First "modern" wood stove! wow.

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Ricky

New Member
Nov 9, 2013
7
North Central, WA
Thanks to this forum i was able to quickly install our first modern (i think i'm using the term loosely) wood stove yesterday. This is only our second year in a cold climate and last year we had a double door stove oldschool stove that wasn't sealed or anything. it didn't put out much heat so i installed a heat exchanger and that made it work but still it'd only hold a fire for a few hours which meant interrupted sleep all night or a 50° house in the morning.

On friday i found a used Kent Sherwood from '84. It's a small sealed glass front stove with a weird circular airflow inside. It was in good shape and $150 so i ran down to pick it up and installed it yesterday.

WOW, Huge massive difference not only in the length of time the stove holds a fire but mostly in the amount of heat coming off the stove vs. up the flue. The heat exchanger did almost nothing last night. My old stove would read 160° and the exchanger would start cycling and stay on continuously above 200°. This new stove will read 300-400° and the heat exchanger cycles occasionally. I'm thinking about just removing it completely but it does provide a convenient fan to move air around so I kinda want to keep it.

I just wanted to post a thanks for the quick install help and a review of this little Kent Sherwood stove. So far (first 24hrs) it's head and tails above my old stove and i'm thinking i'm gonna have a whole lotta wood left over this year... :)
 
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Glad to hear you found a way to make improvement!

Keep a close eye on that heat exchanger if you keep it there. Robbing heat from the stack can increase creosote formation. Don't be afraid to give the brush some exercise.

Hope the stove works well for many years for you.
 
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Agreed. The heat robber is not needed with a modern stove. I'd remove it and sell on craigslist.
 
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