Best wood stove for my dollar?

[EbS-P]

If you buy an expensive stove and have everything installed by someone else at a high cost and you live in a mild climate where you only have to heat from just freezing temperatures for a couple of months and you buy your wood then your assessment is accurate.

for those of us who heat 24/7 for 7 months of the year and even need heat at times in the other 5 months and who do the install ourselves and buy a stove for a heating appliance not a decoration and have readily available wood on our own land (which is essentially nearly free) and own the required tools regardless of firewooding and have the time to do the whole wood thing your assessment is wildly inaccurate.

in my case, payback is about one year. Natural gas and electricity are very expensive here. And neither one is 100% reliable. When the wind is blowing at -40 I could be in real trouble FAST without RELIABLE heat.

everyone's situation is different and entirely valid in their own life.

I don’t think I will break even in less than 20 years with my wood stove install and operating cost.
But, there is no way I could have kept my house warm this past week using just my heatpump unless I ran my 10 kw heat strips 12 hours a day. Let’s call it 20-30$ a day for 3-4 days. We did an addition and it was cheaper to install a stove than a mini split.

We keep the house warmer 72 instead of 65. And with a heatpump water heater I heat my water with wood heat. The rolling blackouts hit NC with little to no warning (not us thankfully ).

I think a Wood stove is a good addition. It can extend current hvac heating equipment usable life by some time frame (hope my system gets another 10 years as it hardly works during the winter).

I’m happy with my Drolet. It’s more touchy on the air control compared to my jotul so it’s taking some time to learn but all stoves do. It’s like drive a new car. Takes some time to learn but eventually will become second nature.

tips for a someone south of the mason Dickson line.

Don’t go smaller than 2.0 cu ft unless you like staying up late and getting up earlier on the coldest nights/mornings of the year. It was fun the first two years I’m over it now.

I like my blower. May find yourself saying I’ll just turn the the thermostat way don and light a fire in the morning. And you wake up and the whole house is 60-65. The blower helps move that heat around much faster.

Get foot at cold starts you will be doing lots of them. Like every day for months. Top down lots of kindling.

Get a woodshed.

It’s fine to burn pine and lower btu woods like tulip poplar. Fast burn and fewer btus can be a good thing.

Get a moisture meter and an Auber AT200 thermometer alarm.

 

[EbS-P]

and they are N/S loading, which is a very big plus I have come to realize. Especially in a small stove. I think all of the 1.55 ft3 drolets are N/S loaders, so you can add the escape 1200 and fox to the list if I am not mistaken.

You have to cut wood short for the escapes. 1800 it’s 16.5 to the glass. 14” to the doghouse I think. 1500 is even shorter

NS is a game changer so if you cut your own wood it’s not a big deal.

 

[Newbie78]

I believe the escape 1200 is not along the same lines as the other escapes re firebox shape. It also doesn't have the big heat deflector on top..or I am mistaken.

 

[mdocod]

If you buy an expensive stove and have everything installed by someone else at a high cost and you live in a mild climate where you only have to heat from just freezing temperatures for a couple of months and you buy your wood then your assessment is accurate.

for those of us who heat 24/7 for 7 months of the year and even need heat at times in the other 5 months and who do the install ourselves and buy a stove for a heating appliance not a decoration and have readily available wood on our own land (which is essentially nearly free) and own the required tools regardless of firewooding and have the time to do the whole wood thing your assessment is wildly inaccurate.

in my case, payback is about one year. Natural gas and electricity are very expensive here. And neither one is 100% reliable. When the wind is blowing at -40 I could be in REAL trouble FAST without RELIABLE heat.

everyone's situation is different and entirely valid in their own life.

Oh, and if BillBurns is heating his world with a cheap stove (that he knows how to run safely) because that's what he can afford then good on him. Hopefully he got a "good one" that lasts him a long while.

What I said is FILLED with qualifying words that leave room for your exception to the generality. So you're making an argument "against" something that was never said. I didn't say everyone, in every circumstance, I said "most" and "usually" in a very careful way. There's nothing wildly inaccurate about anything said unless you remove the qualifying words to create a point that wasn't made in order to argue against it.

