Intro and a Buying Question

[Jeff from KY]

Been reading the site and the forums for a while and just registered. Looking for some opinions the group.

First, a little about me and our current stove. We (wife and I) live in far western Kentucky in a passive solar house we designed and built in '87-'88. House is 1200 sq ft with a 200 sq ft loft. In addition to the solar gain, we have heated with wood with the same stove since we moved in in 1988. The stove is a Consolidated Dutchwest Federal Airtight. It is a cast iron, catalytic stove. I have attached a picture of the stove in place.

Over the years the stove has served us well as our only active heat source. I have obviously replaced gaskets and cat converters over the years. I have also replaced some of the metal parts including the bypass gate.

Now, tiny cracks are appearing in some of the cast iron pieces (i.e. side door) and some pieces in the firebox are burning through. I haven't been able to find a source for the pieces that need to be replaced and, with 23 years of good burning, the time has come to replace the stove after this heating season.

I am leaning towards a Dutchwest 2460 or 2461 catalytic stove, simply because we have had such good service and heating from our existing DW stove. Because of the passive solar aspects of our house and the generally mild climate here in western Kentucky, much of our burning is at low burn rates (though we do occasionally need to use the full output).

Now for the opinions. Given my experience with our old DW and our wood heating needs, does anyone have a strong opinion as to why we should buy a different stove then a DW 2460/1 cat stove?

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[leeave96]

If you like your old DW, I think you will like the new ones too - expecially with the glass windows in the doors. I think they are one of the best bangs for the buck.

Having said that, there are other cat stoves - especially look at Woodstock (woodstove.com) as they are a great stove cat stove and very easy on the eyes.

Non-cat stoves, Pacific Energy Alderlea, Hearthstone soapstone stoves and others you will find folks chatting about on this forum.

For excellent quality and low price, the Englander stoves are great too.

Good luck,
Bill

 

[eclecticcottage]

Well...I like the DW's looks. It was on the short list when we were looking also, but I needed the lowest clearances possible and the Lopi won by a tad (considering stove depth as well).

You can get a longer burn time with a Blaze King-I personally don't like the looks of their Cat stoves though. If you like the looks, they are worth considering-who wouldn't like a 20 or so hour burn time?!

Then there's the Woodstock Progressive hybrid. Nice numbers for it (burn time and emmissions), plus it's a nice looking stove IMO.

 

[begreen]

If you are looking at Woodstock stoves I would stick with a smaller model for the area being heated. The Keystone should handle the job well. But if you want to get another Dutchwest, that would be fine too.

 

[jeff_t]

Keystone would look great there, but what about your chimney? That looks like a pretty big pipe in the pic.

 

[Jeff from KY]

Thanks for the input guys.

@jeff_t - What you see is double wall, 6" pipe. Goes up to the cathedral ceiling and then into triple wall stainless steel chimney outside. About 15' - 18' straight shot from the stove to the chimney cap.

 

[jeff_t]

Thanks for the input guys.

@jeff_t - What you see is double wall, 6" pipe. Goes up to the cathedral ceiling and then into triple wall stainless steel chimney outside. About 15' - 18' straight shot from the stove to the chimney cap.

I thought that might be the case after I looked again.

I guess you can put whatever you want there, just pay attention to clearances and R-value for your hearth. (Which looks nice, by the way. What's under the tile?) Vermont Castings hasn't had the greatest reputation for customer service in the past, but it's supposed to be getting better. Woodstock's customer service, according to everyone here, is unsurpassed. Cast iron, soapstone, steel, whatever you want to look at. Anything from a major manufacturer should make you happy. In your case, I would be looking really hard at another cat stove, due to the efficiency and clean burn at lower output.