Wishing I would have sprung for a little more expensive stove

[BigBadJohn86]

I bought a summer's heat 50-sfp12lc 2 years ago on sale at lowes and a selkirk though the roof kit and 5 3' double wall sections.
I installed the chimney late last fall and moved the stove in this spring. I ended up ordering a 2 piece adjustable black wall pipe from an online general store. Much better and easier to use than the thin gauge junk lowes sells!
Finally got it all installed and running last sunday. Wishing it were a bigger stove now. I guess the stove was rated UP TO 1000 square feet, which is about what my house is, but its an old drafty farm house and with little insulation its PITA to heat. The stove seems to do okay but I cant keep a fire in there for more than a few hours at the most

A coworker suggested a wonderwood but my dining room, where the chimney is is only 14'x14' and the wonderwood apparently has the pipe come out the back. That will definitely take up too much room
Another coworker suggested a Lopi liberty. He bought a used one (the fire brick was still white) for $1200 last year and loves it. Thinking back I think the fireplace insert my dad put in when I was young, I thin thats a Lopi
It looks like a good stove, but is it worth the money? Looking on here they appear to be $2300-$2500 new. Is this right?
I may try and heat with my summers heat for now but I dont think Ill be able to supplement as much heat as I was hoping to. I may only put a dent in the amount of propane I buy each month

Any tips to get longer burns with my stove? I have seasoned wood and when I leave for work or go to bed I stock it with bigger pieces of wood and close the air control almost all the way
I may use the summers heat for now but will continue to look for deals on better stoves

 

[Dune]

its an old drafty farm house and with little insulation its PITA to heat.

I edited your post down to the central problem. Spend the money on insulation and weather stripping instead of a bigger stove. $2500 can put it a lot of insulation.

 

[Jeff S]

Dune is correct,the more heat you pour into a drafty building the faster it escapes.

 

[soupy1957]

Certainly a good level of insulation and stuff along those lines is important.

I just got done posting a new Thread about the apparent inadequacies of our wood stove, relative to our square footage, (not that I live in a mansion, mind you, but.........) and how we resorted to flipping the switch "on" for our furnace.

Both the wife and I have been sick and the temps last night got into (and are still) in the single digits.

We have a system that was professionally installed, and I believe logically located; we burn dry wood, we follow the rules, we build hot fires, etc., etc., but in the last 24 hours, we can't get the heat through the house to the level we want.

Sure, we got the basement below grade rooms to stay at about 58ºF, so it WASN'T a case of knowing that the pipes could freeze; AND we don't spend a LOT of time down in those rooms except for laundry or these computer sessions in the early morning. But still.

Do I wish we had bought a bigger stove? Not sure THAT'S the solution. The Avalon Rainier 90 is a fairly big stove, although I'm sure there are stoves that are larger. Our home went thru a re-model last winter, and has always been a fairly "tight" house, so insulation is not an issue for us.

-Soupy1957

 

[billb3]

1000 square feet, which is about what my house is, but its an old drafty farm house and with little insulation its PITA to heat. The stove seems to do okay but I cant keep a fire in there for more than a few hours at the most

+1

you're not heating your house, you're heating everyone and everything down wind of you.
put a blanket on the old farmhouse. She deserves it after all these years.

 

[firefighterjake]

Random thoughts . . .

Posts like this are just one reason I tend to recommend folks figure out their spacing needs, find stoves that would heat that space based on the manufacturer's specs . . . and then buy one stove larger. The real world with colder climates, homes with little to no insulation, etc. can be quite different from the world of the glossy brochures and slick internet sites that state that Stove X can heat that space perfectly fine.

Drafty farmhouse with little to no insulation . . . while the issue of not keeping the house nice and toasty may be due in part to a stove needing to be a bit larger . . . the main issue is insulation or lack thereof . . . if you're really thinking you have the money to lay out for a fancier, prettier stove instead spend that money -- or more likely just a small fraction of that money -- on sealing up the drafts in the house and insulation -- otherwise even with a larger, fancier stove you'll just be generating a lot of heat . . . and quickly losing it to the outside. Keep the heat . . . insulate.