With that said, do you choose to live in a place with enormous heat demands or are you forced to live there at the point of a gun? There's absolutely no feasible way that you could live anywhere else on the planet? No boats, planes, or cars could take you anywhere else? There's nothing wrong with that choice, but you do have to recognize that it is almost certainly a set of conditions related to your choices that has created your demand for wood heat.

 

[Newbie78]

I read your post carefully and replied carefully also. I just clarified.

and yes, you are correct. I do choose to live here. Many others live under similar conditions of course.

 

[Newbie78]

https://www.drolet.ca/file/DB03182_Escape_1200.pdf

dimension drawings for escape 1200. It looks like it will take 18" logs shoved straight in. Nice!, imo.

 

[jpm995]

I'm relatively new [about 2 years]to wood stoves so take my advice with a grain of ash. I have a 12'x18' backyard shed that houses a gym and have a True North TN10 stove that was pretty cheap, i think around $1500, can't remember exactly. I preforms well and seems like it's well made. I think TN is a budget line for Pacific Energy. Too small for your application but the TN20 may be a good fit for you.

TN20 Wood Stove - True North Stoves

The TN20 wood stove features entry-level tubes as part of the combustion system, offering a cost effective solution for the price-minded wood burner.

truenorthstoves.com

 

[Newbie78]

That's certainly not too small for 1000 ft2 in tennessee.

overpriced tho, compared to the drolets...which have more steel in the firebox construction by quite a bit.

 

[Eman85]

Wood burning is like gardening, hunting, fishing, woodworking, etc. In the modern world, it's more of a hobby than a means to and end. Lots of people on here will try to claim otherwise but most are actually just rationalizing/romanticizing. Most of the folks who "have" to heat with wood have created the conditions to force that requirement through choice. Wood burning is largely a "luxury" in the modern home, not usually a necessity. Having a wood burner in a home as an alternate heat source is good preparation for power outages, but burning every day in those homes? Most of us don't need to do this, we choose to do this because fire is nice.

I bring this up, because, some people go down the rabbit hole of wood burning as a means to "save money." Ultimately, it's unlikely that you will actually save much money through wood burning compared to "normal/modern" heating methods, and more than likely the effort put into it, if put into a career, would generate far more money than the wood burning would save.

The point I'm getting at.. is that, yes, you won't find many "poor" people in civilized parts of the western world burning wood as a serious endeavor unless that is their hobby that they are willing to funnel the majority of their disposable income into it. Similarly, look at hunters, fishers, woodworkers, gardeners.... With some exceptions, this usually takes the form of thousands of dollars thrown at a process that generates hundreds of dollars worth of produce/meat/widgets.

Maybe where you live, I live in Appalachia, we have firewood ministries that provide firewood to people that don't have the money or the means to stay warm. Plenty of homes where wood is the only heat source and many with local made stoves. Burning wood isn't a "hobby" for everyone.

 

[jpm995]

That's certainly not too small for 1000 ft2 in tennessee.

overpriced tho, compared to the drolets...which have more steel in the firebox construction by quite a bit.

Really? The TN10's firebox is only .8cf, it's a pain as splits have to be no more than 12". I thought it would be undersized for 1000 sq ft. Work fine for me but i'm only 200 sq ft.

 

[Newbie78]

Really? The TN10's firebox is only .8cf, it's a pain as splits have to be no more than 12". I thought it would be undersized for 1000 sq ft. Work fine for me but i'm only 200 sq ft.

your link is for the 20 I think, or at least that's where I think it took me.

I guess I have to work on some of my reading comprehension. Now I get your post..

not that I didn't read another members' post carefully, btw.

 

[begreen]

Maybe where you live, I live in Appalachia, we have firewood ministries that provide firewood to people that don't have the money or the means to stay warm. Plenty of homes where wood is the only heat source and many with local made stoves. Burning wood isn't a "hobby" for everyone.

This is not at all exclusive to Appalachia. We have the same ministries here. Poverty knows no bounds. That said, the safe installation and operation of these stoves are also critical. That's where we try to help. It's also important for these ministries to provide dry, seasoned fuel. Some do no and that increases the risk of chimney fires.

