This is Part 2 of my “Mega-Query—Which Woodstove to Get?” series of questions on this wonderful forum. I am still covering the “background” material,” but I’m hoping you find it somewhat entertaining, if nothing else.
My Experience Level, and I Only Want a Steel Stove
Two years ago, as I said earlier, I read the entire 2,000+ Q & A on this site, and printed off about a 100 pages, for future reference. The information on this site is outstanding!
I am not new to wood heat—our family had a midsized, antique “round oak” style stove in our house for years, to supplement the gas heat (forced hot air, kind of like my conversations, if you believe my girlfriend).
For Fun, A Little About Our Cottage
(This following is NOT about the house the new stove is going into—I just included this to let you know that I can successfully operate a fairly difficult woodstove, and that, consequently, I know what I don’t want--LoL. Please feel free to skip this section if you actually have a life….)
I have small, uninsulated cottage on an island near Canada that only has a small, stamped steel, “mail-order wood stove”, and no basement—or slab (it was originally plunked down on small blocks of granite, in the 1920’s.) This “box of death” stove is a bolt-together affair, (no name) stuck into the granite fireplace. In other words, some might call it a real P.O.S but, to be fair, it was never designed as a primary heat source. Of course it’s not the safest stove, but I have used it for the past 20 years because it’s the only stove I’ve found that can fit under the low opening in that fireplace…and because it was there without me having to pay for it. Never underestimate inertia!
This modest stove is approximately 1’ wide, 1’ tall and 2’ long—I’ve seen bigger mailboxes! Yet in ’02-’03, I wintered over, with only 3 small, 30-year-old electric heaters to supplement. It was 17 below 0 (F) at night for a month straight, and one morning, I woke up to 38 degree F. temps—in my bedroom…. The fridge in the “sunroom” stopped running, and actually began insulating my food from freezing, but eventually, I had to put each egg in a glass of hot water to thaw it out before cooking.
“Uninsulated” is a woefully inadequate descriptor of this cottage--the morning sun shines through the gaps in the clapboard siding, as the interior is just studs. Doors and windows are trapezoidal, due to massive settling over the cottage’s 80+ years—I’m putting a steel beam and pad “foundation” under it, bit by bit, before it’s too late (although opinions vary on whether “too late” is really a point in the future….) The draft on this “box of death” stove is not great, and the stove’s small size requires frequent filling, and almost-constant tending. It’s definitely well past time for a new stove in the cottage—I could tell because the lower sides of the stove have sort of sagged outward slightly, in places—I admit to (unintentionally) having seen the sides of the stove glowing red, in small areas…. I know…I know…but it’s probably only an 1/8” sheet steel stove! Happily, the stove sits half in the fireplace itself.
Just so I don’t confuse anyone—the above, crappy stove is in the cottage, and NOT where the new wood stove is going, which is in our downstate home. As I said, I just mentioned it to prove that I’ve had to deal with troublesome, potentially dangerous, wood stoves. Having survived that stove for 20 years, I can probably operate a new stove reasonably responsibly.
I’m Only Interested in Steel Stoves….
No offense to cast iron stove owners/companies/retailers, etc…, but I simply do not want a stove that is put together with refractory cement. I weld, and appreciate the integrity of welded construction. And I’m lazy. My distrust of bolt-together and cemented stoves is probably based in an OCD-neurosis, but…it is what it is. I don’t want to be worrying about air leaks I can’t see, and trying to decide when to re-cement the stove.
Having said that, I must confess that the best-running, most impressive stove I’ve been able to spend time around is my good friend Harry’s Hearthstone Mansfield, up near Canada. (Although, to be fair, I've not been around a lot of post-1990/EPA stoves, period. But the Mansfield is a--yes, I know—a cast iron (and soapstone) stove! My goal is to find a steel stove that runs as effortlessly as that stove, and heats as well. My friend Harry puts in 2-3 rounds at night (N-S loading) and gets overnight burns routinely, and has gotten 14 hour-burns which allowed relighting on coals alone. (Btw, my poor, little cottage stove probably consumes far more wood than the Mansfield, as it is non-airtight, gasketless and bolted together from stamped steel—literally, it came in a cardboard box that was about 4” thick, back in the 1970’s….
The Hearthstone Mansfield is a beautiful, wonderful, powerful stove. My friend did have the soapstone crack, but it did not result in a leak, due to a metal plate being behind the stone, on the stove’s front. (I’ve urged him to replace the stone…and given up.)
I have a small splitter, and some wood split, with a ton or two bucked, waiting to be split, having dried for two years or more in bucked form. I have a deal with a local arborist—all I have to do is pick up the phone, and a dump truck full of 7’ long, (green) hardwood logs, ranging from 18” to 36” in diameter, will appear with days, for free. The county we live in has a lot of rich, environmentally-UNconscious people, who would never dream of burning wood, (90+% of my neighbors don’t even mow their own lawns! ) so the local arborists must pay $200. to dump a single truck of logs at the county recycling center. More wood for me! LoL
See you in the next section, which is “The House Details"—finally, he gets to the nitty-gritty, huh?
