Advice or sugestions on selecting stove size

[goose]

I am a rookie to this stuff,so if I am not following proper etiquette feel free to let me know.
I have been looking at stoves and have decided to go with a PE model ,the size is what I am not sure of. I am located in zone 6 and have a 2075 sq.ft. cape-cod style home. I want to locate the stove centrally on first floor and exhaust it straight up through roof.Iwould like to use this as my main and only heat source,my house is well insulated with 9 double hung andreson windows.I really like the T-6 but I am afraid it will be to big,especially in the fall and spring when I wont need as much heat.
If I put the same amount of wood of same species in the T-5 and T-6 would they give off the same amount of heat or would the larger stove give off more ?
As long as I get wood to burn real well before I turn it down to the lowest setting every time I burn ,and assuming I am using dry wood ,is it safe to continually burn in the lowest setting? Can a person keep a small fire in theT-6 burning as easy as a small fire in the T-5 and do ao safely? With the EBT can a person burn smaller loads as efficiently on the lowest setting as with a smaller size stove? Also, if I were to use my furnace fan to circulate air into my basement because it would be unheated, as this could help to heat my basement, would I need a larger stove to achieve this, or would it make no difference as to what stove would be needed for this purpose? Any comments would be appreciated.

 

[savageactor7]

Hello goose...my advice would be to get the bigger stove but seeing your from WV perhaps you really don't need it. As far as slow burning ...I dunno about that either. Slow burns are OK when your out of the house and want hot coals to return to. Now if you're home and want to heat 24/7 with wood...it's heat you want not hot coals.

When we're home I never have more than 2 logs burning hot 500+ and 1 of those logs is mostly burned. the house is warm enough and if you were to look at my chimney you wouldn't even see any smoke.

Of course when we leave the house or go to bed we'll load it up and do a slower burn.

...btw we have a QF 4300step top.

 

[Jimbob]

How many cords a year to you plan to burn?
If you only intend to burn about 2 cords, the T-5 should be plenty.
OTOH,if you want the stove to be your MAIN source of heat and plan to burn about 4 or 5 cords, go for the bigger one.

If you put the same anount of wood into the T-4, T-5, or T-6, you'll get the same amount of heat. Only difference is you can fit more wood into the T-6.

I have the Summit, which is the same as a T-6 without cast iron, and it runs well on the lowest setting.

If you run your furnace fan, it will force some of the heat into the basement. You are best off to do this on the occasions when you get the main floor a bit too hot (and it will happen), rather than opening a window to let the excess heat out.

 

[begreen]

Welcome goose. You have a similar situation to our area. Generally mild winters with average lowest temps in the 20's, but the potential to go below 10 degrees. Does that sound about right?

Using a medium sized stove will be a bit more efficient, but may lack the reserves for the very coldest days. Seems like the T5 would cover about 80-90% of your heating needs, excluding the basement, which I will cover next. The T6 will give you the reserves for the coldest weather, but will be loafing a lot of the time. That likely means short fires for most of fall and spring.

One option to think about is if you got the T5, what could a backup plan for extreme cold weather be? Sometime we have alternatives, like closing off part of the house, insulating curtains, or baseboard heaters, etc.. In our house we have a high efficiency heat pump. If it goes below 15 we would have to rely on the strip heaters to supplement our stove. Fortunately, I haven't seen those temps since the late 70's here. Another option to think about is a soapstone stove. The stone acts as a buffer and reserve that will smooth out large temperature swings to a degree. I would think that would make fall/spring burning more comfortable.

Can you describe the basement a bit? Is it well sealed and insulated? Is the ductwork insulated or exposed? Often running the furnace fan is not too effective due to duct loss. Insulating the basement is usually a better bet. You'll have warmer floors, peace of mind in cold weather and lower electricity bills.

 

[begreen]

One other thought. If the basement is place where the family hangs out (rec room, home theater, etc.), then would a small stove down there be an option? Is the layout of the basement an open floor plan or several closed off areas? Is there a way (open staircase?) for heat to easily migrate upstairs if there was a small stove in the basement?

If this is a popular family place and it's easy for heat to get upstairs, a small stove (wood or maybe pellet) could be used in the shoulder seasons and as a supplement on the coldest days.

 

[goose]

Hello goose...my advice would be to get the bigger stove but seeing your from WV perhaps you really don't need it. As far as slow burning ...I dunno about that either. Slow burns are OK when your out of the house and want hot coals to return to. Now if you're home and want to heat 24/7 with wood...it's heat you want not hot coals.