More expensive and prettier stoves do not always translate into more heat . . . sure larger stoves usually are more expensive compared to smaller stoves in the line up and will provide more heat . . . but if you're looking at Brand X which is a basic steel stove and comparing it to Brand Y which is an enameled cast iron stove or a soapstone stove it doesn't mean that it will heat any better just because it's mroe expensive . . . if it's the same size. I would rather make sure I have a plain Jane stove sized correctly to my house than a very pretty, but under-sized stove in my house.

Longer burns . . . lots and lots of threads on this . . . just search. The Cliff Notes: Longer burns = Larger firebox, efficient management of the stove (i.e. using the right temps, utilizing the secondary burn and controlling the air properly), primo wood (larger splits or rounds, high BTU wood species) and loading 'er up for the night.

 

[hareball]

I can only imagine a good portion of my insulation rests at the bottom of the walls but over the last 4 years I've had the roof done, new windows, new soffits, new front and back door and over the summer the house caulked and painted inside and out and this burning season I've noticed the house is holding heat and I'm able to add reloads around 2 hours later than usual.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

No matter what you put in there, you might still feel a draft in some parts of the room unfortunately. Attack the draft. Many heating experts will tell you that insulation is the best money spent.

 

[muncybob]

No matter what you put in there, you might still feel a draft in some parts of the room unfortunately. Attack the draft. Many heating experts will tell you that insulation is the best money spent.

+++++1 We also had a drafty old farmhouse. I insulated everywhere that I could get access to. Difference was noticed immediatly! I now make it my end of summer job to inspect all outside seams at the doors, windows, etc. and reseal them if needed. New windows cut down on the draft BIG TIME. I was near a window yesterday during a fairly strong windy day that prior to new windows and sealing the curtains would have been moving...nice to see them only move now when the baseboards are putting out heat!

On a side note, I have always marveled at the insulating power of mashed potatos! I have a habit of forming a depresion in my taters and pouring gravy into it.....even at the end of the meal that gravy is still hot!

 

[Whitebread]

The majority of your insulation gains will come from two places.

1. Restricting air movement in/out of the house. Caulk around windows and doors. Install tight fitting weatherstripping and sweeps on all exterior doors. Pull your outlet covers and caulk/spray foam between the outlet box and plaster/drywall - if you have an old house I assure you you've got gaps. Install the foam light switch/outlet backers (goes behind cover plate). Pull light fixtures from ceilings and caulk around the boxes. Caulk/spray foam in all foundation cracks. Caulk, spray foam, or fiberglass batts on your sills (where house meets foundatin). $75 worth of caulk/weatherstripping/inslation and 1 Saturday's labor will go a LONG way, especially on an older house. I would guess, if it's anything like the old houses I've bought, air leaks will equate to at least one window wide open all the time. It's amazing what a difference this step can make in an older home.

2. Add insulation to the attic. A lot of people spend a ton blowing to have insulation blown into the walls. The best bang for the buck is upstairs. From personal experience with a 1901 Victorian 2 story - we had no insulation in the walls and R50 loose blown in the attic. Our heating bill was comperable to slightly better than the neighbors (similar houses and furnaces) that had paid for insulation to be blown in the walls but only had old R30 in the ceiling (code for this area is R30/R13 attic/walls).

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I bought a summer's heat 50-sfp12lc 2 years ago on sale at lowes and a selkirk though the roof kit and 5 3' double wall sections.
I installed the chimney late last fall and moved the stove in this spring. I ended up ordering a 2 piece adjustable black wall pipe from an online general store. Much better and easier to use than the thin gauge junk lowes sells!
Finally got it all installed and running last sunday. Wishing it were a bigger stove now. I guess the stove was rated UP TO 1000 square feet, which is about what my house is, but its an old drafty farm house and with little insulation its PITA to heat. The stove seems to do okay but I cant keep a fire in there for more than a few hours at the most