Thanks again,
Peter
>
My Experience Level, and I Only Want a Steel Stove
Two years ago, as I said earlier, I read the entire 2,000+ Q & A on this site, and printed off about a 100 pages, for future reference. The information on this site is outstanding!
I am not new to wood heat—our family had a midsized, antique “round oak” style stove in our house for years, to supplement the gas heat (forced hot air, kind of like my conversations, if you believe my girlfriend).
For Fun, A Little About Our Cottage
(This following is NOT about the house the new stove is going into—I just included this to let you know that I can successfully operate a fairly difficult woodstove, and that, consequently, I know what I don’t want--LoL. Please feel free to skip this section if you actually have a life….)
I have small, uninsulated cottage on an island near Canada that only has a small, stamped steel, “mail-order wood stove”, and no basement—or slab (it was originally plunked down on small blocks of granite, in the 1920’s.) This “box of death” stove is a bolt-together affair, (no name) stuck into the granite fireplace. In other words, some might call it a real P.O.S but, to be fair, it was never designed as a primary heat source. Of course it’s not the safest stove, but I have used it for the past 20 years because it’s the only stove I’ve found that can fit under the low opening in that fireplace…and because it was there without me having to pay for it. Never underestimate inertia!
This modest stove is approximately 1’ wide, 1’ tall and 2’ long—I’ve seen bigger mailboxes! Yet in ’02-’03, I wintered over, with only 3 small, 30-year-old electric heaters to supplement. It was 17 below 0 (F) at night for a month straight, and one morning, I woke up to 38 degree F. temps—in my bedroom…. The fridge in the “sunroom” stopped running, and actually began insulating my food from freezing, but eventually, I had to put each egg in a glass of hot water to thaw it out before cooking.
“Uninsulated” is a woefully inadequate descriptor of this cottage--the morning sun shines through the gaps in the clapboard siding, as the interior is just studs. Doors and windows are trapezoidal, due to massive settling over the cottage’s 80+ years—I’m putting a steel beam and pad “foundation” under it, bit by bit, before it’s too late (although opinions vary on whether “too late” is really a point in the future….) The draft on this “box of death” stove is not great, and the stove’s small size requires frequent filling, and almost-constant tending. It’s definitely well past time for a new stove in the cottage—I could tell because the lower sides of the stove have sort of sagged outward slightly, in places—I admit to (unintentionally) having seen the sides of the stove glowing red, in small areas…. I know…I know…but it’s probably only an 1/8” sheet steel stove! Happily, the stove sits half in the fireplace itself.
Just so I don’t confuse anyone—the above, crappy stove is in the cottage, and NOT where the new wood stove is going, which is in our downstate home. As I said, I just mentioned it to prove that I’ve had to deal with troublesome, potentially dangerous, wood stoves. Having survived that stove for 20 years, I can probably operate a new stove reasonably responsibly.
I’m Only Interested in Steel Stoves….
No offense to cast iron stove owners/companies/retailers, etc…, but I simply do not want a stove that is put together with refractory cement. I weld, and appreciate the integrity of welded construction. And I’m lazy. My distrust of bolt-together and cemented stoves is probably based in an OCD-neurosis, but…it is what it is. I don’t want to be worrying about air leaks I can’t see, and trying to decide when to re-cement the stove.
Having said that, I must confess that the best-running, most impressive stove I’ve been able to spend time around is my good friend Harry’s Hearthstone Mansfield, up near Canada. (Although, to be fair, I've not been around a lot of post-1990/EPA stoves, period. But the Mansfield is a--yes, I know—a cast iron (and soapstone) stove! My goal is to find a steel stove that runs as effortlessly as that stove, and heats as well. My friend Harry puts in 2-3 rounds at night (N-S loading) and gets overnight burns routinely, and has gotten 14 hour-burns which allowed relighting on coals alone. (Btw, my poor, little cottage stove probably consumes far more wood than the Mansfield, as it is non-airtight, gasketless and bolted together from stamped steel—literally, it came in a cardboard box that was about 4” thick, back in the 1970’s….
The Hearthstone Mansfield is a beautiful, wonderful, powerful stove. My friend did have the soapstone crack, but it did not result in a leak, due to a metal plate being behind the stone, on the stove’s front. (I’ve urged him to replace the stone…and given up.)
I have a small splitter, and some wood split, with a ton or two bucked, waiting to be split, having dried for two years or more in bucked form. I have a deal with a local arborist—all I have to do is pick up the phone, and a dump truck full of 7’ long, (green) hardwood logs, ranging from 18” to 36” in diameter, will appear with days, for free. The county we live in has a lot of rich, environmentally-UNconscious people, who would never dream of burning wood, (90+% of my neighbors don’t even mow their own lawns! ) so the local arborists must pay $200. to dump a single truck of logs at the county recycling center. More wood for me! LoL
See you in the next section, which is “The House Details"—finally, he gets to the nitty-gritty, huh?
Thanks again,
Peter
>
Yeppers , Get a Summit and get it over with.
