Hearthstone Phoenix vs. Jotul Oslo

[Mikeyvon]

Hi, new guy here.

We are building a new home in the Mtns. of Northern California. It will be a open floor plan with two stories (upstairs being a loft). The kids' bedrooms will be on the first floor and ours will be in the loft. The home is just over 2000 sqft with vaulted ceilings in the greatroom, dining room, and upstairs bedroom. The stove will be in the great room. We really need at least 8 hours of burn time. Our current stove in our rental house is small and gives only 5-6 hours. Some mornings there are a few red coals, but many times the stove will be cold. Wood is cheap hear as we cut our own, we pay $5-15 a cord depending on where we cut. We burn lodgepole, ceder, and oak mainly. This winter is our second year using wood as our primary heat source.

We have a great dealer about 1 hr away and they carry both the phoenix and the oslo (plus some others). We really like both these stoves and the price is close enough between the two (~$60) to not be a factor in the decision. We are leaning towards the phoenix do to looks and we have heard great things about the soapstone.

Is this the right choice? I have heard great things about both.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

I sell both and i think that both are fantastic. Me, i like the soapstone too. I think it looks great and i love the way it heats.

 

[sstanis]

I might seem biased, but if you want both aesthetics and heat value, go for the soapstone. Either hearthstone or woodstock. They are truly a piece of furniture that will complement the room in which it is placed. if aesthetics is no issue that whatever is the most efficient

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

I would agree, the oslo is a beautifull stove as well. Some people hate the look of soapstone, and some hate cast. IMO soapstone is wonderfull in many ways.

 

[ansehnlich1]

Interesting, my wife and I faced the same dilemma. We looked at Quadrafire, Morso, all the Cast Iron stoves, heck, everything out there that wasn't "boxy" looking. We went for the Phoenix. We liked the Oslo too but thought the Phoenix to be a better purchase. We too are building a home. We have a cathedral ceiling in the great room which is our living room/kitchen combined. You can see our home plan at dongardner.com, it is the Georgetown. We're about 1850 square feet on the first floor with a bonus room above the garage. I don't expect a lot of heat to get into our master bedroom area, though we have a zoned heat pump for there should we need it Good luck, the decision can be a tough one, I know!

 

[BrotherBart]

I am starting to get down right proud of being the only guy that likes "boxy" looking stoves.

"What it it?"

"It's a box."

"What do you do with it?"

"Light fires in it."

"Whoa!"

 

[suematteva]

Welcome to the forum...both are great stoves...having had both a steel/cast stove then burning a mansfield soap for the last five years we prefer the soap...

 

[ansehnlich1]

[quote author="BrotherBart" date="1168488234"]I am starting to get down right proud of being the only guy that likes "boxy" looking stoves.
quote]

Ha, BrotherBart, I hear ya. I looked at 'em. I'd easily buy one, I liked the Quads, the Regency, the Pacific Energy, the Harmans.......and I know they perform magnificently.....

HOWEVER....

I wanna keep sleepin' in the Big Bed, if you know what I mean

I never heard a stove described as boxy until my wife......oh never mind, I best shut up right now.....

 

[ourhouse]

I would go with the soapstone stove they are nice to look at and heat great.

 

[BrotherBart]

"Ha, BrotherBart, I hear ya. I looked at 'em. I'd easily buy one, I liked the Quads, the Regency, the Pacific Energy, the Harmans.......and I know they perform magnificently.....

HOWEVER....

I wanna keep sleepin' in the Big Bed, if you know what I mean

I never heard a stove described as boxy until my wife......oh never mind, I best shut up right now.....[/quote]"



Funny. Yeah right after I bought the current stove some lady posted on here that she hated the look of those "boxy" stoves. At breakfast I told my wife about it and she laughed and said "The only woman on earth that has to like the looks of that stove in the family room is this me. And I think it is gorgeous."

 

[Mikeyvon]

Hey thanks for all of the responses. We do think the Oslo is a great looking stove. I think we just perfer the phoenix. It sounds like the phoenix is what we will go with. The soapstone seems like it will be great. Do you think it will heat my 2000 sqft well insulated home ok?

ansehnlich1, I really like your floor plan. It is a great looking house. Where are you building and when do you expect to be done? What kind of lot will it be on?

Here is my house plans, I included the original so you can get a feel of what the house is like. We modified the main floor and are working the second modifications. The actual blue prints are being drawn as we speak. We are building on a hillside, so we are going to have a stepped foundation, with about 650sqft of walkout basement. This will be our first house and we cannot wait. We have a contractor getting us through "dry-in" and then we are doing the rest of the work ourselves (we will sub-out the roof, insulation, and the taping and texture of sheetrock).

