Is a step top necessary for cooking?

[Sprinter]

Cooking on the stove top is a great idea. We did it in power outages for a while years ago. Until that time we had to smell that burned stew for a week after it boiled over and we had to keep the stove hot for heat.

Now we cook in outages with a propane camp stove and let the wood stove do its job. Heat the joint.

LOL. I'm showing this post to the Wife.

Sadly, Click & Clack are going to retire, and Car Talk (as we've always known it) will be no more.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...ring-but-their-best-stuff-will-be-rebroadcast

(I'm an Engineer (Mechanical)...and I never apologize for that).

Hey, fossil, are you actually from Bend or Fossil? I love that whole country. Spent a lot of time all over there, mostly down around Lakeview, though, with family. Dug up a lot of fossils at the football field in Fossil. Great area.

I just listened to this week's cartalk from the website. As good and funny as ever. Could have been from 25 years ago.

 

[Armoured]

Well, the issue that I was concerned about was the time it takes to fuss around just trying to get the flue hot enough to draft. Here's the site I was reading: http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/hosoapstone.htm. I just don't want to have to mess around for an hour or two every time the stove has gone cold. However, I guess in the case of the hybrid with a cat, that may not be as big an issue since the cat should allow a draft at a lower temperature, while the the stone is also warming up. Do I kind of get the right idea there with this hybrid?

Don't know about the draft issue, but they have some info on their site on how to check draft at startup and get it working properly:
http://www.woodstove.com/pages/pdffiles/Cures For Backpuffing.pdf

 

[MarkinNC]

Since you asked about starting a stove and your an engineer, you may enjoy this:

 

[begreen]

Our Alderlea is a super easy stove to light when loaded N/S. Just lay two medium sized, dry splits about 2" apart. Then ball up about 3 sheets of newspaper and stuff the gap between the splits. Criss-cross a few kindling sticks on top and ignite. If you want it easier, replace the newspaper with 1/4 SuperCedar. Or for super easy, skip the kindling, move the splits 1" apart and use 1/2 to a whole SuperCedar.

Or you can try top-down lighting. This is particularly good if you have a shorter flue that needs warming to draw well.
Here's a link to a helpful video that shows top-down lighting. It is the last one, efficient wood stove operation.
http://www.woodheat.org/wood-heat-videos.html

What makes the mid-sized and large PE (and several other stoves like the Lopi Endeavor, etc.) easy to light is the deep firebox which allows one to load N/S (splits parallel to the sides of the stove.). This allows the front fed air to easily travel the full length of the split. With the air wide open and good draft the wood catches fire quickly.

 

[Sprinter]

Since you asked about starting a stove and your an engineer, you may enjoy this:

Thanks, but I like to play with matches

 

[Sprinter]

Our Alderlea is a super easy stove to light when loaded N/S. Just lay two medium sized, dry splits about 2" apart. Then ball up about 3 sheets of newspaper and stuff the gap between the splits. Criss-cross a few kindling sticks on top and ignite. If you want it easier, replace the newspaper with 1/4 SuperCedar. Or for super easy, skip the kindling, move the splits 1" apart and use 1/2 to a whole SuperCedar.

Or you can try top-down lighting. This is particularly good if you have a shorter flue that needs warming to draw well.
Here's a link to a helpful video that shows top-down lighting. It is the last one, efficient wood stove operation.
http://www.woodheat.org/wood-heat-videos.html

What makes the mid-sized and large PE (and several other stoves like the Lopi Endeavor, etc.) easy to light is the deep firebox which allows one to load N/S (splits parallel to the sides of the stove.). This allows the front fed air to easily travel the full length of the split. With the air wide open and good draft the wood catches fire quickly.

Oh, I didn't realize that was an advantage of N/S design. Interesting. I need to decide n/s or e/w as well. I can't have any stove out into to room any further than necessary because of our limited floor space there, so rear clearance is super important as well as stove depth, and, I guess, required hearth pad dimensions.

 

[begreen]

There are lots of threads here about N/S vs E/W loading. Having owned both, I am a convert due to the easier lighting and no flaming wood rolling up against the glass.

The chimneysweep's website has very good hearth and clearance requirement docs for the Hearthstones and Pacific Energy stoves they sell. If looking at other brands, download the installation manual for guidance. For some stoves you can reduce rear clearances by installing a proper, NFPA 211 heat shield. Look for this option in the installation clearance specs.

And don't obsess about it. Any stove you install is going to seem imposing at first. Tape out the floor and make a mockup of the stove out of cardboard boxes to get used to this change without heavy lifting.

 

[MarkinNC]

Thanks, but I like to play with matches

I prefer a torch myself. If you have a firebox with basically square dimensions you can load EW or NS. My firebox is 19x19 though I do not like EW (with 2 years under my belt).

 

[firefighterjake]

Nope . . . granted I haven't really cooked anything on the stove top yet . . . just inside on some coals.

 

[firefighterjake]

. . . and after.

 

[bluedogz]

I can verify that a Lodge dutch oven behaves very nicely atop the NC30.