Small hot fire in a big stove not a problem?

[Kiffster]

I'm deciding on a stove for my ranch house basement in Maine which will be used to heat the basement during very cold weather so I can do a little work down there, but the main purpose of the stove is for serious home heat back-up when for any reason I can't run my oil furnace. I was told that I'll have smokey fires and creosote buildup if I use a bigger model stove to heat just the basement area. But I think this assumes that I'd be loading it up full of wood and then starving a big fire to moderate the output. I don't see there would be a problem if I occasionally built small HOT fires in the larger box. Am I missing something here? Thanks for any help.

 

[begreen]

With a decent stove and dry wood you should be able to burn fires with 4-5 medium-sized splits without a problem. If you want more heat, reload in 4 hrs or so. If you want longer burns or more heat, add more wood. Regardless, dry wood is the key to good hot shorter fires.

 

[firefighterjake]

I burn smaller hot fires in a somewhat large woodstove all the time when I don't want quite so much heat . . . specifically in the Fall and Spring when I need to take the chill out of the home and I know the temps are going to go up.

If you're thinking you will be in the basement and want to build a small, hot fire . . . no issues . . . as long as the wood is properly seasoned and you're burning at the right temp (not too hot, not too cold) you shouldn't have an excessive build up of creosote.

 

[Kiffster]

Thanks very much, begreen and Jake! The stove store sales person seemed to think the way we would produce moderate heat in a large stove was by choking a large fire, so he advised a smaller stove which defeated our main purpose of having emergency house-heat capability. I'm now back to looking at the larger stoves again.

 

[begreen]

We burn smaller hot fires frequently with our milder weather.