So I know the Regency 5100 is a new stove, and lots of folks are looking for reports of it out in the wilds, and how it works.
About 2 months ago I bought and installed a 5100.
Price:
Stove, blower, ash pan, freight, state sales tax, sitting in my garage was just a whisper under $3000.
Performance:
The house I'm heating is a 1600-ft basement. Fully uninsulated, 1 30' wall above ground, with a garage door in that wall... not even close to what you might call air-tight. First floor is also 1600', upstairs is about 1200'. So a total area of about 4500 to heat. House was built in the early 80's so its not a drafty old house, but it sure isn't super tight modern construction either.
With the outside temps in the 30's ovenight, and days in the upper 40's I've been able to keep the floors at 70-72 basement, 68 1st, and 64 2nd. This is a nice gradient, as the upstairs is all sleeping rooms, and we like it cooler up there. The basement ceiling/first floor at about 72 is nice on my toes, and gone was the previous cool draft that I disliked so much.
I was able to load the stove in the morning before I leave for work, and still have a good coal bed 12 hours later when I got home... not a ton of heat coming off at that point, but plenty good to get some fresh wood to ignite in just a few minutes. Again, in the morning there was plenty of coals, and a fresh piece of wood ignites in < 20 seconds.
Now that temps have dropped into the 10-12 overnight, and daytime highs in the 20's, the 5100 can't keep up. I've lit the harman coal stove in the family room, and that plus the 5100 is keeping us toasty.
Frankly I'm stunned that this stove puts off enough heat to keep the whole place warm down to normal Virginia winter temps. I think with some sealing upgrades, and some additional insulation the 5100 might stand a chance of keeping the whole place heated even in the cold periods.
The brochure says 80,000 BTU, but that seems low for a stove of this size, and the volume of wood in the box, and stack temps. The F2400 F3100 and F5100 can't all be 75-80K-BTU stoves?
Also the brochure claims 30 hour burn... perhaps a chemist might call it a 30 hour burn, but those who are heating with it, 15-18 hour max.
One surprise is the draft control. Its a single lever on the left-front that has about 1.5" of total movement... that is all the control/precision you get in regulating the burn. There are no marks, guides, or references to try to get the control back in the same place once its moved.
The ash pan is HUGE. I've burned about 3/4 of a cord at this point, and have only had to empty the pan 3 times.
I have the blower, it was a 'free' upgrade when I made my purchase. I've run the stove with and without and it really doesn't seem to make a huge difference in the total heat extracted from the stove. I can see cat/stack temps are a bit (50 degrees) lower when I run the blower, so some extra heat is being pulled out of the stove, but net-net the temp change in the house is nil blower vs no blower. It might be the total surface area of the stove is enough to radiate the heat.
Speaking of size, the stove is HUGE. I read the dimensions, I held a tape measure up where I was planning to put the stove, and knew about how big it was.. but once it came out of the box it sure felt a lot bigger in person. Roughly 3'x3'x3'
The one problem I am seeing, is coal buildup. Because during the week, we are out of the house a lot, there isn't much time to leave the coals burning, and I'm forced to load up the stove before the coals have burned down as much as I would like. On the weekends I'm able to burn them down, but I loose a bunch of wood capacity due to the volume of coals.
This stove has a voracious apatite for wood. When I'm burning it hot on the weekends, I can easily go through most of a wheelbarrow a day of wood. The house stays nice and warm, but dang, that's a lot of wood. This now leads back to the plus side of having that garage door in the basement.... Getting a wheelbarrow of wood to the stove is quite easy. =).
I'm really able to see the difference in the burn between some very well seasoned wood I have and some less well seasoned stuff. The dry burns a whole lot better, amazingly so.
So the overall is, I like the stove. Heats better than expected, easy to live with, should only take two heating seasons to to pay me back vs running the heat pump.
About 2 months ago I bought and installed a 5100.
Price:
Stove, blower, ash pan, freight, state sales tax, sitting in my garage was just a whisper under $3000.
Performance:
The house I'm heating is a 1600-ft basement. Fully uninsulated, 1 30' wall above ground, with a garage door in that wall... not even close to what you might call air-tight. First floor is also 1600', upstairs is about 1200'. So a total area of about 4500 to heat. House was built in the early 80's so its not a drafty old house, but it sure isn't super tight modern construction either.
With the outside temps in the 30's ovenight, and days in the upper 40's I've been able to keep the floors at 70-72 basement, 68 1st, and 64 2nd. This is a nice gradient, as the upstairs is all sleeping rooms, and we like it cooler up there. The basement ceiling/first floor at about 72 is nice on my toes, and gone was the previous cool draft that I disliked so much.
I was able to load the stove in the morning before I leave for work, and still have a good coal bed 12 hours later when I got home... not a ton of heat coming off at that point, but plenty good to get some fresh wood to ignite in just a few minutes. Again, in the morning there was plenty of coals, and a fresh piece of wood ignites in < 20 seconds.
Now that temps have dropped into the 10-12 overnight, and daytime highs in the 20's, the 5100 can't keep up. I've lit the harman coal stove in the family room, and that plus the 5100 is keeping us toasty.
Frankly I'm stunned that this stove puts off enough heat to keep the whole place warm down to normal Virginia winter temps. I think with some sealing upgrades, and some additional insulation the 5100 might stand a chance of keeping the whole place heated even in the cold periods.
The brochure says 80,000 BTU, but that seems low for a stove of this size, and the volume of wood in the box, and stack temps. The F2400 F3100 and F5100 can't all be 75-80K-BTU stoves?
Also the brochure claims 30 hour burn... perhaps a chemist might call it a 30 hour burn, but those who are heating with it, 15-18 hour max.
One surprise is the draft control. Its a single lever on the left-front that has about 1.5" of total movement... that is all the control/precision you get in regulating the burn. There are no marks, guides, or references to try to get the control back in the same place once its moved.
The ash pan is HUGE. I've burned about 3/4 of a cord at this point, and have only had to empty the pan 3 times.
I have the blower, it was a 'free' upgrade when I made my purchase. I've run the stove with and without and it really doesn't seem to make a huge difference in the total heat extracted from the stove. I can see cat/stack temps are a bit (50 degrees) lower when I run the blower, so some extra heat is being pulled out of the stove, but net-net the temp change in the house is nil blower vs no blower. It might be the total surface area of the stove is enough to radiate the heat.
Speaking of size, the stove is HUGE. I read the dimensions, I held a tape measure up where I was planning to put the stove, and knew about how big it was.. but once it came out of the box it sure felt a lot bigger in person. Roughly 3'x3'x3'
The one problem I am seeing, is coal buildup. Because during the week, we are out of the house a lot, there isn't much time to leave the coals burning, and I'm forced to load up the stove before the coals have burned down as much as I would like. On the weekends I'm able to burn them down, but I loose a bunch of wood capacity due to the volume of coals.
This stove has a voracious apatite for wood. When I'm burning it hot on the weekends, I can easily go through most of a wheelbarrow a day of wood. The house stays nice and warm, but dang, that's a lot of wood. This now leads back to the plus side of having that garage door in the basement.... Getting a wheelbarrow of wood to the stove is quite easy. =).
I'm really able to see the difference in the burn between some very well seasoned wood I have and some less well seasoned stuff. The dry burns a whole lot better, amazingly so.
So the overall is, I like the stove. Heats better than expected, easy to live with, should only take two heating seasons to to pay me back vs running the heat pump.