A coworker suggested a wonderwood but my dining room, where the chimney is is only 14'x14' and the wonderwood apparently has the pipe come out the back. That will definitely take up too much room
Another coworker suggested a Lopi liberty. He bought a used one (the fire brick was still white) for $1200 last year and loves it. Thinking back I think the fireplace insert my dad put in when I was young, I thin thats a Lopi
It looks like a good stove, but is it worth the money? Looking on here they appear to be $2300-$2500 new. Is this right?
I may try and heat with my summers heat for now but I dont think Ill be able to supplement as much heat as I was hoping to. I may only put a dent in the amount of propane I buy each month

Any tips to get longer burns with my stove? I have seasoned wood and when I leave for work or go to bed I stock it with bigger pieces of wood and close the air control almost all the way
I may use the summers heat for now but will continue to look for deals on better stoves

Can you explain that a little bit please? We find this comment a lot that people are burning or have seasoned wood. However, once we did into it we also usually (not always) find that the wood is not really seasoned or not as much as it could or should be.

Of course the other posters are correct with the insulation but at the same time, that is not 100% the answer. We too live in an old drafty place and have added some insulation and storms and such but we also bought a new stove and that made a tremendous difference. We used to burn an old Ashley stove and had that one for many years but once we put in the Woodstock Fireview, our heating woes ended. We get more heat from this stove using only half the amount of wood we used in the Ashley.

We were hoping to finish some remodeling this fall but pushed it back to next spring. When we get that done we should really be set up nicely as more insulation will be along with the remodeling.

 

[cptoneleg]

I was waiting on global warming that the white house kept saying was happening but gave up, and insulated my attic, Big difference, you also get a tax credit.

 

[CTburning]

My house is only 35 years old and stays a couple of degrees warmer just from air sealing. I used the utility companies program this summer with a $75 copay. Two guys came out and hooked up a blower to my front door. They the used cans of foam to air seal all the leaks from the inside of the house. They didn't go into the attic in which I'm sure they would have done quite a bit more. I worked along side them and they sealed a bunch of leaks and a couple of big ones coming down from the attic. My house is easier to heat and stays 2-3 degrees warmer. A stove is more fun to buy but with many things in life it is the items that you can't see that will provide the most benefit. I'm on my way to lowes to buy their spray in fiberglass insulation. Their is a rebate for a couple more days and I'm going to insulate to R49-R60 from R11. I'm going to spend around $1k to do it myself but also install soffit vents, etc. That 1k will save me more $ than the 2500 I spent on the stove.

 

[Phil_Marino]

Dune is correct,the more heat you pour into a drafty building the faster it escapes.

You're right, but that's true for any house. And, if you don't heat it at all, no heat will escape, but you might get a little cold.

Phil

 

[Danno77]

wow. If you can only put a dent in your propane on a 1,000sqft house with a stove rated at 1,000sqft, then you have major issues!

I have the same stove you do, I love it, but it is certainly the low end of the Englander line-up. If I was using it as my sole source of heat and ran it as hard as I could (safely, of course) then I'd be loading it every 4 hours or so. If I run it 450 or so, then maybe about 5-6hrs. If I pull it back to 300-350, then I can get 8 hours out of it. Those numbers rely on good wood.

So, in short, I agree that if you want to use it as your sole source of heat, then you are gonna be reloading often in order to get significant heat out of it, even if you are heating a nicely insulated 1,000sq ft area. But even then, I can't see it NOT helping tremendously with your gas bill.

How many BTUs is your gas furnace and does it heat you well?

 

[KB007]

I spent a thousand bucks going from R20 to R50 in the attic of our 1800 sqft bungalow and re-caulking all the windows 3 yrs ago. Wow what a difference it makes, the house just retains more heat. We're heating the 1800 sqft upstairs with the Regency I3100 and have yet to nee a fire in the basement - which stays arounf 55F so far this winter.

Spend the money on insulating / sealing the house first.

