Been burning wood (only sorce of heat) for 30 years with a 55,000 BTU Nasuha and think it is time for an upgrade but am finding out it is not cut and dried any more, I am a little worried about the wife and any extra controls of some of the new wood burners. Sound like any of he new style wood burners wood be a major improvement but looking for a straight forword model, love the idea of a Blaze King but not sure the wife would get used to it, seems like the new stoves are much more finicky to run. So any ideas of what might work for a "seasoned" wood burner who is looking for an upgrade?
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Never burned an old stove but have read a lot from people who have. Step one forget everything you've learned about burning the old stove and learn all over again. :lol:
2 main keys for success, first good dry wood,(20% moisture content or lower) the old stove would burn anything. Second a properly lined/sized chimney for the new stove. You get these two things right and things will go well for you.
As for stove choices, you'll find two groups cat or no cat. Either one works and if you burn them properly both ways will last a long time. I have a non cat stove and it has one control level for air. My wife tends the stove all day while I'm at work without much issue.
Take a couple minutes when you have time to watch this video. http://www.ec.gc.ca/cleanair-airpur/default.asp?lang=En&n=8011CD70-1 Vanessa will give you a quick run down on running an EPA non cat stove.
2 main keys for success, first good dry wood,(20% moisture content or lower) the old stove would burn anything. Second a properly lined/sized chimney for the new stove. You get these two things right and things will go well for you.
As for stove choices, you'll find two groups cat or no cat. Either one works and if you burn them properly both ways will last a long time. I have a non cat stove and it has one control level for air. My wife tends the stove all day while I'm at work without much issue.
Take a couple minutes when you have time to watch this video. http://www.ec.gc.ca/cleanair-airpur/default.asp?lang=En&n=8011CD70-1 Vanessa will give you a quick run down on running an EPA non cat stove.
oldspark said:
No they aren't. With dry wood they take less effort to produce heat and less fiddling with air controls allowing you to lock in a temperature far more easily.
If you don't care about viewing your fire, then hands down the Blaze King/Princess is the best stove on the market imo. Friend has one and it is an amazing heater. Not that difficult to run either. Compared to my Oslo it just sips the wood for hours. I just love seeing the flames or else I'd have one in a heartbeat!
With non-cat stoves the biggest adjustment for old stove burners is that seeing flames isn't wasting wood. It is making heat. Everybody keeps wanting to turn'em all the way down and smolder the load like they did with the old stove. Gotta learn to let'em burn.
Welcome to the forum oldspark.
The thing that caught my eye on your post is that you've been burning wood for 30 years. Great! However, the caution is that with the new stoves, you need good dry wood. Depending on what you burn out there, most wood needs a year and some need 2-3 years of drying before it is ready to burn. Also, that wood will not dry good unless it is split.
Here is how we do it: I cut all the wood during winter months. Splitting gets done after snowmelt. Stacking comes next and we usually stack so the prevailing wind hits the side of the piles. This is usually done by mid April. Then come late November or early December we cover only the top of the piles and never cover the sides. Then we let the wood set. At present we are burning wood that has been split and stacked for 5 years and it burns like a charm.
Not everyone agrees on the covering of the wood. Some never cover the wood pile and get along just fine. Others cover the wood as soon as it has been stacked. Still some others go out and cover the tops of the piles just before a rain and then uncover it after the rain. It seems a bit much to me but there are plenty who do it.
My biggest point though is that most folks who have burned wood for a long time are accustomed to cut the wood in the fall and burn it right away. With the newer stoves that will give you plenty of problems. But if you let the wood dry you will be happy. For example, our present stove heats out home much better than our last stove.....and we burn only half the amount of wood we used to! That is the great advantage of the new stoves.
On the controls, Wendell posted about the Woodstock Fireview, which is what we have. Some say it is complicated! I find that rather silly though. It has a draft control and a lever to move to engage the cat. The cat is engaged usually within 10-15 minutes after reloading the stove and stays that way until you reload. Simply put, the lever is either up or down. That doesn't seem complicated to me! Especially when I think about the old stoves we had in the house when I was growing up. They had 3 controls! (One was a damper which most do not need with these new stoves.)
btw, a Woodstock Fireview kicks out 55,000 btu just like your present stove. You can check them out at http://woodstove.com/
Good luck.
The thing that caught my eye on your post is that you've been burning wood for 30 years. Great! However, the caution is that with the new stoves, you need good dry wood. Depending on what you burn out there, most wood needs a year and some need 2-3 years of drying before it is ready to burn. Also, that wood will not dry good unless it is split.
