Wishing I would have sprung for a little more expensive stove

[BigBadJohn86]

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?

I have no clue. I cant find any manufacturer name, model number, or btu rating. My guess is its some ultra cheap generic unit
Its an 80% thats about all I know about it
It puts out maybe 100 degree F heat. I was thinking of having it serviced or looked at

 

[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

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

Theres no way Im going to do that. The wiring in my attic is a death trap. Im an electrician and I see splices from cloth covered to romex not in junction boxes, without wire nuts. Theres a couple splices where they just twisted the wires together and taped them up. But again, I dont have the time to do this right now. Im working almost 70 hours a week

 

[BigBadJohn86]

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.

Can you explain to me how this test is done?

Im in charge of doing thermal reports on hot equipment at work. I doubt theyd knowingly let me bring the thermal camera home but I could sneak it out do a survey and bring it back

 

[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

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.

I got a pickup load of wood last year from a guy. He said he had a logging company come a few years ago and and they left the tops. I never finished my stove last year so its been stacked for over a year here as well