 

[laynes69]

We used a plain jane wood furnace for years here that would pump out the heat and run us out of the home. Last year I installed a new EPA certified woodfurnace that was going to make everything better. Long story short, it gave us longer burns, less wood but also didn't heat as well as the old furnace. I blamed it on the furnace, but decided to investigate on our home. Mid 1800's victorian, 2 stories with 10' ceilings, well insulated. I figured it wasn't the home since it heated with the old furnace. Well I air sealed the attic which had 32 open cavities, as well as the basement and exterior walls. Everything totaled more than a 6' diameter hole in our home. We recently had a blower door test done and we are still at .85 ACH which is high but we can heat much easier and we don't feel the drafts we used to. Airsealing was the best thing I did. So its not always the stove to blame, but the house its in.

 

[branchburner]

A lot of good points about insulation here, but getting to your other issue: is the stove performing as well as it can? As Dennis pointed out, you could have a $4k stove and get squat out of it if your wood is green. Fully dry is one year cut/split/stacked. Chances are it is not just the stove, or just your drafty house, but could be the wood and/or how your are setting the air. Fill us in with details about wood and your handling of the stove. Do you have a thermometer and can you get results similar to those posted by Danno77? If not, maybe he can give some pointers. It may not be tops, but maybe that stove could make more than a dent.

 

[begreen]

The 12NC is not an EPA stove and is not as efficient with it's wood consumption. The Liberty would be silly overkill in this size house. It is a big stove. Going up to the Englander 13NC would help, but the best solution is to stop heating outdoors and tighten up this place. Check with your power or gas co to find out what local and state energy programs are available to assist with this process. There are likely rebates and possibly even some strong incentive programs.

Here's a start:
http://bit.ly/e9HRC0
http://www.commerce.state.il.us/dceo/Bureaus/Energy+Assistance/Illinois+LIHEAP/

 

[Big Al]

The key to longer burns with this model is in the air control manipulation. The control is rather loose in it's housing. The adjuster can sit as much a 1/8" away from the front of the stove making for very in-precise air control. I believe it was designed this way so the stove could qualify as a 35 to 1 unit, meaning you could never choke it down enough to smoke beyond certain limits. Anyway, the trick is to make your adjustment then, using your fire poker, seat the controls against the front of the stove. This will give you precise control, so much so that if you slide it all the way to the right and seat it you can extinguish the flames and smolder the wood for hours like an old smoke dragon, which I would not recommend for obvious reasons. I ran my 12 this way last year and had some pretty good results. Then I got inspired by the Elm stove guy on You Tube and modified my 12 with secondary air. Now I enjoy the light shows every night in addition to more heat with less wood, but that's a story for another post as soon as can load up some pics.

Btw, I actually tried removing the front cover and tightening up the controls but they always ended up binding.

 

[Danno77]

The key to longer burns with this model is in the air control manipulation. The control is rather loose in it's housing. The adjuster can sit as much a 1/8" away from the front of the stove making for very in-precise air control. I believe it was designed this way so the stove could qualify as a 35 to 1 unit, meaning you could never choke it down enough to smoke beyond certain limits. Anyway, the trick is to make your adjustment then, using your fire poker, seat the controls against the front of the stove. This will give you precise control, so much so that if you slide it all the way to the right and seat it you can extinguish the flames and smolder the wood for hours like an old smoke dragon, which I would not recommend for obvious reasons. I ran my 12 this way last year and had some pretty good results. Then I got inspired by the Elm stove guy on You Tube and modified my 12 with secondary air. Now I enjoy the light shows every night in addition to more heat with less wood, but that's a story for another post as soon as can load up some pics.

Btw, I actually tried removing the front cover and tightening up the controls but they always ended up binding.

I've been thinking about the secondary air addition to mine as well. do you have more information about how you did yours? What size pipe/holes did you use, etc etc...

