My stove is too big

[mobetter]

Funny how of all the posts I've read in the last few weeks No one has mentioned that they went too big.

On the other hand, many many posts are of the "I need bigger" variety. What are some of your thoughts

on advertised vs. real world heating capacity?

 

[Hogwildz]

With a large stove, if you need less due to shoulder season or freak warmer days, just build smaller fires.
With a smaller stove, when its maxed out and 20 below out with windchill factor, you ain't getting no more heat.
Then comes the loss of value when trading in for a larger stove.
Advertised heat output & sf coverage is best figured between 50% & 75% actual heat output of that which is advertised.

 

[rphurley]

I too might have gone to big with my I3100. If I keep the thing blasting it will cook us out in no time, but I find with moderate size fires and letting the wood burn for a cycle I can pretty much keep the living room area in the mid 70's. I enjoy watching tv in shorts and a t-shirt and I appreciate the longer burn times with a larger unit. And once the temps start dropping toward the single digits I think I'll thoroughly appreciate getting the larger insert.

 

[BrotherBart]

My stove is too big and I don't care. :cheese: We haven't slept under anything thicker than a sheet in three years.

 

[Hogwildz]

I too might have gone to big with my I3100. If I keep the thing blasting it will cook us out in no time, but I find with moderate size fires and letting the wood burn for a cycle I can pretty much keep the living room area in the mid 70's. I enjoy watching tv in shorts and a t-shirt and I appreciate the longer burn times with a larger unit. And once the temps start dropping toward the single digits I think I'll thoroughly appreciate getting the larger insert.

Exactly my point, and you can bank that will be glad on your decision. Congrats on a wise choice.

 

[fossil]

My Lopi's sized about right. My workshop stove is perfect, but my shop's too small. Rick

 

[dskup]

When it comes to BTU output, the claims would be awefully difficult to verify given the variability in one piece of tree to another. However, I think you could reliably compare the EPA btu ratings. When testing they use standardized man-made fuel pieces. That's what I did when shopping for my fireplace.

Based on my experience with the Quad 7100, I don't think the ratings are too far out of whack. On a -10F day, my 75 btu gas furnace will run all day with not a lot of down time. When I'm burning wood, it never kicks in... heating about 2200 sq. ft. She's a beauty and a beast.

But like the other posters mentioned, you can always build a small fire. It may not run at max efficiency, but it burns well enough.

 

[Pagey]

On really, really cold nights my Endeavor is probably undersized, but with my layout, there's no way I could have gotten anything much larger in here and maintained use of the room. In any event, it's nice to get off the electric grid a bit. True that your post is the opposite of most.

 

[BrotherBart]

When testing they use standardized man-made fuel pieces.

Douglas fir trees are man made? :coolsmirk:

 

[SlyFerret]

I'm still trying to learn how to run my 30 without cookin' us out too. Still playin' with load size, trying to find the right balance of fuel per load and loads per day. Lately I've been loading at 6am, and 6pm, packing it to the gills. Its hard only having a few hours each day when I'm at home AND awake!

I will say, the super cedar firestarters have made things easier. I don't worry as much about making sure I have coals left to relight. The let me load up and light off the stove without playing the kindling game. Pretty nice. I break them into quarters, so I get 4 starts out of each one.

-SF

 

[fossil]

When testing they use standardized man-made fuel pieces.

Douglas fir trees are man made? :coolsmirk:

It's all a question of diet. %-P Rick

 

[mskif]

My I2400 seems sized just about right for my 1800 sq. ft. home. The stove is in a 325 sq. ft. room and the open stairwell leading upstairs helps. 72 in the stove room and 68 in the rest of the downstairs. Upstairs is about 65 which is good for sleeping. Perhaps a bigger stove would give me longer burns but it seems fine. My gas heat does kick on about 4 or 5AM (set to 64) and I wake up around 6 AM to to a large bed of coals. It is probably my technique more then stove size, but this is my first winter with this particular stove so we shall see.

 

[dskup]

Ok, regarding the EPA fuel, I may be thinking of another standard. I work for a test lab and deal with alot of them.

I was just looking at the EPA site, including the standard and I can't find the test fuel defition. Can anyone point it out?

 

[BrotherBart]

Ok, regarding the EPA fuel, I may be thinking of another standard. I work for a test lab and deal with alot of them.

I was just looking at the EPA site, including the standard and I can't find the test fuel defition. Can anyone point it out?

