The surface temp of the stove is 550 degrees and I am not getting much heat of it. I am trying to heat close to 3000sqft and I have read on here were people are heating 3000sqft with this same stove. Is there any way to get it to heat without a blower? A blower defeats the purpose of buying a wood stove because if the electricity is off (ours goes out a fair amount of the time) there will be no heat.
Very little heat from Quadrafire 5700 Steptop
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I had a 5700 installed last November and run around a 500º surface temp as well. I do have a blower and glad I do, as when the blower is off, the heat is not nearly as noticeable. I hear that you don't have a dependable electric supply, but would recommend a blower anyway. It is a huge difference. Unless you run your stove at 500º non-stop, I would guess you will never fill the space with heat. Additionally, there are dozens of other things to consider, tightness of home, ceiling height, proper flue lining w/insulation, quality of wood supply etc...
Get a blower, you won't regret it!
Get a blower, you won't regret it!
You can't feel heat coming off a 550 degree stove?
Woodstoves are radiant space heaters. They are just big versions of what you would plug into the wall. Since they are space heaters, the room they are in will warm first, then the heat will slowly flow to other parts of the house. The rooms closest will be warmer than the rooms farthest. How long have you been running the stove? Can you describe your floorplan?
Now a blower can speed things up a bit since it turns part of the stoves heat into convective heat. They use very little electricity and would probably be worth the investment if you are heating 3000 square feet. If you loose power the stove will probably slow down the heat loss rather than stop it all together. 3000 sq feet is a big house for one stove to cover without an open floor plan. How large is your furnace?
Matt
Woodstoves are radiant space heaters. They are just big versions of what you would plug into the wall. Since they are space heaters, the room they are in will warm first, then the heat will slowly flow to other parts of the house. The rooms closest will be warmer than the rooms farthest. How long have you been running the stove? Can you describe your floorplan?
Now a blower can speed things up a bit since it turns part of the stoves heat into convective heat. They use very little electricity and would probably be worth the investment if you are heating 3000 square feet. If you loose power the stove will probably slow down the heat loss rather than stop it all together. 3000 sq feet is a big house for one stove to cover without an open floor plan. How large is your furnace?
Matt
We have been keeping the thing pretty much at 500-550 degrees. The only place you can feel heat coming off of the stove is is the top and the front. You can touch the side and back of the stove. I do not have a furnace. I heated the whole house before with with a earth stove for 20-25 years. It would get the house 77-78 degrees at times, which was way too hot. The best the quadrafire house has done is 67 degrees, I'd be happy with 70 degrees. The stove is in the basement which is unfinished and I have been running the stove for 2 days now. I just sat fan similar to this http://www.summitracing.com/parts/WMR-W50061/ where the blower bolts on and I finally feel heat coming off of it.
jtp can confirm this, but I suspect the stove may be a jacketed convection stove, similar to the PE stoves. If so, that's why the sides are so much cooler. A blower can assist convection greatly when needed. Also, the new stove is going to be more fussy about dry wood burning than the old Earth Stove. Dry wood will give off more heat.
Regardless of stove, insulate the basement walls and you will have a whole lot more warmth. Right now at least 25% is going right out the of the basement walls.
Regardless of stove, insulate the basement walls and you will have a whole lot more warmth. Right now at least 25% is going right out the of the basement walls.
No stove without a blower is going to effectively heat 3000 SF. That stove is designed to use a blower. It's a monster of a stove. Are you FILLING the firebox full of wood? I use a similar sized stove with less efficiency. I pack that sucker full and even on a low over night burn the surface temp is 600 degrees. Heats twice as good when the blower is on. When I lose powe, I just understand the stove wont be heating everything.
94BULLITT We only use the blower when it really really cold and there's a very noticeable difference in heat output. All other times the stove is running there are floor fans out of area blowing the colder air toward the stove. Sure you have to bunker down when the powers off but with all the wood your saving there's no reason to be cold unnecessarily. I recommend the blower with the rheostat that way you're not locked into the low, med, high of the vast unwashed. Enjoy the beast.
I don't understand how you can not be getting any heat out of a huge stove like that at 550 degrees?
Have you tried 600 or 650?
What does your floorplan look like?
I'd have a blower anyway. Mine draws 50W.
+1 on insulating the basement walls - they are a massive heat suck
Have you tried 600 or 650?
