Which Freestanding stove to buy?

[bhd21478]

IM a jotul guy. I have the kennebec fireplace insert and we have enjoyed it for several years. My wife and I are getting ready to list our house so we can sell and build from scratch. I have a short list of stoves that I wanted to place in a fully finished basement home in Southwest Missouri. I like the jotul rangely the hearthstone manchester, and the harmon stove 2.6. I could get the best deal on harmon since we have a big stove dealer that sells tons of harmon stuff. I have priced the the 2.6 at 2200. The jotul was priced at 2750. I have not had the hearthstone manchester priced but was thinking close to 3000.

The next question is after deciding on the stove what is the suggestion on routing the class a pipe. We will not have any masonry to work with. If I did a straight shot im not sure at this point where the class A would protrude through on the main floor. The other other option would be go up several ft above the stove with standard stove pipe and class A through the wall and up the back of the house. We are just getting things talked over on our designs so wanted some info. thanks

 

[kennyp2339]

Nice stove list, (top end stuff) as far as the chimney the best is a straight up run, but if you don't have the room then you will have to end up running it outside. If you decide to install it outside try to build a chase, the chase will help keep the pipe a little warmer (which inhibits creosote growth). Good luck, also remember if you do end up running the chimney from the outside try to make sure you use double wall pipe and 45deg bends on the inside from the stove flue collar to the thru the wall adapter.

 

[bholler]

I would skip the harman for sure if it was me. They are much harder to burn correctly much more temperamental and the parts are much more expensive

 

[Grisu]

A straight chimney will usually be best but if it is tall enough you could also add some elbows and get a similar performance. I would estimate how tall the chimney would be from the basement to 3 ft up from the roof and then see whether it may work.

Your new location does not sound as it will be that cold. Have you considered a catalytic stove like one of the BlazeKing 30 series? Those you can load full even when it is not that cold for extended burn times. Such an approach can easily lead to smoldering with a non-catalytic stove.

Are you especially interested in a top-loading stove? Be aware that the Rangeley and Manchester use burn tubes in the top like your Jotul insert while the Harman is a downdraft design. That is usually a bit more difficult to operate, can be prone to costly repairs, and is better suited for 24/7 burning.

How open will the basement be to the upper floors? Although warm air usually rises it is not a given that you get it out of the basement. If the cold air on the upper floors has nowhere to go you may have a warm basement and a cold upstairs. For a new and probably rather airtight construction I would look into adding an outside air kit to the stove. That will help with draft.

Btw. Have you thought about adding an efficient ZC fireplace to your new home? Those work like a modern stove but you can add ducts to deliver heat to other parts of the home. A nice fireplace may also increase the home's value plus some home insurances have a problem with wood stoves but I am not aware of similar difficulties with fireplaces. Still, you will probably need to install a conventional heat source as "primary" heat.

 

[begreen]

If building new I wouldn't tack a chimney onto the outside of the house. You have a blank slate so work the stove in centrally and chase the chimney up alongside of a partition.

The basement walls will need to be insulated. If new construction you might want to insulate the exterior of the walls.

Another thing to think about is how is the heat going to get upstairs? The stove is an area heater. For the heat to convect naturally upstairs there will need to be a decent convection loop established. Often this mean adding a return or two along the outside perimeter walls if there is a large open stairway from the basement to act as the supply. Those return openings need to be fairly large. Code will likely require them to have fusible-link fire dampers.