 

[mdocod]

Maybe where you live, I live in Appalachia, we have firewood ministries...

This is not at all exclusive to Appalachia. We have the same ministries here. Poverty knows no bounds....

I understand there are some folks, functionally bound to their situation through various forms of disability and circumstance that is out of their control.

For every person or family identified who falls into that category, I bet you could identify several folks/families whose wood stove heating is actually one of the many anchors back at home preventing them from scaling up and out of poverty. Like folks who keep pets, who have to be home every 4 hours or any time the weather changes to take care of them. The pet becomes an anchor and a distraction from developing and maximizing a career. If they took the pets and the wood stove out of the picture, and automated their home heating with a modern furnace / natural gas, then took the time to maximize income, they might rapidly find themselves no longer in poverty, and able to buy a circumstance that can then bring the pets or the wood stove back into the fold in a more manageable way.

I've experienced the distraction that wood processing/burning can become if it is treated as an obligation. The modern world usually has more income to offer for our time than we will save from working the wood. If we answer that call, fix the poverty problem, then we can burn the wood for fun and enjoyment while doubling as part of the emergency preparedness plan.

 

[BillBurns]

Im on year 2 1/2 to 3 years. I did replace the single wall pipe with double wall pipe. Id like to think I know what Im doing, as far as fire goes. In a perfect world Id have new everything, but the world is FAR from perfect. Im just pluggin along in life, living every day to the fullest that I can. As far as safety goes, I clean the flue every month.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I used to get my wood from the local brush dump. People would take down trees, buck them, and bring them to the brush dump first warm weekend of the year. I’d go and pull the rounds for free. I’d split them at home and they’d dry over the summer. Luckily it was mostly pines of various sources. It’d season fast.

When I was young, I was more muscle than money. I’m still a scrounger at heart though!

 

[3650]

How well is your house insulated? I have a 1200 square foot house that only has insulation in the attic and it requires a much larger stove to heat it.

 

[jpm995]

My neighbor told me tonight he has a town inspector coming to see his front house [flag lot] he rents for an inspection and he has to disconnect a wood stove and stove pipe in his garage as the town says it's illegal to burn wood in NY. I had no idea that this is illegal and think the town is wrong on this. He has to do this every two years, seems like a lot of work.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Must be a town ordinance. How is he going to explain the piles of firewood?

 

[BillBurns]

My thoughts on that....I go to NY every few months for smokes from the Indian Reservation. I see lots of houses with wood piles, wood sheds, ect. If all youre gonna do is follow the rules, youre never gonna get nowhere. So do as you please, take what you need, and make life work YOUR way. Too many rules to follow in life in my book. Like driving. TRY to follow every sign on the road.....its basically impossible. I tried one day, just to try, and people honk at ya, flash lights, flip you off....no one drives safe in my book,. I just did it for an experiment. Like the song Signs.....signs, signs, everywhere theres signs. Damn, Im old, lol....that song is from the 60s or 70s...Im old........

 

[bholler]

My neighbor told me tonight he has a town inspector coming to see his front house [flag lot] he rents for an inspection and he has to disconnect a wood stove and stove pipe in his garage as the town says it's illegal to burn wood in NY. I had no idea that this is illegal and think the town is wrong on this. He has to do this every two years, seems like a lot of work.

It absolutely is not illegal to burn wood in NY that simply is not true. Now it is illegal to use a solid fuel stoves in a garage anywhere in the US. And has been for years now.

 

[bholler]

My thoughts on that....I go to NY every few months for smokes from the Indian Reservation. I see lots of houses with wood piles, wood sheds, ect. If all youre gonna do is follow the rules, youre never gonna get nowhere. So do as you please, take what you need, and make life work YOUR way. Too many rules to follow in life in my book. Like driving. TRY to follow every sign on the road.....its basically impossible. I tried one day, just to try, and people honk at ya, flash lights, flip you off....no one drives safe in my book,. I just did it for an experiment. Like the song Signs.....signs, signs, everywhere theres signs. Damn, Im old, lol....that song is from the 60s or 70s...Im old........

This is not a rule at all. Burning wood in NY is perfectly legal

 

[appointed EPA deviant]

I understand there are some folks, functionally bound to their situation through various forms of disability and circumstance that is out of their control.

