Hello everyone. I'm trying to pick out a stove to install in our townhouse, and I need some help figuring things out.
First question: how big?
Our house is a 1600 square foot townhouse. We have two other heated units on either side of ours, our biggest walls aren't exposed to the cold. The rest of the house is well insulated. We're in Raleigh NC, where our winters are pretty mild. A "cold" winter day has lows of about 30F, highs about 45F.
The store salesman we talked to seemed to rely exclusively on the "heats up to X square feet" specs in the glossy manuals. I don't think that's wise, as I suspect those square footages assume homes completely different from ours (standalone structure, average insulation, cold climates, etc).
Second question: can we reasonably expect the stove to heat the entire house?
The stove would go in the main room of our lower level (open living room, dining room, kitchen - about 1000sf). We're worried that anything powerful enough to heat the upstairs bedrooms will leave the downstairs too hot, and anything comfortable in the downstairs will have the beds and baths upstairs too cold.
I'd like the stove to be our primary heat source. We have central heat, and our utilities are pretty cheap, so we don't strictly need the stove to be the main heat source. But I have access to free wood, and I just plain like having a fire going.
I appreciate any help y'all can provide. Thanks!
First question: how big?
Our house is a 1600 square foot townhouse. We have two other heated units on either side of ours, our biggest walls aren't exposed to the cold. The rest of the house is well insulated. We're in Raleigh NC, where our winters are pretty mild. A "cold" winter day has lows of about 30F, highs about 45F.
The store salesman we talked to seemed to rely exclusively on the "heats up to X square feet" specs in the glossy manuals. I don't think that's wise, as I suspect those square footages assume homes completely different from ours (standalone structure, average insulation, cold climates, etc).
Second question: can we reasonably expect the stove to heat the entire house?
The stove would go in the main room of our lower level (open living room, dining room, kitchen - about 1000sf). We're worried that anything powerful enough to heat the upstairs bedrooms will leave the downstairs too hot, and anything comfortable in the downstairs will have the beds and baths upstairs too cold.
I'd like the stove to be our primary heat source. We have central heat, and our utilities are pretty cheap, so we don't strictly need the stove to be the main heat source. But I have access to free wood, and I just plain like having a fire going.
I appreciate any help y'all can provide. Thanks!