Finally bought a new stove

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caber

New Member
Feb 6, 2008
291
Western Maryland
We used an old Country Flame for the last 7 years. Great stove that kept the house toasty warm - short burn times, tho. We opened up into the addition which moved the sq ft from 1000 to 2000. I installed a chimney in the addition (an open great room) and put in a old Kodiak we got for $100 as a temporary second stove. Burning 2 old stoves was really eating thru the woodpile but it's been near impossible to find the larger Englanders in this area. Til yesterday! A friend in town had an Englander 30 he bought but never installed and finally came to the conclusion he never would. So now it is sitting outside my house doing a break-in burn looking beautiful. It's been out there with 3 smaller splits cruising at 500+ for 2 hours and it looks like it's only halfway thru the wood. I've already had the Kodiak burn completely out in the same amount of time with similar splits. Tomorrow I'll move it inside and sell off the Kodiak. I need to buy a blower first, but if this stove can push out enough heat to the rest of the house, I can remove the Country Flame as well. In the meantime, I am dreaming of burn times longer than 3 hours and a woodpile that lasts forever.
 
Congrats. You are gonna love that bad boy after you get in the groove with it.

Here is yer shirt.
 

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Enjoy your new stove! Very smart of you to do the break-in fire outside. How old is your Country Flame? I bought mine in 2006, and it definitely has a nice long burn, so they must have made improvements over time.
 
Good move doing the break in fire outside. As far as a blower goes yeah there worth it but we only use ours on the coldest of days. With a newer EPA stove heating the house you'll notice less wood burned by the 1st weeks use.
 
Wow. What a difference. For the last 5 years I've been getting up in the morning and the house has been at 60 degrees - and that was pre-addition. This year it's been 57 on average bacause of the additional living space. This morning I awoke to a balmy 67! Never had that happen before - and this was despite high winds and 16 degree temps. And instead of fussing with kindling and firestarter, I just tossed in a couple logs and within 30 seconds they were aflame. My wife is thrilled to no end and already ordered a blower for it.

There is a decent learning curve to it coming off the old stove. The first day the best I could do in the house was 400 degree stove temp and 68 in the room. The half logs I used in the old stove seem to block air flow in the Englander and keep it from burning properly. Once I went to a smaller split, everything lit well and the stove really kicked in. Cruised for hours at 500-550, got the house up to 77. So sweet. And on half the wood. Now I need to get comfortable with it and work on loading it up for really long burns.
 
Time to update your signature. :) Congrats on the new stove!
 
How is the new stove?

A warm home makes for a happy wife!
 
The stove is great. We stopped using the second wood stove entirely the day after we put this one in. The blower came yesterday and it's spreading the warmth nicely. The operation of this is radically different than the old non-epa stoves and we are still low on the learning curve. We get great heat, but longest burns have only been 4 hours or so. I'm thrilled to wake up in the morning to find the stove still warm and lots of coals to restart with. That's cut 30 minutes off my morning routine and the wife can easily get one started withou much fussing. I still have not loaded the stove all the way up successfully. Some of the issues are most likely wood-related and getting the airflow right. I am finding that wood seasoned enough for the older stoves is not necessarily seasoned enough for the new stove. I'm also resplitting all the wood I have. To get long burns in the old stove, I used very large splits. Those size spilts smother the fire in the Englander. This will be a good thing when I'm prepping wood for the future - smaller splits = quicker seasoning. But for now, it's a pain in the ass to resplit everything.

One major problem. I am burning the heck out of myself on this stove. One the old ones, even at full burn, I could reach in barehanded and kncok the splits around, load in more, etc. Now I have to put on a glove just to use the poker. And I have a nasty habit of bumpign my forearms into the door and latch as I'm reloading. I have second degree burns in the shape of circles and corners all overmy arms. That's just habit and stupidity since my wife does not have the same issue.

All in all, very happy. I expect to be even more happy next year.
 
caber said:
One major problem. I am burning the heck out of myself on this stove.

Welcome to the club. People probably think Im one of those "cutters" because of all the slash-looking burn marks on my arm. Just wait til football season comes around again. beer+stove=scars
 
Try some North/South burns. It takes care of the airflow and the burned arms issues.
 
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