I am excited and nervous. The house build consumes me. My wife says this is the first time I think about something all the time instead of sex!!

 

[ansehnlich1]

Mikeyvon,

We decided on the soapstone because the stove will be located right in the area we will be using most, and I didn't want to get blasted with the heat. I think the soapstone will provide for more comfort. I also think the phoenix will heat your home, in particular if it is well insulated, though you'll likely have a bunch of heat upstairs there. We had a home with a Vermont Castings Defiant, two bedrooms and a bath upstairs, the stove was in the great room downstairs, very similar to your home plan, and it was always toasty upstairs. Our new home we're installing (2) 54 inch ceiling fans in the great room, I intend to blow some air around, haha. We're building near Gettysburg, Pa. on a 4.5 acre lot with a view of the Pennsylavania "Alps", er, the Appalachian mountains. It's a great site. We're at the siding stage outside, and hooking up electric, the well ditch was backfilled today, and we're ready to insulate, drywall, flooring, and cabinetry thereafter. Maybe we'll be in there in 2 months or so, we'll see. I've found building to be 2 steps forward, one step back...

 

[colsmith]

Hello, we went with a Phoenix a year ago. Our house is about 2000 sq ft. also. Not a terribly open floor plan, but happens to be laid out such that the air does circulates pretty well to most of the house, including the bedrooms which are all upstairs. Door open, room is warm, door closed, room is cold, pretty simple to regulate that! Never too hot anyplace except if you are directly in front of the stove. Note that the Phoenix is actually a hybrid, part cast iron (front and back) and part soapstone (sides and top.) So you get some quicker heat and some slower, better retained heat. The Hearthstone Heritage model is more soapstone all over the place, we considered that very hard and thought it wasn't as well designed.

Only real problem we have is that the burn time is not nearly 8 hours. Depends what you mean by burn time exactly, but our fires burn fast and if you waited 8 hours you generally could not easily light the stove from the coals. Possibly our draft is too vigorous, dunno. The soapstone certainly stays warm a long time, though. Also, don't let any morons clean your chimney! Complicated stove layout with parts that aren't really accessible. In general we love our stove and think it is quite attractive.

 

[squngel]

"Ha, BrotherBart, I hear ya. I looked at 'em. I'd easily buy one, I liked the Quads, the Regency, the Pacific Energy, the Harmans.......and I know they perform magnificently.....

HOWEVER....

I wanna keep sleepin' in the Big Bed, if you know what I mean

I never heard a stove described as boxy until my wife......oh never mind, I best shut up right now.....

"



Funny. Yeah right after I bought the current stove some lady posted on here that she hated the look of those "boxy" stoves. At breakfast I told my wife about it and she laughed and said "The only woman on earth that has to like the looks of that stove in the family room is this me. And I think it is gorgeous."[/quote]

That lady was me, and I just bought one of the large-size firesale Centurys. I think it might be the most beautiful box-type thing I've ever seen.

Honestly, I did think the plate steel boxes were ugly at first. I've been looking at different stoves for months now, though, and after awhile the ornate cast models began to seem "fussy," and the simplicity of the plate steel box stoves really started to appeal to me. I was still considering a cast when I bought this box, but it was the Jotul 118-- another box.

It's a woman's prerogative...

 

[BrotherBart]

Funny. Yeah right after I bought the current stove some lady posted on here that she hated the look of those "boxy" stoves. At breakfast I told my wife about it and she laughed and said "The only woman on earth that has to like the looks of that stove in the family room is this me. And I think it is gorgeous."

That lady was me, and I just bought one of the large-size firesale Centurys. I think it might be the most beautiful box-type thing I've ever seen.

Honestly, I did think the plate steel boxes were ugly at first. I've been looking at different stoves for months now, though, and after awhile the ornate cast models began to seem "fussy," and the simplicity of the plate steel box stoves really started to appeal to me. I was still considering a cast when I bought this box, but it was the Jotul 118-- another box.

It's a woman's prerogative...[/quote]

Congrats! You got a heck of a lot of wood stove for the money. In fact you got a heck of a lot of wood stove for what would be sales tax on a lot of smaller stoves. That thing is a hoss. Welcome to Steel Stove Burners of America.

Our motto: "It Ain't Furniture, It's Heat!"