I found what you found about air control, recently posted on it, too. https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/63534/

 

[Big Al]

Thanks for the link Danno. I guess great minds think alike I'll give you the details but I realy need to add pictures to make it worthwhile. The first thing you need to do is order the white fiber board for a 13nc, about 60 bucks from englander. I mounted mine level with that steel plate up there just inside the door. You'll need to trim the fiber board to fit the contours of the back of the 12 and leave about inch between the fiber board and that steel plate for the smoke to escape. Also the board is more narrow than the fire box so I used a strip from trimming the board to fill the gap (again pictures would be great). I actually used stainless pipe (more expensive than tubing but way more sturdy) with fittings I found on MC master Carr's web site. They measure about 1/2" outside diameter but the listed dimensions are smaller (weird pipe lingo) I drilled 3/16" holes in the pipe (info from englanders parts lists) and oriented the pipes in a similar way that englander shows in thier manual for the 13nc (find it at thier web site). There isn't a whole lot of room in the 12 to put inside manifolds like the 13 and I didn't want to start hacking at the inside architecture of the stove in case my experiment didn't work. What I did was I drilled four holes in the sides of my stove (could always weld them if it didn't work) at a height in which once the pipes were in stalled, the fiber board could rest on top and be level with that steel plate near the door. I used a combination of male/female fittings and reducers to secure the pipes through the sides of the stove (again pictures would be awesome). I ran it like this, basically drawing room temp air into the pipes and into the stove. The results were ok, but I couldn't get sustained secondaries. I knew I'd need to heat the incoming air so I designed and fabbed some external two chamber manifolds. I made them in such a way that the are the same hieght and depth as the cover for the air control so it kind of matches and doesn't look out of place (again PICTURES). I have to say the results are fatastic with dry wood and even pretty amazing with the less than perfect wood I have now. Smokeless burns with great light shows, increased temps and heat output with less wood. I 'm only running two burn tubes at the moment, one all the way to the rear and the other 1 1/2 inches back from the front of the fiberboard. Plans are to try to run one facing rearward beneath that steel plate to see what improvemnet it would yield if any. Well, I hope that's enough to get you thinking. I want to put together a post with pictures and all the specs of the materials, pipe size, fittings etc.(I need to find the receipts) and of course shots of the light show, cuz as they say, if you don't post pics, it didn't happen. I've got the pics in my wifes camera. I'll have her send them to me within the next day or so and get this post up.

 

[BigBadJohn86]

Believe me. I would insulate if I had the time and money to do so.
I have to rewire my attic before I add the 16"-18" of attic cat I want to, I was told it will cost over $3k to insulate my walls with blown in non expanding foam, $900 to spray an ich of foam under the house. 1800 for 2 inches, a few grand for tyvek and siding, and a few grand for new windows and doors. I wouldnt be suprised if it cost me $15k in the end

 

[sesmith]

Believe me. I would insulate if I had the time and money to do so.
I have to rewire my attic before I add the 16"-18" of attic cat I want to, I was told it will cost over $3k to insulate my walls with blown in non expanding foam, $900 to spray an ich of foam under the house. 1800 for 2 inches, a few grand for tyvek and siding, and a few grand for new windows and doors. I wouldnt be suprised if it cost me $15k in the end

Maybe more, but you've got to start somewhere. If you're doing blown in cellulose, you can always do your wiring later and work around it. Maybe not the most convenient way to do it but it can be done. 50 bags of cellulose would cost around $500 and fill 1000 sq ft to around 1' depth. The building supply place will rent you the blower for free for that amount of insulation...a day's project at most. That'd get you about R40 more than you have, and probably make a big difference in heating. Add some more after you do your wiring. You can put the film kits on your windows (pretty inexpensive). If you want something a little more long lasting do inside acrylic storms. Replace windows as you remodel rooms. You can add vapor barriers as you remodel . Get someone to insulate the walls when you can (you may not need to re-side if you don't want to for other reasons). Leave the floor insulation for last.

What I'm getting at is it's easy to look at the whole picture and do nothing cause it's overwhelming. Break it into smaller projects and start with the easy ones that will get you the most bang for the buck.

My 2 cents. I've been working on our old farmhouse for the last 28 years this way, and it does get easier to heat it

 

[branchburner]

Not to mention if you selectively put a few grand into it right away you've got the 30% tax credit.