What does your floorplan look like?
I'd have a blower anyway. Mine draws 50W.
+1 on insulating the basement walls - they are a massive heat suck
94BULLITT said:
Bingo! You have discovered the major flaw in the overly hyped new stoves. Two thirds of the heating surfaces have been insulated to hopefully cause a hotter fire in the box, but at what a waste of home heat. I had two expensive EPA stoves and would never consider another. You could run them half the day and still wonder when the house was going to get warm, with the one it never did, the other you had to baby to death but eventually would heat. The trade offs were having to split wood to tiny sizes and constant struggle with unburnt coals in the firebox. Short burn time as well. Good luck, but I don't think your going to get any results that are better. Its in the design.
Not universally true and no heat is wasted. There are EPA stoves without side shielding. My first thought for this basement was a 30NC - side shielding is optional on that stove.
I am talking not about baffles externally but insulation of the side walls and top. When you can hold your hand a foot from the stove an hardly feel any heat you have to be kidding if you think your not wasting heat that otherwise would be coming from the stove, like where do you think it goes?
larryhollenb said:
I am right down the road from him. Had the same temps, same winds and same clouds as he did today. My overly hyped EPA three cubic foot stove by another vendor but pretty much just like his has kept this 2,500 sq. ft. place at 76 degrees all day. And it is stuck halfway into a masonry fireplace on one end of the house. Big difference is I don't try to heat the place from an unfinished basement.
I have been having to hold the thing back all day or we would be in the 80s in here.
Short burn time? One load did the job from eight this morning till four thirty this afternoon when it got down below 350 degrees and I threw a couple of splits in.
It's been 35 years since I had a non-epa stove and I have only been operating my 5700 for a few months and am certainly far, far from an expert but I am able to heat 1500 feet of lower level to 72º and 1000 feet of an upper level (open floor plan, cathedral ceiling) to 78º with a half full, half open box with outside temps in the mid-teens. I am running a space heater in the master and parts of the other 2,000 sw ft of main level are a bit cool in the out reaches, but the 5700 and a small space heater does keep all three furnaces from kicking on. That's all happening without a single ceiling or box fan and the stove is usually running half closed. The kitchen does have an Aga stove, which is hot 24/7, which helps out a bit. With my old non-epa stove the room would be 85º or more, which is too damn hot!
Regarding burn times, I fill it half full (4 spilts) at midnight or so and have plenty of hot coals in the AM. I have no problem burning big chunks of oak, ash, cherry and hickory. I only clean out the ashes maybe once every 4-5 days, with NO unburned charcoal left over.
No doubt having yours in an unfinished basement is a tall, tall order! But I would argue that the 5700 is not an "over-hyped" poor functioning unit!
Regarding burn times, I fill it half full (4 spilts) at midnight or so and have plenty of hot coals in the AM. I have no problem burning big chunks of oak, ash, cherry and hickory. I only clean out the ashes maybe once every 4-5 days, with NO unburned charcoal left over.
No doubt having yours in an unfinished basement is a tall, tall order! But I would argue that the 5700 is not an "over-hyped" poor functioning unit!
With a low clearance stove that contains side shields, the shields have / are stopping your radiant heat. Radiant heat is what you are feeling when you are warm in the sun but cold in the shade. Your shields are working like a big shade tree. What you need to do is run a blower to make use of the convective heat that can be moved from in between the shield and stove.
What I don't understand is why the manufacturer doesn't mount fins inside the shield and the stove just like a baseboard radiator except they would be fixed to the outer wall of the stove and inner wall of the shield. Then, the convection (I would figure) would be improved naturally.
pen
What I don't understand is why the manufacturer doesn't mount fins inside the shield and the stove just like a baseboard radiator except they would be fixed to the outer wall of the stove and inner wall of the shield. Then, the convection (I would figure) would be improved naturally.
pen
pen said:
I have the side shields on the 30-NC in the fireplace. The convection air coming up out of them will blow out a Bic lighter when the stove is cranking. That air gets turned forward out into the room by the blower when it is running. When it isn't running my angled block-off plate rolls it out into the room.
larryhollenb said:
That's a reasonable question. First, put some thermometers on the stove and flue. You'll note that the epa stove is hot on top and cooler at the flue. The stove is burning much more cleanly and putting out the same amount of heat with less wood consumed. The insulation in the firebox allows the fire to get hotter which translates to better combustion efficiency and if the stove is well designed, good heat transfer. But most of the heat will be transferred to the top of the stove. This is a preferred characteristic for many people because it allows them to place the stove closer to walls and intrude less into the room.
