BK Ashford 20. Questions

[Bootjack]

So I'm looking at buying this stove sight unseen. Some questions:

1) Will this stove be adequate to heat my 1400 SF home? The specs. say up to 1500 SF .
(Roughly 1000 SF first floor. 400SF second. Spray foam insulated. New windows. I consider it pretty tight. Northern Pa. Temperatures to mid-teens are fairly common. Below Zero rare). I do have radiant floor heat for back up but I'd like to be self-sufficient if possible. The Ashford 30. has a bit too big footprint but from what I read, it really shouldn't be that different heat output wise,

2) Assuming I get the fan kit, can I somehow redirect the direction? 45 degrees off the front of the stove is a double door hallway that leads into our open floor plan kitchen. I would like to move more heat there. A doorway fan or floor fan is out. Would it be possible to insert some type of louvers (e.g. sheet metal), where the it exits the fan to re-direct?

3) Is the stove top hot enough to use a steamer? Our current woodstove keeps the home humidity at 20-25%. This is too low so we compensate by using a stove top steamer which helps some.

 

[BURNard]

I have an Ashford 30 and my home is about 1650 sf and we live in NE PA. The stove does an excellent job at keeping my house warm. Openish floor plan, stove in living room has blower but we prefer to run two ceiling fans. The blower on the stove is a bit noisy. As for the low humidity, just get your self a good humidifier. Steaming off water on the stove top isn't adequate enough for your needs, plus the spillage/over boil will stain the stove over time. As for as BTU to Square Footage goes, well I'm not an expert but you'd probably be better off with your square footage landing some where between the specified range of the stove. The Ashford 30 is 1100-2400 SF, would probably suit your situation better.

 

[MTASH]

I also have an Ashford 30. The Ashford 20 will probably work fine, but you will be loading more often because of the smaller firebox. The top will not get hot enough to steam water in my experience.

 

[Nealm66]

I made cowboy coffee on the princess model in our last power outage. Not sure if that’s advised but people need coffee

 

[stoveliker]

You'll get better advice if you post a floorplan sketch.
Also, it often works better to blow cold air to the stove rather than warm air away. Can you create a loop for air to travel?

 

[logfarmer]

What is the firebox size of the 20? I heated very similar sq footage with the WS Keystone stove for a long time filling every 12 hrs. Firebox on the WS is 1.3 or close to it?! The 20 should do the job, might have to fill it 3 times vs 2!

 

[stoveliker]

1.8 cubic ft

 

[kennyp2339]

No big enough

 

[jetsam]

For that house, it's probably got enough firebox to do a fine job most of the year. When you're doing 4 hour reloads in the middle of the winter, you will wish you had more gas tank on that thing.

Stovetop can run plenty hot to boil water, but it's a stove designed to be decorative, and a steamer will ruin the paint.

Stove fans don't blow air clean across the house anyway- they blow cool room air across the hot stove to get more heat off it. The way the exit of the fan points won't affect anything.

If you are buying new, just get the 30. Or better yet, a Princess. (If it was ME, I'd get a King, but I say that in every thread. I should just make it my signature. )

 

[Highbeam]

Please verify that the 30 box actually has a bigger footprint. In the past, the 30 was a couple of inches bigger but had a few inches less clearance requirements so it had the same footprint.

Burning a BK is not like other stoves. You want as big a BK as you can get because firebox size is fuel tank size. Heat output is very adjustable on a BK and you can go low.

I wouldn’t let my mother buy a 20 box stove unless it was just a ridiculously good price. When the 30 is there that is so much easier to load and live with with its longer burns.

 

[stoveliker]

All that i fo is readily available here:

Manuals and Brochures - Blaze King

www.blazeking.com

 

[Bootjack]

You'll get better advice if you post a floorplan sketch.
Also, it often works better to blow cold air to the stove rather than warm air away. Can you create a loop for air to travel?

I'll work up a floor plan. Something I didn't mention is the ceiling in the " stove room" is about 3 ft. higher than the hall into the open kitchen. This 3 ft. difference creates a huge reservoir of hot air that can only go up. Structurally (load bearing header and engineered trusses, etc. ) I can't vent or use a room to room fan between the stove room and kitchen hall unless one is mounted in the doorway (ugly).

So where does the blown air come out of the stove fan? I wish I could see this stove to see if some louvers could somehow be fitted to redirect the flow. That would solve my problem as the stove will only be 6 ft. from the hall into the kitchen. Previous advice now has me leaning to the Ashford 30.