For every person or family identified who falls into that category, I bet you could identify several folks/families whose wood stove heating is actually one of the many anchors back at home preventing them from scaling up and out of poverty. Like folks who keep pets, who have to be home every 4 hours or any time the weather changes to take care of them. The pet becomes an anchor and a distraction from developing and maximizing a career. If they took the pets and the wood stove out of the picture, and automated their home heating with a modern furnace / natural gas, then took the time to maximize income, they might rapidly find themselves no longer in poverty, and able to buy a circumstance that can then bring the pets or the wood stove back into the fold in a more manageable way.

I've experienced the distraction that wood processing/burning can become if it is treated as an obligation. The modern world usually has more income to offer for our time than we will save from working the wood. If we answer that call, fix the poverty problem, then we can burn the wood for fun and enjoyment while doubling as part of the emergency preparedness plan.

....Let them eat cake!....Like the one civic leader said....why are they complaining about the high gas prices?.....just buy an EV...🤣 ...
sorry, just had to......I think your perspective is interesting and a peephole into a part of society I don't or more likely not allowed to interact with. You have opened my mind to the thought that things like prepping and burning wood has been holding me back all these years!...DANG NABIT!

But on a serious note, after spending some time over the past 2 years reading comment on this awesome site, I now understand that most individuals that burn wood do not have the luxury of nat gas running in front of their houses.
I think nat gas supply infrastructure should be a priority to our countries energy and environment conscious leadership.
I myself have 3 places to heat, 2 of them, when I choose. My primary home with Nat gas /wood, and 2 vacation homes in the WI northwoods one using propane/wood and the other oil so I know the pain at the pump, so to speak.
As I sit here now in one of my northwoods shacks, I am having the pleasure of watching the secondary burn go into full bloom inside my recently installed cheap chinese POS woodstove and can't help but think of the disappointment for the propane guy next time he comes around. I wonder if he burns wood?


To the OP,....sorry for the highjack of your thread. I see some very good suggestions for you so far. I won't recommend the stove I am using because it is most likely below your bottom cost level of wanting a "stove to follow you into retirement". But I can offer this. Although my stove works very well, it is wider than deep and after finding that these modern cordwood stoves like there bellies filled straight in NS, I would suggest you buy a stove that is deep enough to easily take what is the industry standard in purchased firewood which is aprox. 16" long. . Something like the Drolet 1200 which post #31 suggested.

 

[bholler]

I understand there are some folks, functionally bound to their situation through various forms of disability and circumstance that is out of their control.

For every person or family identified who falls into that category, I bet you could identify several folks/families whose wood stove heating is actually one of the many anchors back at home preventing them from scaling up and out of poverty. Like folks who keep pets, who have to be home every 4 hours or any time the weather changes to take care of them. The pet becomes an anchor and a distraction from developing and maximizing a career. If they took the pets and the wood stove out of the picture, and automated their home heating with a modern furnace / natural gas, then took the time to maximize income, they might rapidly find themselves no longer in poverty, and able to buy a circumstance that can then bring the pets or the wood stove back into the fold in a more manageable way.

I've experienced the distraction that wood processing/burning can become if it is treated as an obligation. The modern world usually has more income to offer for our time than we will save from working the wood. If we answer that call, fix the poverty problem, then we can burn the wood for fun and enjoyment while doubling as part of the emergency preparedness plan.

I am sorry but I really can't agree with much of anything you said there. And honestly find it a somewhat offensive viewpoint.

 

[PAbeech]

My neighbor told me tonight he has a town inspector coming to see his front house [flag lot] he rents for an inspection and he has to disconnect a wood stove and stove pipe in his garage as the town says it's illegal to burn wood in NY. I had no idea that this is illegal and think the town is wrong on this. He has to do this every two years, seems like a lot of work.

Good old Lindenhurst. So glad I moved from that town.

 

[jpm995]

Must be a town ordinance. How is he going to explain the piles of firewood?

Thats a great question. Never thought about that. His brother is a tree guy and drops tons of wood and chips in his yard all the time. He always asks me if i want some free rounds.