When we're home I never have more than 2 logs burning hot 500+ and 1 of those logs is mostly burned. the house is warm enough and if you were to look at my chimney you wouldn't even see any smoke.

Of course when we leave the house or go to bed we'll load it up and do a slower burn.

...btw we have a QF 4300step top.

Hi there savageactor7.Thanks for your reply,as I am just trying to get different oponions as what to do,thanks again!

 

[goose]

How many cords a year to you plan to burn?
If you only intend to burn about 2 cords, the T-5 should be plenty.
OTOH,if you want the stove to be your MAIN source of heat and plan to burn about 4 or 5 cords, go for the bigger one.

If you put the same anount of wood into the T-4, T-5, or T-6, you'll get the same amount of heat. Only difference is you can fit more wood into the T-6.

I have the Summit, which is the same as a T-6 without cast iron, and it runs well on the lowest setting.

If you run your furnace fan, it will force some of the heat into the basement. You are best off to do this on the occasions when you get the main floor a bit too hot (and it will happen), rather than opening a window to let the excess heat out.

Hello Jimbob. Thanks for yor reply.To answer your question as to how many cords a year I plan on burning I really dont know as this will be my first wood stove,although my plan is to use it as my soul heating source, and not really knowing how much I'll need I am hoping to burn four cords or less. I see that your from the coldest major city in canada using a summit.I am not in the same climate as you and I may have a better comparison if you could let me know how much space your heating with your summit?If your from from a very cold climate and occasionally get to warm with your stove I think that could happen to me,and probably more frequently.My house is just over the sq.,ft. range for the T-5 but just at the starting range for the T-6 at 2075 sq. ft. I may be over analayizing, but I am hoping to buy once and be satisified,hopefully not running the T-5 to hard or be run out of the house by the T-6,or having to run it on low all the time as this may not be good for the stove .THANKS for your reply and I lok forward to your next reply.

 

[goose]

Welcome goose. You have a similar situation to our area. Generally mild winters with average lowest temps in the 20's, but the potential to go below 10 degrees. Does that sound about right?

Using a medium sized stove will be a bit more efficient, but may lack the reserves for the very coldest days. Seems like the T5 would cover about 80-90% of your heating needs, excluding the basement, which I will cover next. The T6 will give you the reserves for the coldest weather, but will be loafing a lot of the time. That likely means short fires for most of fall and spring.

One option to think about is if you got the T5, what could a backup plan for extreme cold weather be? Sometime we have alternatives, like closing off part of the house, insulating curtains, or baseboard heaters, etc.. In our house we have a high efficiency heat pump. If it goes below 15 we would have to rely on the strip heaters to supplement our stove. Fortunately, I haven't seen those temps since the late 70's here. Another option to think about is a soapstone stove. The stone acts as a buffer and reserve that will smooth out large temperature swings to a degree. I would think that would make fall/spring burning more comfortable.

Can you describe the basement a bit? Is it well sealed and insulated? Is the ductwork insulated or exposed? Often running the furnace fan is not too effective due to duct loss. Insulating the basement is usually a better bet. You'll have warmer floors, peace of mind in cold weather and lower electricity bills.

HELLO BeGreen , .I really appreciate your reply! Yes my temp. situtation sounds very similar to yours.I wan't to pick your brain here a little bit if you don't mind.
You say the T-5 would probably be more effecient and the T-6 would probably be loafing most of the time.I am wondering what you mean by more effecient and would it be bad for the T-6 to be loafing most of the time or is it just a little more difficult to operate at the lower end of the stoves output for most of the time?As long as I burn the T-6 hot enough no matter how small my fuel load is, would it still be burning clean?Would one be any easier to maintain a nice temp. in the house?
I do have a propane furnace for a back-up if needed.It is in the basement which is unfinished and uninsulated of cement block construction and about 6 1/2ft. below grade.there are two hot air ducts down there,the four windows down there are not very good and I never counted them among the nine windows I said I had in the house before.
I could probably use either stove and there will be both positives and negatives to either of them.My heart wants to go with the T-6 but I have this feeling it may be to big and like you said, with the T-5 there may be days where my furnace may kick in.I really won't mind it if it kicks in occasionally but I just want to limit it to as few as days as possible. Thanks so much for your advice I do appreciate all that I am receiving.

 

[goose]

One other thought. If the basement is place where the family hangs out (rec room, home theater, etc.), then would a small stove down there be an option? Is the layout of the basement an open floor plan or several closed off areas? Is there a way (open staircase?) for heat to easily migrate upstairs if there was a small stove in the basement?

