomodate your stove idea? Just some simple questions some of us would ask...
Is the basement insulated? An awful lot of heat is lost to bare concrete walls in a basement.
Do you have a wood supply purchased or stored already? Much of the wood that sellers are hawking now isn't dry. Their idea of "seasoned" will not be the same as your idea of "seasoned." Any stove will be more difficult to impossible to inefficient to operate without dry wood.
Are you only trying to heat the basement or the entire house with this stove? If you are trying to heat the entire house, does the heat have an easy way to make it's way up?
Matt
Do you have a wood supply purchased or stored already? Much of the wood that sellers are hawking now isn't dry. Their idea of "seasoned" will not be the same as your idea of "seasoned." Any stove will be more difficult to impossible to inefficient to operate without dry wood.
Are you only trying to heat the basement or the entire house with this stove? If you are trying to heat the entire house, does the heat have an easy way to make it's way up?
Matt
I have a spot in the basement that is a fully block wall with a thimble, which is located at one end of the basement. The area is about 48' long x 20' wide of open space. I just want it to supplement my heat, enough to heat up the basement and warm up the floors. The basement is well insulated with R-40 in the walls. The only real heat-loss down there is the double french doors and a few windows, but the house is 5 years old and everything is insulated well. My chimney is straight out the wall and up about 23-25' stainless. I am really interested in a top or side load stove because from what I've read it is much easier to load up for longer burns. I will be burning well seasoned hard woods, most maple and cherry.
Milton Findley
Feeling the Heat
Easy loading, long burns, low maintenance. Are you sure you can't get a Blaze King in your area?
Do you spend a lot of time in your basement? A Hearthstone Heritage is too drop dead gorgeous to put in a place where you can't admire it.
Do you spend a lot of time in your basement? A Hearthstone Heritage is too drop dead gorgeous to put in a place where you can't admire it.
The basement is 1/2 finished off, I plan on having it completely finished off with family room at one end and a bar at the other. We plan on being down there often!
Having owned both, I can not say that top loading is easier than front loading. It just becomes something you get used to. One thing I can say is that the narrower the opening that you are putting the wood in, the more chance for getting a burn on hand or forearm. If you want simple and well made, I would look at the Lopi Endeavor first, Heritage second. And while at the dealer take a look at the Hearthstone Shelburne and Bennington.
One concern I have is overheating the space. It is not untypical for some folks to see their basement temps get over 80F. How would heat get upstairs? Is there an open centrally located stairway in the 48 x 20 area? If so, that will help a lot, perhaps with the assistance of a fan blowing cooler upstairs air down the stairs to the stove area.
One concern I have is overheating the space. It is not untypical for some folks to see their basement temps get over 80F. How would heat get upstairs? Is there an open centrally located stairway in the 48 x 20 area? If so, that will help a lot, perhaps with the assistance of a fan blowing cooler upstairs air down the stairs to the stove area.
I plan on only buying top or side load. I like the looks of stoves like the Leyden, Oakwood, and Bennington. My basement has a large open staircase in the middle that goes to the upstairs. I am ultimately looking for a stove I can start up, load up, and not have to fuss around with it all day. An 8 hour burn+ would be great. Having only owned one wood stove, it's hard to make a decision on a new one when it comes down to $2500+. I would hate to spend that amount of money and get something that has issues and won't work out for me. The shop near my house also carries PE as well.
jus93paq said:
If you have a PE dealer then I'd be looking at the Alderlea line-up (T4, T5, T6 - Prolly the T5/6 for you) as they are a bomb-proof design and drop-dead gorgeous to boot. Almost went for the T5 myself. Another brand worth a Sunday drive to see is Jotul.
Make sure you take a moment to read this handy pdf offered by the good folks at Woodstock:
http://www.woodstove.com/pages/guidepdfs/BasementInstall.pdf
You'd be surprised just how many BTUs those walls will bleed. I just hate for you to spend a lot on a proper stove/install and then be dissatisfied with the results.
http://www.woodstove.com/pages/guidepdfs/BasementInstall.pdf
You'd be surprised just how many BTUs those walls will bleed. I just hate for you to spend a lot on a proper stove/install and then be dissatisfied with the results.
jus93paq said:
I like front loading now that I have a big firebox. In particular I like that with N/S loading I never have a problem anymore with logs rolling up against the glass. The other thing you may want to consider is the fickle nature of downdraft stoves. Basement installs can sometimes be trickier for draft due to negative pressure.
