Hearthstone woodstove choices

[magna85]

Hello all, longtime lurker, infrequent commenter.

We recently moved from a home where our daily heat source was a hearthstone mansfield (older, non-cat). It did an excellent job of heating our 1900 SF ranch on a windy ridge top in Upstate NY. The propane would only kick on if it was below 10 degrees or excessively windy. I burned 3-4 cords per year for 5 years straight and learned the pros and cons of the soapstone woodstove, and really enjoyed all aspects of cutting, splitting, stacking, etc.

Our new home is also a 1900 SF ranch (upstairs) and had a partially finished (~500 SF) walkout basement with a finished family room where we spend a lot of time. The home has an existing ZC fireplace in the living room. At first i considered putting a woodstove insert in there, then realized how difficult and expensive it can be to retrofit a ZC fireplace. Due to the heat distribution in our home, we don't really need more heat upstairs we need it downstairs in the family room. We have geothermal forced air heat, the whole house is on one zone so with the thermostat set at 68 the upstairs stays comfortable and the downstairs is around 5 degrees cooler.

My wife and I miss the woodstove and would like to install one in the family room. We have a stove dealer a few miles away that we spoke to last week, they carry many brands including hearthstone. Since we are only really looking to heat the downstairs and not the whole house, we are looking for a smaller stove than the mansfield. Went in thinking the hearthstone heritage was at the top of my list. They also showed us the castleton which is more of square design (looked like a 2/3 scale Mansfield). They briefly showed us the blaze king line but my wife really likes the aesthetic of the soapstone. Since it will also be the kids playroom, we believe the "cooler" heat of the woodstove will be preferrable and safer for kids.

The heritage accepts longer logs and has a side door, but that would be difficult to use in the corner installation. The castleton is more afforable, but requires logs to be cut shorter (14-16") and has a smaller firebox and hence a lower BTU rating. I really couldn't find out too much online about the castleton, maybe its a newer model? According to the dealer, we will get even longer burn times out of the catalyst models when compared to the older non-cats.

Our desired location is a corner, next to the walkout entry door. While i know it is desirable to have a straight vertical flue, that would go right through our dining room, so my intent is to vent through the exterior wall and then up the exterior wall with class A. Having a T there means i can clean from the bottom and not have to get on the roof, which is plus for me. See the attached series of pics with woodstove footprint mocked up on cardboard. We had a nice tile hearth at our old house, i have 6 bundles of that tile left over to build a corner hearth in our new house.

We have 5 acres about half of which is standing dead ash, so i figure i've got a year or 2 of wood ready to cut this winter and put up, some of which would be ready to burn next winter. I'm excited to get out and cut this winter once the snow melts some.

Any advice from heritage/castleton owners?

 

[Pinesmoke]

Have you looked through the Hearthstone sub forum yet?

Is up top Woodstoves by manufacturer

 

[wetwood4life]

We installed a Castleton & exterior chimney back in '21 with no prior wood burning experience.

We looked at the Heritage vs. Castleton but didn't sweat the cost difference since most of the money was in the new chimney anyway. We went with the Castleton so it would fit better in the corner, and liked soapstone in case of future kids. Sounds like you've arrived at the same conclusions.

One thing you lose with the Castleton is the ashpan (maybe it's an addon?). Probably fine if you're not heating 24/7.

The Castleton has been around for a long time, but I guess not many people have them. If you're searching online it'll be harder to get troubleshooting info, but these forums are great. The new stoves are actually Castleton II - I heard they just squeezed cats into the original design. On the other hand, I heard Heritage was designed with cats from the beginning, so it may be better thought-out.

Not a knock on the stove, but we've had problems with weak & negative draft. Recently discovered (from these forums) our new chimney doesn't meet the 10-2-3 chimney rule. Either way, if you have an over/under decision on final chimney height, I'd recommend going over.