For that house, it's probably got enough firebox to do a fine job most of the year. When you're doing 4 hour reloads in the middle of the winter, you will wish you had more gas tank on that thing.

Stovetop can run plenty hot to boil water, but it's a stove designed to be decorative, and a steamer will ruin the paint.

Stove fans don't blow air clean across the house anyway- they blow cool room air across the hot stove to get more heat off it. The way the exit of the fan points won't affect anything.

If you are buying new, just get the 30. Or better yet, a Princess. (If it was ME, I'd get a King, but I say that in every thread. I should just make it my signature. )

Yes, I understand what the fan does. In my old BK the fan was capable of a pretty good breeze. If I could just move some of that air 6 ft at a 45 degree angle, it would enter the hallway through a double French door (which is n better r the hallway

You'll get better advice if you post a floorplan sketch.
Also, it often works better to blow cold air to the stove rather than warm air away. Can you create a loop for air to travel?

Here's the floor plan. I can blow cold to stove and down the hall with a floor fan. I just don't want another appliance sitting in what already is a pretty small room. I'm thinking if louvers were a viable option, someone would've piped in by now. Thanks for all the help

 

[stoveliker]

Would a ceiling fan in the stove room be possible? Get the hot air down, or at least equilibrate the air temp so the hottest air won't be stuck?

Can you put (3) in-the-wall fan units @ ground level in the walls of the small rooms between kitchen and stove room to get cold air back to the stove (creating a loop resulting in warm air traveling down the hallway to the kitchen)?

Indeed, if you can fit in a 30 firebox, I'd do so.

 

[Bootjack]

Would a ceiling fan in the stove room be possible? Get the hot air down, or at least equilibrate the air temp so the hottest air won't be stuck?

Can you put (3) in-the-wall fan units @ ground level in the walls of the small rooms between kitchen and stove room to get cold air back to the stove (creating a loop resulting in warm air traveling down the hallway to the kitchen)?

Indeed, if you can fit in a 30 firebox, I'd do so.

I put in the order for the 30.0. I hope it's not too much stove for the house. Also yes on the ceiling fan. I will wait and see if that improves the heat movement to the hallway. So you think blowing cold air at floor level into the heated space from a small room will create enough vacuum/circulation to pull warmer air into the hall and on to the kitchen? I actually have a in wall single fan NIB I was going to use elsewhere. One room is out due to all the utilites i.e. , H2 O and radiant supply, electrical and DWS. So really only have room for one fan.

 

[moresnow]

Cool air is dense and will displace lighter warm air. It's worth a shot if required. Congrats on the stove. Surely you ordered the blowers?

 

[stoveliker]

I put in the order for the 30.0. I hope it's not too much stove for the house. Also yes on the ceiling fan. I will wait and see if that improves the heat movement to the hallway. So you think blowing cold air at floor level into the heated space from a small room will create enough vacuum/circulation to pull warmer air into the hall and on to the kitchen? I actually have a in wall single fan NIB I was going to use elsewhere. One room is out due to all the utilites i.e. , H2 O and radiant supply, electrical and DWS. So really only have room for one fan.

The 30.0 won't be too much; you can dial down (as in literally dialling down the Tstat) almost to the same level (BTU/hr output) as the 20 box. You can see the numbers in the brochures on the BK website.
The advantage of the 30 box is that you have a larger space to stuff your splits in, so your reloading will be more spaced out. More wood in there does *not* mean more heat output per hour if you don't want to (almost, see the low outputs in the brochures).

Regarding the air movement - it seems to be the consensus that moving cold air works better. But you have to create a loop, otherwise you may simply create turbulence, mixing the cold and warm air at some point in your hallway and your kitchen won't get much warmer. If your rooms don't allow to create a "divided highway" (to the kitchen thru the hallway and back to the stove through those small rooms), it'll be tough.

If you have a basement or crawlspace, you could try a duct there, but you would have to insulate it very well (and keep the critters out of the insulation).

 

[BURNard]

Do you have a ceiling fan in the kitchen area and the living room? My floor plan is different then yours in that my house is squarer, but this works well for me. So I have a reversible ceiling fan in my living room where the stove is and a regular ceiling fan in my family room area. I run the fan in the living room in reverse pulling air up the middle of the room across the ceiling and down the walls. The fan in the family room blows down to the floors. This cause warm air to be pulled through the top door opening between the two rooms and circulates the heat very well for my floor plan. I think it will help you pull that warm air down your hall way. Congrats on the 30, you won't be disappointed.