I would love to buy a Jotul Oslo, only problem is the dealer that has them is in Canada (10 miles away) and I'm not sure the regulations for bringing the stove back to the U.S. The Woodstock Fireview looks like a real nice stove also but I'm not keen on the front door not opening!
Backwoods Savage
Minister of Fire
jus93paq said:
Welcome to the forum jus93paq.
I'm a bit confused. You stated you want to only a top or side loader but yet you are not keen on the Fireview because of the front door not opening! btw, the type of burn you want, something like the Fireview would be great as it is a stove that you load and just a few minutes later (to let the new fire get established) you close it down (most of the way) and can forget it for many, many hours. And don't let the cat scare you away as it is not complicated to operate nor will it take a lot of time. And now with the new steel cats vs. the ceramic, they should be even better, if that is possible.
We too looked at the Lopi Leyden and it was towards the top of the list of stoves we liked as was the Hearthstone Heritage. We certainly are not sorry that we ended up with a Woodstock stove though. We burn half the wood we used to and stay a whole lot warmer too.
Just one more caution on the wood though. What some folks think is good "seasoned" wood may not be what is best for the newer type stoves. They really require good dry wood. That means a minimum of a year from the time the wood has been split. I've always recommended everyone have a 2 - 3 year wood supply on hand. Some woods will take that long to dry; red oak is a prime example of that. But even more so, if one has that much wood on hand, then if something happens that you can't gather wood some year, you will still have enough wood on hand and won't have to go berserk trying to get enough wood to run through the winter.
Good luck to you.
"Backwood Savage" I do want a side load or top load, I just think it would be handy to have a front door to start up the fire. Is it awkward trying to start a fire up from the side? The firebox on the fireview seems like it may be small, how much wood can you fit in there? What kind of burn times do you get? Sorry for all the questions, I'm just trying to get information on a stove I haven't heard a whole lot about!
Backwoods Savage
Minister of Fire
Never be sorry for all the questions!
When I first saw the Fireview I about crapped! How could that little thing possibly heat our house? After all, it is only about half the size of our last stove. But this is the first epa stove we've owned so we were educated. As for how much we can get in, it is difficult to describe that without weighing or measuring. However, we can get 12 hour burns but best to figure on anywhere from 8-12 hours as it will depend greatly on the wood you are burning.
As for lighting the fire, for almost all of our years of burning I had used newspapers and kindling. I still use some kindling but really don't have to. Thanks to Thomas at Northwestern Fuels, we now use Super Cedars to start the fires. We use 1/4 of a super cedar only so they last a long time and now I can even let the wife build the fire. That is the part where she always had a problem. btw, Thomas usually posts on this forum in early fall offering some free samples, hint, hint. Be sure to ask for them.
When I first saw the Fireview I about crapped! How could that little thing possibly heat our house? After all, it is only about half the size of our last stove. But this is the first epa stove we've owned so we were educated. As for how much we can get in, it is difficult to describe that without weighing or measuring. However, we can get 12 hour burns but best to figure on anywhere from 8-12 hours as it will depend greatly on the wood you are burning.
As for lighting the fire, for almost all of our years of burning I had used newspapers and kindling. I still use some kindling but really don't have to. Thanks to Thomas at Northwestern Fuels, we now use Super Cedars to start the fires. We use 1/4 of a super cedar only so they last a long time and now I can even let the wife build the fire. That is the part where she always had a problem. btw, Thomas usually posts on this forum in early fall offering some free samples, hint, hint. Be sure to ask for them.
Todd
Minister of Fire
The Fireview should heat a well insulated 1600 sq ft very well. The lack of a front door is only a downside when you clean the glass but It stays clean for weeks if you burn dry wood. Starting fires is not a problem, plenty of room in the fire box. I use to get consistant 12 hour burns with full loads of Oak and have had coals as long as 20 hours. Woodstock is also coming out with a new stove in Oct that would allso work well. Lots of stoves out there to consider, check out the stove ratings section on this site and do a search here in the forum for more info.
I have a Fireview as well. It's not awkward starting a fire from the side door at all. Because you're loading from the end, there's no danger of a log rolling out on the hearth. I haven't thought about that aspect of side loading before, but it sure is nice!
I could get 4-5 splits in last year and that lasted 7 hours roughly with the stove at 200-250 def F at the end of the cycle. But I was burning 95% poplar. This year I have oak seasoned 2 years and expect to get much longer between reloads. It's a testament to the power of the cat that I could heat an old brick farmhouse through the winter last year with 95% poplar.