Here is how we do it: I cut all the wood during winter months. Splitting gets done after snowmelt. Stacking comes next and we usually stack so the prevailing wind hits the side of the piles. This is usually done by mid April. Then come late November or early December we cover only the top of the piles and never cover the sides. Then we let the wood set. At present we are burning wood that has been split and stacked for 5 years and it burns like a charm.
Not everyone agrees on the covering of the wood. Some never cover the wood pile and get along just fine. Others cover the wood as soon as it has been stacked. Still some others go out and cover the tops of the piles just before a rain and then uncover it after the rain. It seems a bit much to me but there are plenty who do it.
My biggest point though is that most folks who have burned wood for a long time are accustomed to cut the wood in the fall and burn it right away. With the newer stoves that will give you plenty of problems. But if you let the wood dry you will be happy. For example, our present stove heats out home much better than our last stove.....and we burn only half the amount of wood we used to! That is the great advantage of the new stoves.
On the controls, Wendell posted about the Woodstock Fireview, which is what we have. Some say it is complicated! I find that rather silly though. It has a draft control and a lever to move to engage the cat. The cat is engaged usually within 10-15 minutes after reloading the stove and stays that way until you reload. Simply put, the lever is either up or down. That doesn't seem complicated to me! Especially when I think about the old stoves we had in the house when I was growing up. They had 3 controls! (One was a damper which most do not need with these new stoves.)
btw, a Woodstock Fireview kicks out 55,000 btu just like your present stove. You can check them out at http://woodstove.com/
Good luck.
oldspark said:
You can see the flames as long as the catalyst isn't engaged. The point being though, for this stove to operate to maximum efficiency that you would have the catalyst engaged 99% of the time.
This is a great site with all the insites to woodburning questions, Dennis and others who brought up the dry wood issue, I learned a long time ago wet wood sucks even in an old stove so that will not be a problem. Am thinking a non cat so there is not a part I have to replace in 5 years or so, I watched the video mentioned in one of the posts and found it very informative. I think one of the woodburners that has the door a little higher would be good for the wife to load. My chimney is a block one with a liner running up the middle of the house so I do not think I will have a problem there either.
The first step to recovery is realizing you want a more efficient and cleaner burning woodstove . . . more heat + less wood burned multiplied by 2.5 times the number of times you find yourself staring at the fire through the large window and realizing that watching the fire burn is more relaxing and enjoyable than watching TV = wood burning nirvana.
On a serious note . . . what's not to like about burning with the new EPA woodstoves. As I mentioned . . . you tend to use less wood and get more heat . . . and you can feel good since you're burning cleaner . . . and yeah, there's a secret thrill that comes from an EPA burner when they can look around and see smoke coming out of all of their neighbor's homes . . . and yet your chimney only is emiting heat waves . . . it's like you're a secret agent spy ninja Captain Planet undercover wood burner.
Extra controls . . . nah . . . the cats have one extra lever . . . the secondary burn stoves still have the air control lever . . . most folks who can manage to eat their dinner and carry on a meaningful conversation with their spouse at the same time can master either type of stove . . . they're really not that hard to use providing that . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . you use seasoned wood . . . and by seasoned wood we mean wood that has been cut, split and stacked for a year or longer . . . or that is under 20% moisture as measured by a moisture meter. I would guess that 99% of the folks who come here with issues with blackened glass, not enough heat, wood that isn't catching on fire, etc. are using wood that they think is seasoned . . . when it is not.
Finicky stove . . . nah . . . unless you have the aforementioned unseasoned wood . . . running an EPA stove is different than the old smoldering wood beasts that devoured through wood like a fat kid eating mini Snickers the day after Halloween . . . as the venerable Brother Bart mentioned folks not used to seeing the flames or who are in the mindset that a smoldering fire is a good fire just need to be reducated . . . fortunately we are the Borg, I mean hearth.com . . . resistance is usless . . . you will be assimiilated . . . and learn to burn properly.
As to what works for you . . . after deciding you want a new stove you need to figure out what size stove you need . . . figure out your spacing needs . . . and then usually I recommend going one size larger. You can go too large and you can go too small . . . the trick is getting a stove that is sized correctly . . . the reason I suggest one size larger is a) for those days when it is wicked cold and you really need to pour out the heat without overfiring your stove and b) the manufacturers tend to come up with figures that are based on the perfect house in the perfect climate . . . they don't tend to account for the 1870s farmhouse with little insulation in the walls that is going through a typical Maine winter in Aroostook County.