16" firewood fits very easily E-W. Sometimes I wish we had 17" wood to use up more space along the sides. 18" also fits, but can be tricky to finagle through the door and into place. Unfortunately, N-S loading needs 14" firewood to fit comfortably. At 15" you'll be close to the glass and dirtying it.

From your pictures, I think your exterior clean out tee is going to have clearance problems. Either it's blocking the stairs, or the chimney needs to come up through the deck.

If we could do it again, I'd go for a similar-sized Vermont Castings. Smaller footprint and tighter clearance (space is a premium in this room). The VC also has better support at shops and online because more people have one. But that's a personal priorities thing, if you liked the Mansfield, the Castleton will probably be nice in your corner.

Hope that helps somewhat!

 

[magna85]

We installed a Castleton & exterior chimney back in '21 with no prior wood burning experience.

We looked at the Heritage vs. Castleton but didn't sweat the cost difference since most of the money was in the new chimney anyway. We went with the Castleton so it would fit better in the corner, and liked soapstone in case of future kids. Sounds like you've arrived at the same conclusions.

One thing you lose with the Castleton is the ashpan (maybe it's an addon?). Probably fine if you're not heating 24/7.

The Castleton has been around for a long time, but I guess not many people have them. If you're searching online it'll be harder to get troubleshooting info, but these forums are great. The new stoves are actually Castleton II - I heard they just squeezed cats into the original design. On the other hand, I heard Heritage was designed with cats from the beginning, so it may be better thought-out.

Not a knock on the stove, but we've had problems with weak & negative draft. Recently discovered (from these forums) our new chimney doesn't meet the 10-2-3 chimney rule. Either way, if you have an over/under decision on final chimney height, I'd recommend going over.

16" firewood fits very easily E-W. Sometimes I wish we had 17" wood to use up more space along the sides. 18" also fits, but can be tricky to finagle through the door and into place. Unfortunately, N-S loading needs 14" firewood to fit comfortably. At 15" you'll be close to the glass and dirtying it.

From your pictures, I think your exterior clean out tee is going to have clearance problems. Either it's blocking the stairs, or the chimney needs to come up through the deck.

If we could do it again, I'd go for a similar-sized Vermont Castings. Smaller footprint and tighter clearance (space is a premium in this room). The VC also has better support at shops and online because more people have one. But that's a personal priorities thing, if you liked the Mansfield, the Castleton will probably be nice in your corner.

Hope that helps somewhat!

Thanks a lot for the reply and the information.

I really dont care about the ashpan, the Mansfield had one and it was such a pain to use i quit using it and just shoveled out the ash from the firebox once a week.

My main reservation with the castleton is cutting all my wood to 14" or less. From my experience with the mansfield the stoves burn MUCH better if the wood is loaded N-S. And i believe it is safer because a log will never be able to roll against the glass. I know the mansfield is a much bigger stove, but the castleton floor model i saw seemed like it had a tiny firebox. I haven't been able to see a heritage in person, although my local dealer suggested i call around to see if others have it in stock. I will not buy something without seeing it first.

I agree that the cleanout tee may partially block the stairs or become a headache bar for tall folks. I'm really not worried about it - thats a future project anyway (the column posts are not on footers - just stuck in the ground - so a full rebuild of those stairs is in order). If needed I'll kick the stairs out another foot or two to clear the chimney.

Interesting what you say about the VC allowing for tighter clearances. Like you, space is at a premium for us and I want the stove fairly tight in that corner to clear the exterior door and window. I'll have to look into what they offer.

While i certainly like the hearthsone, i am open to other brands if they meet our needs and get the seal of approval from the Mrs.

 

[Pinesmoke]

Yes the Mansfield is a BIG stove. I've found it cruises well at almost all levels if you bring it over the low cruise temp and drop it down to where I want it. It produces a LOT of charcoal due to incomplete burn of the ash bed though. Not saying it is what you need by any means but it does what I put it in to do. It's centered in an 1800 sf house and kept the place warm as the only heat in 5deg weather a few weeks back. I haven't tried it with a full on EW load so I can't speak to that, it's always been NS so far.