New Stove Selection

These Bolaze Kings a Fireviews these are sheet metal stoves Not cast Iron or maybe Hybrib part cast part sheetmetal .. either way sheet metal worries me seems like ya gotta be wayyy more careful w/ sheet metal

First, the Firview is soapstone and cast iron.

Second, the steel stoves can take a lot more abuse and be burned at higher temps than cast iron or soapstone. It doesn't make them better or worse, but you do not have to be more careful with steel stoves than a cast iron stove or soapstone stove. Your worries that you need to be more careful with a steel stove are unfounded.

looked to me like the plate steel things seem to be designed with more moving parts and therefore more likely to give trouble (Doh)i know like comparing a horse to a car maybe .. it just seems alot of this stuff is designed and mfd with SERVICE in mind Take an old or newer Jotul and they designed w no service In mind Cleaning Yes but there Aint much to Service ..

Your Englander intrests me looking at the two now Legged n pedestal

Vc states Whole house Heating Should / best done W a Catalyst unit . never knew that ..

Steel stoves have no more moving parts than a cast iron stove or soapstone stove.

That's because VC sells catalytic stoves.

I run both, cat and non-cat stoves. Both can heat your entire house. Cat stoves offer the benefit of longer burn times and more controllable heat, for the most part.

I've been running a 2550 for many years and although I love the looks of the stove and the top loading feature, I'm about ready to start considering something else. They talk about how "cast iron" last, let me tell you that the heat really works on the screws and replacing them after years of burning can be a "pita". There is a whole bunch of maintence on this thing, door gaskets, window gasket, ash bin gasket, griddle gaskets, damper gaskets, etc. and every time I have to remove the "fireback throat hood" and never can get it back in for hours of wrestling with it, makes want something a little easier to deal with for sure. She's be out of service for most of the winter and, this thing has about whipped my butt this year and still waiting on window #2.

this is kinda what i was guessing twas really like i see lotsa heavy hi pressure sals goin on im just takin my time .. maybe even find something used like scootering etc folks enter with all kinds of intentions and realize it aint for them..

I thought alot of the cat stoves were going the secondary burn chamber design to get away from yet another Repl item .. I imagine in some of these stoves the cat looks real proprietary meaning expensive. along comes gassifier technology Oy vey looks promising and maybe i can finally heat water without an OWB

some of the bosca stuff looks great handled by us stove made in chile anyone know them / nice rounded cabinets w features they say

I wonder if the newer VC's are as high maintenance as mine. I really liked the top loading feature but I could do without it for a stove of less maintenace. Another thing I wish I had was a convection model with the option of a fan.

what ya mean by convection ? i guess no ones heard of the chile maker bosca some nice lookin stuff too..