After figuring out the size you have choices . . . cats or non-cats . . . there are pros and cons to both . . . at one time I would have been anti-cat . . . now I could go either way. You also may want to decide on steel vs. cast iron vs. soapstone . . . another big debate issue here . . . my take . . . they're all good, they all heat the home and the differences, while debatable in terms of heat, are small enough so that I would consider all of them and quite honestly go with what I could afford and what I think looks good.
Your final step . . . or one of the last steps . . . take a look at the stoves in the shops or on-line and see what you . . . and your wife . . . like the looks of in terms of how it looks and what features it has . . . for some folks having a top loader is a must have . . . or an ash pan . . . others say these items are a non-issue.
Good luck in your stove search.
On a serious note . . . what's not to like about burning with the new EPA woodstoves. As I mentioned . . . you tend to use less wood and get more heat . . . and you can feel good since you're burning cleaner . . . and yeah, there's a secret thrill that comes from an EPA burner when they can look around and see smoke coming out of all of their neighbor's homes . . . and yet your chimney only is emiting heat waves . . . it's like you're a secret agent spy ninja Captain Planet undercover wood burner.
Extra controls . . . nah . . . the cats have one extra lever . . . the secondary burn stoves still have the air control lever . . . most folks who can manage to eat their dinner and carry on a meaningful conversation with their spouse at the same time can master either type of stove . . . they're really not that hard to use providing that . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . you use seasoned wood . . . and by seasoned wood we mean wood that has been cut, split and stacked for a year or longer . . . or that is under 20% moisture as measured by a moisture meter. I would guess that 99% of the folks who come here with issues with blackened glass, not enough heat, wood that isn't catching on fire, etc. are using wood that they think is seasoned . . . when it is not.
Finicky stove . . . nah . . . unless you have the aforementioned unseasoned wood . . . running an EPA stove is different than the old smoldering wood beasts that devoured through wood like a fat kid eating mini Snickers the day after Halloween . . . as the venerable Brother Bart mentioned folks not used to seeing the flames or who are in the mindset that a smoldering fire is a good fire just need to be reducated . . . fortunately we are the Borg, I mean hearth.com . . . resistance is usless . . . you will be assimiilated . . . and learn to burn properly.
As to what works for you . . . after deciding you want a new stove you need to figure out what size stove you need . . . figure out your spacing needs . . . and then usually I recommend going one size larger. You can go too large and you can go too small . . . the trick is getting a stove that is sized correctly . . . the reason I suggest one size larger is a) for those days when it is wicked cold and you really need to pour out the heat without overfiring your stove and b) the manufacturers tend to come up with figures that are based on the perfect house in the perfect climate . . . they don't tend to account for the 1870s farmhouse with little insulation in the walls that is going through a typical Maine winter in Aroostook County.
After figuring out the size you have choices . . . cats or non-cats . . . there are pros and cons to both . . . at one time I would have been anti-cat . . . now I could go either way. You also may want to decide on steel vs. cast iron vs. soapstone . . . another big debate issue here . . . my take . . . they're all good, they all heat the home and the differences, while debatable in terms of heat, are small enough so that I would consider all of them and quite honestly go with what I could afford and what I think looks good.
Your final step . . . or one of the last steps . . . take a look at the stoves in the shops or on-line and see what you . . . and your wife . . . like the looks of in terms of how it looks and what features it has . . . for some folks having a top loader is a must have . . . or an ash pan . . . others say these items are a non-issue.
Good luck in your stove search.
You'll see plenty of flame in a Blaze King Princess EXCEPT when you run it on low (most efficient). The flames are great so long as the fuel is dry!
BrowningBAR said:
Every stove takes a little time to learn how to burn it well and efficiently. That's true new and even for older stoves. Filling the stove and letting it smolder for 12 hrs is not burning IMO, it's fumigating. (Ask the neighbors.)
The best testimony I have to the new stoves is my wife. She does a near perfect fire (albeit smaller than I do) in the new stove. Load a couple splits, top with a little kindling and fire it up. Let that start and in about 15-30 minutes, start adding wood. Let that catch, knock down the air about halfway when it's burning well, then almost all the way closed once the stovetop temp has reached about 500. Reloads in a hot stove are even simpler. Just reload, let it ignite, turn the air down once the wood is mostly aflame. Sit back and enjoy the show.
Last night I loaded 90 pounds of seasoned (avg. 14%) moisture content fuel into my stove. I set it at the lowest burn rate possible and there was ZERO smoke. The catalytic deal was red hot and this morning it is still hot and clean. Bad news, I'll have to reload it tomorrow morning. My Blaze King and like all the other BK owners here post know, idles like a crock pot.....nice even heat.
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