But not all epa stoves are made this way. If you want a radiator, buy a stove that is primarily a radiant stove. You can often tell this by the clearance specs for the stove. Large side clearances to combustibles usually indicates a more radiant stove.
Ok first of all, trying to heat a house from an unfinished / uninsulated basement is not the best idea. The stove is a space heater, it belongs in the space you want to heat the most.
Insulate your basement walls by building stud walls and insulate / drywall, or use foil faced foam on all the walls. The more R the better, the foil will help reflect heat back.
Also someone asked how much wood you are loading at once? Once you get a coal bed load that thing FULL. You will reload less and get a longer and better fire. I would let it coast at 600-650F top temp on the lower tier. Once it starts the slow down, bust whats left up into coals and load it full again. There will be a learning curve, watch your temps and you will get the hang of it.
I think we have confirmed this already, but yes all the Quad steel units are jacketed to reduce side and rear clearances. It probably would be a nice option to be able to remove them, but there are very few people who put the stoves in an open space free of combustibles. Most people want to tuck them as tight in a corner as possible, which is what the jacketed design caters to.
Insulate your basement walls by building stud walls and insulate / drywall, or use foil faced foam on all the walls. The more R the better, the foil will help reflect heat back.
Also someone asked how much wood you are loading at once? Once you get a coal bed load that thing FULL. You will reload less and get a longer and better fire. I would let it coast at 600-650F top temp on the lower tier. Once it starts the slow down, bust whats left up into coals and load it full again. There will be a learning curve, watch your temps and you will get the hang of it.
I think we have confirmed this already, but yes all the Quad steel units are jacketed to reduce side and rear clearances. It probably would be a nice option to be able to remove them, but there are very few people who put the stoves in an open space free of combustibles. Most people want to tuck them as tight in a corner as possible, which is what the jacketed design caters to.
Thanks for all of the reply's. I have been heating the house for over 25 years with the only a earth stove with no blower. Quadrafire did a nice job making a $2500 stove to sell you a $300 blower. I think it will do fine with a blower, it is doing good with the fan setting underneath of it.
There isn't any universal solution. Although the wood stove is an area heater, folks use them for all sorts of applications, including whole house heaters. Some are successful, due to good placement or matching of the stove to the need and others not.
Our stove is a convective heater. Recently I picked up the blower kit for it to see how it might change performance. Well, --- for our house --- it didn't make a big difference. Why? We have the stove on the first floor, open floorplan and apparently convective heating is doing very well. Yes, with the blower on, I can warm up the area slightly faster, but overall, it's not required unless temps are very low and I want to push the stove hard. But this is just one of the various types of installation circumstances the stove can be installed in. For others with this model stove, the fan is a big help and they run it all the time.
Our stove is a convective heater. Recently I picked up the blower kit for it to see how it might change performance. Well, --- for our house --- it didn't make a big difference. Why? We have the stove on the first floor, open floorplan and apparently convective heating is doing very well. Yes, with the blower on, I can warm up the area slightly faster, but overall, it's not required unless temps are very low and I want to push the stove hard. But this is just one of the various types of installation circumstances the stove can be installed in. For others with this model stove, the fan is a big help and they run it all the time.
Hmmm...I have a 5700 ST and the thing puts out some serious heat. 80 to 85 in the living room and 65 in the farthest bed room. Granted my home is not 3000 sqft but a 1500 ranch. I do have a blower and it works very well. I do not have to pack the stove tight with wood to get lots of heat. Usually 2 or 3 splits and the house is toasty. I initially wanted the stove in the basement but like yours it is uninsulated and I took the advise of members here and also the dealer to put the stove in the living room. You will have to cook the basement up to 90 or so to get the upstairs warm. On a side note my daughter was sitting in the kitchen last night and said she was cold. I looked at the thermostat and it was 72 degrees. Last winter we just burned oil and the thermostat was never set above 67. Gosh I love burning wood. now the family is spoiled with heat. You shouldn't have issues getting heat from that stove, i think it is just the location and learning how to run it. Put a blower on it also.
Steve
Steve
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