Help me choose my next stove

[New_Burner]

Long time reader....first time poster. I am looking for reccomendations from you experts. Not so much what brands are best, but what size and model would fit my requirements.

I have a two year old three level (including basement) house that is approx. 2800 sq. feet. The house is currently heated with an oil boiler and cast iron rads. Because of where my chimney is located (rec room), I cannot install a wood boiler(asthetics). I would prefer a wood boiler to use the existing cast iron rads, but who wants a ugly wood boiler, in the middle of their rec room????
Anyway, I am going to go with a wood stove to supplement the heating during the winter months. The chimney flue is in the basement (rec room) which enters into an exterior masonery chimney with a stainless steel liner.

Requirements:

A stove large enough to get, at least, a consistent, 5-6 hr. burn.

A stove that will help heat the basement and first floor.

Preferably not soapstone, simply because of cost.

Catalytic or non-catalytic, doesn't matter.

Doesn't even have to be epa, if next requirement met.

And most importantly, a stove as AUTOMATIC as possible. I would love to have a stove, that I can load and walk away from for at least 5 hrs(similar to a boiler). I have had wood stoves in the past, and grew very tired of loading, opening air, closing air, opening air etc. etc.

What do you recommend?

 

[begreen]

Greetings, it's hard to tell if you would like a wood stove. Regardless of burn time there still will be the purchasing, cutting, stacking, etc. for the wood. And it will bring some mess into the house, though that is controllable. But in general wood stoves are not set it and forget it appliances. That better describes a pellet stove, which might be worth considering. A woodstove that will run for hours will need to be have a decent sized firebox. Add a cat converter and the burn can be extended. But if this is starting to sound like a BlazeKing, the caveat is, they cost as much as a soapstone stove. For a basic box, it sounds like a PE Summit or Napoleon 1900 might work, but only if the work of wood burning is not objectionable. Or you might consider a Woodstock Fireview. On sale, they can be a competitive stove with a long burntime.

 

[New_Burner]

Thanks a lot for the info.....I actually don't mind the splitting, stacking and bringing wood in- its good exercise. I was also thinking the PE Summit or maybe the QF 5700

 

[kingfisher]

I make up my mind on the regency S2400 for this fall, pretty nice stove

 

[CrappieKeith]

Take a look at a EagleIV /Klondike at Yukon.
8-10 hour burn times are the norm in a 3000 s/f home well insulated burning hardwood or coal.

 

[jotul8e2]

A stove large enough to get, at least, a consistent, 5-6 hr. burn.

And most importantly, a stove as AUTOMATIC as possible. I would love to have a stove, that I can load and walk away from for at least 5 hrs(similar to a boiler). I have had wood stoves in the past, and grew very tired of loading, opening air, closing air, opening air etc. etc.

What do you recommend?

Yes, you want an EPA rated stove. For efficiency, clean burning, and reduced flue maintenance.

Consistant four to five hour burn times necessitates a 3 cu. ft. firebox, give or take. This reduces the number of choices drastically.

A stove that size requires more clearance, and in fact more "footprint". Measure your available space carefully, and really, really understand the stove manufacturer's clearance requirements.

Getting heat to rise out of a basement is not always easy. There are many threads in the archives on this; do a search on "basement".

I have both a cat and a non-cat stove. A cat stove will be more nearly "automatic" in the sense of "load it and forget it" than a non cat. The cat stove will burn at full, or near full efficiency over a wider operating temperature range than a non-cat. This is relatively speaking, of course. There are differences in the kind of attention each design needs, but the overall time requirements are not that much different either way.

Either way, you need to have your firewood cut, split, stacked, and dry NOW for next season. No kidding.

Good luck,

Mark

 

[Chettt]

Go for the biggest fire box that you can afford.

 

[americanhearthtech]

i would recommend a quadrafire 5700 due to several things, first off, its thte top epa certified wood stove even though you say that doesnt matter to you, but with the efficiency of the unit it qualifies for the tax credit of up to 30% http://www.quadrafire.com/Tax_Credit/stimulus-tax-credit-stove.asp
and on top of that, the stove is about as automatic as you get with the introduction of the quadrafire act technology in this product just this year, which the advertise as "1. load 2.light 3.live". and on top of thatyou get $400 off through the end of may. and to add to that, quadrafire has a lifetime warranty on the construction of the unit and is noncatalytic which means no catalytic burners to replace. the only thing is that with any high efficiency stove you put in, you want to have an insulated liner put in to help pull the heat up the chimmney, otherwise theres not enough heat to push the cold air and you either get not the efficiency the unit boasts or the unit will always smoke itself out and youll have a hard time lighting it

 

[North of 60]

What are catalytic burners?

 

[americanhearthtech]

What are catalytic burners?

im guessing you're asking about a catalytic wood stove, it works like a car exhaust system in that it has a catalytic piece that is supposed to filter out all the left over toxins at the end of the burn. most stoves switched to this when the epa started putting strict pollution requirements. but most of the good stoves today use burner rods which are basically rods that have holes in them and let air into the system where it can re-burn whatever toxins are left from the main burn

 

[North of 60]

i would recommend a quadrafire 5700 due to several things, first off, its thte top epa certified wood stove even though you say that doesnt matter to you, but with the efficiency of the unit it qualifies for the tax credit of up to 30% http://www.quadrafire.com/Tax_Credit/stimulus-tax-credit-stove.asp
and on top of that, the stove is about as automatic as you get with the introduction of the quadrafire act technology in this product just this year, which the advertise as "1. load 2.light 3.live". and on top of thatyou get $400 off through the end of may. and to add to that, quadrafire has a lifetime warranty on the construction of the unit and is noncatalytic which means no (catalytic burners) to replace. the only thing is that with any high efficiency stove you put in, you want to have an insulated liner put in to help pull the heat up the chimmney, otherwise theres not enough heat to push the cold air and you either get not the efficiency the unit boasts or the unit will always smoke itself out and youll have a hard time lighting it

From above...You mentioned them in this post.

 

[americanhearthtech]

yes, and that it what i was referring to, sorry bout the miss interpretation

 

[BrotherBart]

... first off, its thte top epa certified wood stove

According to who?

 

[fossil]

There's no "ranking" of EPA certification. A stove's either certified or is not. If it meets or exceeds the emissions requirement, it's certified. If it doesn't, it's not. Rick

 

[firefighterjake]

Sounds like someone has bought into some salesman's sales pitch . . .

For the OP . . . there are several stoves that I believe would meet your needs . . . but other than a pelletstove none that I know of are truly automatic where you load-and-go . . . that's the bad news. The good news is that there are many (cats especially) that get very long burn times and even some of the larger stoves with secondary combustion tech seem to get half decent times for meaningful heat without a lot of fuss and muss (realizing of course that you may have to adjust the air flow a bit when reloading . . . emphasis on the word "may.")