Wood stove for small Alaskan home

[boondockinAK]

Hello,
1150 square foot ranch. Built in 2000 with very good insulation, and crappy windows (seems to be pretty drafty). Living in Chugiak Alaska, and although it's cold, it's not the coldest place on earth. It's a bit rare to see anything colder than 15 below for anything longer than a week. 0 is probably a decent low average for our area, and maybe 25 below for the worst case scenario. Primary fuel source will mostly be our Alaskan birch, with some black spruce.

Looking for a stove that could be used for primary heat source, but also be used to comfortably add some heat to the house without roasting us out. Although I want the best bang for my buck, I am certainly willing to buy once and cry once to get the right stove..........

I've been researching, and trying to squeeze out every bit of information out of as many sales shops as I can, and asking anyone with a wood stove. Finding out that many of the sales people seem to have no decent information to give, and either know little to nothing about real world experience, or offer the "my stove is best" discussion, which I suppose to is to be expected. A few brands that I've been researching for the last several years and am seriously interested in:

-Blaze King (seems to have a great reputation by majority)

-Hearthstone with soapstone (definitely gorgeous stoves that knock my socks off)

-Vermont Castings (second best on looks in my opinion, and I grew as a kid up heating a horribly insulated
2000 sq/ft home with a really old one, and it is still working today, 30 years later)

-Quadrafire (looks to be the best bang for the buck, with a decent reputation. Simple, and affordable?)

So, blaze king obviously has a great reputation, at least in AK. Theres never a shortage of homeowners who claim they heated their house in AK all winter long, with "little to no wood". Kind of a cult type following I guess you could say, always claiming they use at least 1/2 the wood of the neighbors stove. I am concerned though, because from what I've read about the princess, it seems highly likely that I could easily overheat my little house, and might be hard to run when I don't necessarily need a ton of heat. Also, at least in AK, these are ridiculously expensive (because of the name?), at least $1400+ more than a Quadrafire.

Hearthstone stoves (as stated) knock my socks off. I simply cannot seem to find a whole lot of real world scenario information on the efficiency. If they heat even close to as decent as our local dealer says they do, I am very interested, as long as I can find a good compromise that will heat well, and efficiently, under all conditions. If it's the right stove, I'm willing to pay the price initially...

Vermont casing stoves, if they are still the same animal they were 30+ years ago, have a pretty good reputation in my book. These are also a bit pricy around here, but as I stated, I'm willing to spend the dough for the right stove.

Quadrafire has a pretty decent reputation up here, and are deffinately the smartest girl at the dance type scenario, verses the "best looking girl". The dealer up here has offered little to no help in making me feel better about purchasing one. The little to no local owner information, suggests that they work good, but not as good as a BK. If it's the right stove for me, I have no issue using making this stove work in my house.

About the only factors that I can think of, is that I have little kids, a wife that will be operating the stove, and I'd like to fit as long of rounds as possible in my stove.

Any info would be much appreciated.

-Rob

 

[begreen]

If the goal is 24/7 heating the BK will give you the widest range of even temperature burn rates. The cat + thermostatic control allows the stove to run low and slow for a long time without dumping out a lot of smoke.

If someone is home to feed the stove more frequently then the other stoves would do the job. We have found in our house that a castiron jacketed stove evens out the temperature swings better.

And sadly, no, VC is not anything like it was 30 yrs ago.

 

[Highbeam]

I heat a smallish 1700 sf in the pnw with a princess. 100% nothing else heat. As far as overheating goes, you just don't build a fire if it is too warm. In no case is the princess any worse than the other stoves for overheating. Rather, it excels at low output burning with long burn times.

I dumped a hearthstone to buy the bk and it was an excellent upgrade. The hearthstone was very attractive, I agree, but performance and durability were horrible.

 

[Warm_in_NH]

I heat a decently insulated 1000 Sq ft, 2 story, fairly open floor plan in NH, with a Hearthstone Shelburne.
I can't imagine a better sized stove for my particular situation. I'm going into my third season with it and still live everything about the stove.

Particular stoves are hard to pick or get straight up reviews on, as you can see, the my stove is best, others suck, come into play pretty quick on these threads. I think you'd want to be looking at the fire box size. Something around 2 to 2.5 cu ft seems like it would be up your alley.

Between my jotul and hearthstone, the most noticeable difference is heat retention. Even though they're both cast, the hearthstone is lined with thick soap stone, the Oslo has some thin fire bricks. The Oslo heats up much quicker and seems to throw the heat futther, and cools down quick, the Hearthstone is very slow to warm up, then has a nice radiant heat, but stays warm for hours after the fire burns down.

Hope it helps.

 

[drz1050]

I don't see Woodstock stoves on your list.. cat stove + soapstone, why not?

 

[MaintenanceMan]

What type of wood will you be burning primarily? I would be leaning toward a BK or other cat stove personally if I were in your climate. And especially if your going to be burning softer woods. Now if you'll be burning more hardwood then I would be more open to a secondary combustion stove. I've had a good look at several Hearthstones up close and, I'll say, you get one heck of a gorgeous stove for your money.

 

[Highbeam]

I don't see Woodstock stoves on your list.. cat stove + soapstone, why not?

No dealers, he gave us the local options. I would be happy with a keystone in that Alaska house.

 

[boondockinAK]

Thank you for the replies. Yes our birch is pretty soft stuff. Any comparisons between a BK and a quadrafire? Only reason I ask is the price point. If the consensus is that you get what you pay for, I can probably stomach the price of a BK. Looks like roughly $3,000 for a princess, not including pipe etc.

That's sad that the VC stoves are not what they used to be, my folks stove has been a good stove.

Maybe I'll save the hearthstone dream for the day when I have a monster house and can justify an equinox show piece (while having a BK in the background for the real heat!).

 

[begreen]

If the question is cost, a Sirocco 20.1 would do the job at a lower price than the Princess. The Quad and BK stoves use an entirely different technology to achieve clean burns. The cat + thermostatic regulation lets the BK achieve longer burn times in milder weather burning. That is important in a smaller space, especially if there is no one at home to tend the fire for several hours. If Quadrafire then consider the Explorer II. It's a steel stove with a cast iron jacket. The cast iron should help even out temperature swings. However I think you will find the difference in price between the Quad Explorer II and the BK Sirocco 20.1 to be much less than $1400.

 

[brad wilton]

Were's poindexter?

 

[BKVP]

Hunting I'll bet....

 

[boondockinAK]

Again, I really appreciate the responses. I'm starting to looks seriously at a BK. As I was saying earlier, I'm not afraid to buy once and cry once. That said, I'm wondering if the princess might be a better buy initially. Reason being, I don't plan on living in this house 5-years from now, and according to the specs on the princess, I can take it with me to heat a bigger house down the road.... Also, I'm not entirely sure that the sirocco 20.1 is available here in AK, as the dealers like to sell what they sell, short of special order.... I'm going to ask today, but I don't see the sirocco advertised here...

-Rob

 

[begreen]

Sounds like a plan. Ask what they have in inventory.