Is it worthwhile to upgrade a 30 year old stove?

[Jhoge]

i’ve got an early 80s Upland 207 wood stove that I’ve sealed up nicely with furnace cement. It’s quite functional and heats up my house nicely when I need it. I use it for backup heat about 20-30 days a year.

The main thing missing is a glass door. The stove comes with a safety screen but it really burns best with the front doors shut and the side vent open. If I could buy a glass door for my old Upland I would love to but that doesn’t seem to be an option. I really like the look of the new Vermont Castings stoves, especially the big glass door.

I wonder about the catalyst. My stove is a low maintenance iron box, and I don’t peculiarly enjoy cleaning stuff more than I have to. I live in a rural area so a bit of smoke coming out of the chimney bothers nobody. I don’t know if the extra complexity and maintenance involved in a modern stove is a genuine benefit. Some posts here make the VC stoves seem a bit troublesome to operate.

Is the catalyst just something to make the regulators happy or is it a genuine benefit?

 

[begreen]

VC stoves look great but there are much simpler good looking and lower maintenance stoves than the VC that will provide a really nice fire view and clean burn. How large an area is the Upland heating?

Whether this is worth it to you is subjective. The Upland was a well built stove, but it will never burn as cleanly as modern stoves. Besides less pollution this also means lower efficiency. That equates to more wood burned.

 

[Jhoge]

Only 1700 sq feet. Two loads of wood and the house is up to 75 degrees. At least the lower floor.

How much more efficient is a modern stove? Would it use half the wood? Or maybe just 5-10% less?

 

[begreen]

How much more efficient is a modern stove? Would it use half the wood? Or maybe just 5-10% less?

Good question, it would depend on the stove and how the wood is burned but about 25% less is not out of the question.

 

[jetsam]

I grew up on open fireplaces and cast iron stoves, and recently (3 years now) got a fancy BK cat stove.

It's really pretty different. I use a lot less wood (though I used to burn green wood, so that was part of the problem back in the day). I can heat the house up +10° when it's 65° outside, and +65° when it's 10° outside. No more heating the stove room up to 90 degrees on mild days with small hot fires- I can burn very low for 24 hours on one load instead. I also don't worry that the wife is going to forget the stove after reloading and overfire the stove- the stove takes care of that for me with a built in thermostat.

Having tried a modern stove, I wouldn't use a good old smoke dragon any more than you'd trade your stove for an open fireplace. All of the above can be used for heat, but in this case, newer really is better.

To your catalyst question: Some early catalyst stoves were indeed just retrofits to achieve regulatory compliance, and they are often not good stoves. Modern cats provide a ton of "free" heat by reburning combustion byproducts. Tube stoves also do this with burn tubes. Modern cat stoves tend to be better for shoulder season low burns than tube stoves; both do hot burns just fine.

Start your stove hunting here on Hearth. Pick a few that fit and you think you might like, and read all the owners' discussions about those stoves. You'll get a sense for how the owners feel about them pretty quick.

 

[coutufr]

How much wood do you burn in an average winter?

 

[Woody Stover]

Modern cats provide a ton of "free" heat by reburning combustion byproducts. Tube stoves also do this with burn tubes. Modern cat stoves tend to be better for shoulder season low burns than tube stoves; both do hot burns just fine

Yep, you don't have to go cat to go clean. The rule of thumb I've heard is that you might only burn 2/3 as much wood with a secondary-burn stove (tubes or a baffle,) and maybe half as much wood with a cat stove. Then there are the hybrid stoves, which use secondary combustion and a cat.

 

[mellow]

I would stick with the Upland if it is solely used as a backup heater. If you want to upgrade and get a window and something that heats up quick and burns clean then get a cheaper steel stove like an Englander found at Home Depot.

 

[Jhoge]

How much wood do you burn in an average winter?

I haven’t used the stove much in recent winters but I suppose I will go through a cord or two this winter.

 

[coutufr]

If you burn a cord or 2 you will have a long payback on a new stove. Burn hotter with dry wood.

 

[jetsam]

On the flip side of that argument, 2 cords is enough to do most of a year's heating if you have a reasonable envelope and a modern stove. Why do all the work to process 2 cords and then only get occasional heat out of it?

 

[Dakotas Dad]

Absolutely agree.. we put in our stove as an emergency back up sort of thing, and a way to use the cord or so of wood that just needs to be cleaned up on our property every year.. after about a month of playing with it, so we would know what to do in case of emergency.. it's been our primary heat source ever since. We use between a cord and a half, and two and a half cords a year.. this year looks to be headed towards the high end, last year was at the low.. But I find putting up enough wood for a winter isn't a big deal, and in fact enjoy it.. so might as well get as much benefit as I can..