Gotta hit the sack but search for EPA Method 28. They use a test load of moisture controlled Douglas Fir. People keep talking about it being a standard load of 15 pounds for each stove but the method calls for the load size to be based on the firebox size.

 

[pyro68]

wood stoves have something in common with churches, you don't size the church for Easter sunday. . . .

 

[Redox]

Funny this should come up. Yes, I was checking out the 5700 last week when I was in the stove shop and contemplating an upgrade. I have also been thinking about putting an insert in the LR fireplace that we never use. The house is about 2400 sf fairly well insulated and it rarely gets into the single digits here. I have stopped obsessing with heating the entire house and let the furnace run some in really cold weather. It's doing pretty much what I want it to do: heat the miserably cold family room to 80 degrees and cut down on BGE's drain on my checking account.

Wonder what I could get for a 3 yo 4300? ;-)

Chris

 

[begreen]

We've had pint-sized, mid-sized and pellet stoves in this leaky old farmhouse with too many windows. At first this was just learning the house and making do with what came with it. After the remodel I got a bit more serious about finding a permanent solution. But of all the stoves we've had in the house, the 3 cu ft T6 big dog is the best. With an open floor plan, fall and spring burning have not been an issue. True, we have daily fires at that time and no overnighters, but the stove has worked out well. But, when winter comes knocking on your door with a sledgehammer, there is no substitute for a decent sized stove. This is the first year for us where keeping the house warm during 20 degree temps has not been a marathon. We're going through a lot of stove chow, but at least we're not feeding the stove every 2 hours. So when the mfg says "heats 1200 to 2000 sq ft", take the lower number into account unless you have a really tight, well insulated home.

 

[Sealcove]

With a smaller stove, when its maxed out and 20 below out with windchill factor, you ain't getting no more heat.

Just a quick semi related note; windchill values have zero bearing on heating. Wind in general will certainly impact heating a building, but wind chill values are a pretty arbitrary numbers that are really only relevant to exposed flesh and even then it is a misleading value. The thermal engineers can correct me if I misstate this, but no amount of wind will lower the temperature of anything below the actual temperature on the mercury. Wind will certainly accelerate the rate of heat transfer, and in humans that can be perceived as feeling like a lower temperature, but even in a 100 knot breeze exposed objects will still only cool to the actual air temperature. In other words an exposed window with 10 degree outside air against it will never be colder on the outside than 10 degrees no matter how strong the wind.

I ended up putting a Jotul Firelight in our 2200+- home. Jotul claims that the stove will heat 2500, and while we have not had any real cold yet (meaning sub zero), it feels like the stove will perform adequately. I should add that we have a very open floor plan, and that the stove is in central sunken area with a loft above with doors to all bedrooms facing it. It would certainly heat very differently if it were in a side room relying on fans to distribute heat everywhere.

 

[cmonSTART]

Nights like this I wish our 30 was BIGGER!! Drafty old house.

 

[Highbeam]

The latest trend to WOW the audiences is for the weathermen to post the windchill temperatures. Freaking lame. They only do it to get people excited. They really dwell on it as though this is the new system. It's like they want to go to celsius or something.

On topic: I have a smallish 2.3 CF stove that heats a home that is within the stove's ratings. It works because my climate is not extreme. True, we've had some low teens and wind over the last couple of weeks and I've had to run it hard but the stove would be undersized if my climate was harsher. The big benefit of the larger stoves is burntime. When running my stove hard I need to reload every few hours. That's just inconvenient.

 

[Hogwildz]

With a smaller stove, when its maxed out and 20 below out with windchill factor, you ain't getting no more heat.