I could get 4-5 splits in last year and that lasted 7 hours roughly with the stove at 200-250 def F at the end of the cycle. But I was burning 95% poplar. This year I have oak seasoned 2 years and expect to get much longer between reloads. It's a testament to the power of the cat that I could heat an old brick farmhouse through the winter last year with 95% poplar.
The fireview is definitely a beautiful stove. Anyone know how many cu ft the burn box is by chance? It seems like it would be too small but everything I'm reading is that it is very deceiving. The thing I like best is the 6 month money back guarantee. I'm gonna check out the Hearthstone Heritage as well. The rear clearance on this stove is pretty large! I believe I read 30"
Todd
Minister of Fire
jus93paq said:
The real measurements of the Fireviews fire box is 1.8 cu ft according to my tape, and I think Highbeam measured his Heritage at 1.5. You can cut that rear clearance by half with their rear heat shield. If you feel more comfortable with a larger stove check out Woodstock's new stove on their blog.
leeave96
Minister of Fire
jus93paq said:
I have a relative who has a Lopi Leyden and it really looks like a heavy duty stove - but it is a steel plate stove. Nothing wrong with that, except you can get an Englander 30 for $900 to $1300 depending on where you buy and get a much bigger firebox.
I like the Quadra-Fire Isle Royle too as well as the Hearthstone stoves.
I wouldn't rule out a front loading stove. If you get a large firebox, like the Englander 30 or the Pacific Energy T5 or T6 woodstoves, loading the splits straight-in (North - South) makes it easy to stack wood in the stove without fear of a piece rolling out - just as side loading stoves offer the same advantage.
The Woodstock stoves are really nice woodstoves. I've got the Keystone and it is a great stove. Long burn times. One of my biggest surprises when I bought the stove was that we would go for several weeks without lighting a match. It has a nifty ash pan too. The new Woodstock Progressive in someways reminds me of the Keystone - with a bit of Fireview flavor in the corners. The Fireview is a great stove too. The thing about the Woodstock stoves is that they are really easy on the eyes - not just during fire burning season, but in July when the fire is out and everyone is still walking by it. The other plus is that it is a cat stove. This means you can really turn the heat down and get very long and clean burns. BTW, my Keystone is side load and very easy to start.
Good luck,
Bill
I've considered the Englander 30 mainly because of the firebox. I really like the looks of the soapstone stoves, I'm curious to see what the price is on the new woodstock stove.
ddddddden
Minister of Fire
Since they are scheduled to start selling the stove in ~ 6 weeks, I would think they might be about ready to start discussing price. It's never a bad idea to call them and inquire. . .they're super friendly. 
Re front door or lack thereof, just another place to get leaks, IMO, and the front hearth requirement is reduced 8" when there is no door. As you seem to know, side loading is better (unless you load N/S from the front, which is pretty much the same thing.) Starting = load, place kindling/paper/SuperCedar on *top* of load, light. . .and off to the races you go! (Search "top down fire.") There's nothing more difficult about starting a fire through the side door. Also, the FV seems to hold coals for about forever and a day, so if you are serious about using it every day for heat, you won't be starting very many fires from scratch.
Re front door or lack thereof, just another place to get leaks, IMO, and the front hearth requirement is reduced 8" when there is no door. As you seem to know, side loading is better (unless you load N/S from the front, which is pretty much the same thing.) Starting = load, place kindling/paper/SuperCedar on *top* of load, light. . .and off to the races you go! (Search "top down fire.") There's nothing more difficult about starting a fire through the side door. Also, the FV seems to hold coals for about forever and a day, so if you are serious about using it every day for heat, you won't be starting very many fires from scratch.
BrowningBAR
Minister of Fire
jus93paq said:
It is stated that "We will have pricing and availability posted in roughly a week." on their blog.
http://woodstocksoapstoneco.blogspot.com/
I guess I'm just torn between these stoves... Oakwood, Leyden, Cumberland Gap, and Fireview. Can anyone give me any personal experiences with any of these stoves? I've read the threads about the fireview, which all sound very positive! Unfortunately the shipping aspect sounds like a bit of a PITA. I've read downdraft stoves are a bit of a pain, not sure if the cumberland is downdraft but I know the oakwood and leyden are. Any suggestions, comments?
The Cumberland Gap is similar to the PE Alderlea series, Jotul Rangeley (cast) and some of the Napoleons. It's a steel stove with a cast iron jacket, but with a side door.
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