Just a quick semi related note; windchill values have zero bearing on heating. Wind in general will certainly impact heating a building, but wind chill values are a pretty arbitrary numbers that are really only relevant to exposed flesh and even then it is a misleading value. Kind of contradictory statement is it not?
The thermal engineers can correct me if I misstate this, but no amount of wind will lower the temperature of anything below the actual temperature on the mercury. Wind will certainly accelerate the rate of heat transfer, and in humans that can be perceived as feeling like a lower temperature, but even in a 100 knot breeze exposed objects will still only cool to the actual air temperature. In other words an exposed window with 10 degree outside air against it will never be colder on the outside than 10 degrees no matter how strong the wind. True to a point, but a house in 20 degree night with no wind, vs. a home with 20mile an hour winds at 20 degrees is going to lose heat due to faster transfer. On top of that a house tha is not perfectly air tight will certainly lose more heat to draft due to wind & pressure more than calm.
I do not have a engineering degree, nor claim to know very much. But actual experience sitting in my home on a windy night vs. a calm night at same temps, my insert works harder and house cools easier & faster when windy vs. calm. Really not trying to come across argumentative (this time ) just speaking from that which I experience here at home. For argument sake, I'll edit my initial remark.... Better to have a large stove that can burn smaller fires during warmer days/night yet have the capacity to load more with longer burn time and more heat when its 20 degrees or colder out, than having a stove that is maxed out with no additional room for any more heat output at the same temps. Bottom line, one must research and figure out what is best size for their situation. Also fuel wood must be taken into account. If someone in the west does not have the ability to obtain say oak or other hard woods, they will be reloading even more often with a smaller stove. Many factors to consider, and in the end, hopefully one feels they have made the right choice. Just really sucks to read someone is getting an unusually colder cold spell and stove is maxed out and struggling or not keeping up. If that person did their research and made a choice that was due to misleading manufacturer numbers, then he did the best he can, and will still have to bite the bullet if needing to trade for a larger stove. If the person just went out and bought a stove without researching and becoming informed as to the factors to make a decision on which type of stove, size, heating capacity, then shame on him.
Either way, if the stove is too small in the more extreme colder days & nights, and he feels he needs larger, he/she will have to bite the bullet either way if having to take a loss at diminished value at time of trade in and then go through yet another install and relearning of the new stove.


I ended up putting a Jotul Firelight in our 2200+- home. Jotul claims that the stove will heat 2500, and while we have not had any real cold yet (meaning sub zero), it feels like the stove will perform adequately. I should add that we have a very open floor plan, and that the stove is in central sunken area with a loft above with doors to all bedrooms facing it. It would certainly heat very differently if it were in a side room relying on fans to distribute heat everywhere.

 

[Sealcove]

True to a point, but a house in 20 degree night with no wind, vs. a home with 20mile an hour winds at 20 degrees is going to lose heat due to faster transfer. On top of that a house tha is not perfectly air tight will certainly lose more heat to draft due to wind & pressure more than calm.

I stated that wind certainly impacts heat transfer in buildings. The point is that wind chill values are tied to human perception of temperature related to the cooling of exposed flesh. Here are some of the criteria used to create the wind chill scale:

* Calculates wind speed at an average height of five feet (typical height of an adult human face) based on readings from the national standard height of 33 feet (typical height of an anemometer)
* Is based on a human face model
* Incorporates modern heat transfer theory (heat loss from the body to its surroundings, during cold and breezy/windy days)
* Uses a consistent standard for skin tissue resistance
* Assumes no impact from the sun (i.e., clear night sky).

I was also not trying to be argumentative. I just wanted to point out to those who might not understand it that wind chill does not mean colder than mercury temperatures. I have met people that were concerned about frostbite when the mercury read 40F, but the windchill values were below freezing. Try as I might some folks would not believe that it is simply impossible to freeze your skin when the temperature is above freezing.

 

[mobetter]

Very good information here, we live in N. Indiana and do experience many weeks of single digit and below zero at times.

I would like to do one install, getting it right the first time. I am leaning towards a zero clearance EPA fireplace, but a stove

is not out of the question. The Wife would be easier sold on a fireplace, but she does like the looks of the soapstone units.

I also checked out the P.E. T6 and like them as well. We got socked by a pretty bad ice storm this morning and although

we still have power it is helping my case for wood heat. When the final decision is made we will go with at least a 3 cf firebox.

 

[chad3]

Highbeam,
What is the inconvenience of 4 am and either the stove is just about out or you have some burn time left? I'd rather have some heat still in the stove. I picked mine one more than the recommended and can't say I'm unhappy with the decision. Rather have a bit more and not need than need and not have. Both for the heat and the cost of oil.

 

[Hogwildz]

Highbeam,
What is the inconvenience of 4 am and either the stove is just about out or you have some burn time left? I'd rather have some heat still in the stove. I picked mine one more than the recommended and can't say I'm unhappy with the decision. Rather have a bit more and not need than need and not have. Both for the heat and the cost of oil.

I think what he is saying, is hes happy with his choice, and he has to run it hard during the less extreme cold times he sees, but is still happy. And the only inconvenience he sees is the 4am loading once in a while, but its not a deal breaker for him I think.
Of course I could have read it wrong.