If this is a popular family place and it's easy for heat to get upstairs, a small stove (wood or maybe pellet) could be used in the shoulder seasons and as a supplement on the coldest days.

Hello again BeGreen: No, the basement is not finished. Although that is in the future plans. The only place I see where a stove could be placed is on the outside wall, which is approximately 25' away from my steps to the upstairs and it is under the bedroom, not under the main living spaces. Thanks again!

 

[Ken45]

I could probably use either stove and there will be both positives and negatives to either of them.My heart wants to go with the T-6 but I have this feeling it may be to big and like you said, with the T-5 there may be days where my furnace may kick in.I really won’t mind it if it kicks in occasionally but I just want to limit it to as few as days as possible. Thanks so much for your advice I do appreciate all that I am receiving.

It has been said many times that many more people regret getting too small of a stove rather than too big of one.

The only possible drawback to a larger stove (assuming you have the room), might be that it is a little harder to control on milder days (we were too hot last night and my wife opened the bedroom window! LOL). But on the colder nights, you will appreciate having the capacity to heat the house all night.

With a propane furnace for backup, on warm days (we are supposed to get 60 degrees today), you can let the propane furnace handle any heating load, it won't cost much at all on a warm day. But cold winter nights is when the propane furnace gobbles up the fuel and I think you would be glad to have the bigger wood stove and not worry about trying to get too much heat out of a smaller stove. Also, the larger stove will handle your needs in a power outage.

OTOH, if you get the smaller stove, the propane furnace may kick in on the cold nights if you don't get up to refuel the wood stove. Economically, that's not all that bad for you either. It really boils down to your choice although like I've said, we see more people wish they had bought a bigger model than those who wish they had bought a smaller one.

Ken
Hotblast 1400
PE Summit arriving this week

 

[begreen]

Hey goose. Good questions. Here's how I see the efficiency thing. A woodstove is least efficient in the warming up phase. Before the flue is hot, most stoves, even the EPA best, will smoke. Once the mass of the stove is hot and secondary burning kicks in, the efficiency goes way up and pollution, way down. So in my book, keeping a medium sized stove running steadily at a low burn is more efficient and less polluting then having a big stove start up, and burn a short hot fire twice a day.

Craig, Corie, is this confirmed by lab tests or does it come out as a wash?

On the basement front (actually the whole house), the more you can do to insulated and tighten the house envelope, the more a medium sized stove makes sense. And you'll have the benefit of much warmer floors once those basement walls are insulated.

 

[goose]

I could probably use either stove and there will be both positives and negatives to either of them.My heart wants to go with the T-6 but I have this feeling it may be to big and like you said, with the T-5 there may be days where my furnace may kick in.I really won’t mind it if it kicks in occasionally but I just want to limit it to as few as days as possible. Thanks so much for your advice I do appreciate all that I am receiving.

It has been said many times that many more people regret getting too small of a stove rather than too big of one.

The only possible drawback to a larger stove (assuming you have the room), might be that it is a little harder to control on milder days (we were too hot last night and my wife opened the bedroom window! LOL). But on the colder nights, you will appreciate having the capacity to heat the house all night.

With a propane furnace for backup, on warm days (we are supposed to get 60 degrees today), you can let the propane furnace handle any heating load, it won't cost much at all on a warm day. But cold winter nights is when the propane furnace gobbles up the fuel and I think you would be glad to have the bigger wood stove and not worry about trying to get too much heat out of a smaller stove. Also, the larger stove will handle your needs in a power outage.

OTOH, if you get the smaller stove, the propane furnace may kick in on the cold nights if you don't get up to refuel the wood stove. Economically, that's not all that bad for you either. It really boils down to your choice although like I've said, we see more people wish they had bought a bigger model than those who wish they had bought a smaller one.

Ken
Hotblast 1400
PE Summit arriving this week

Hi Ken45
I would also like to thankyou for your reply.You are not only getting the same stove I am looking at, but you are very close to me geographically, which I find those two things to be a bonus .How much space are you planning to heat with your summit?What are you using now,and how is it working for you(by that I mean is it giving you all the heat you want)I hope you are very satisfied with your new summit .
goose

 

[goose]

Hey goose. Good questions. Here's how I see the efficiency thing. A woodstove is least efficient in the warming up phase. Before the flue is hot, most stoves, even the EPA best, will smoke. Once the mass of the stove is hot and secondary burning kicks in, the efficiency goes way up and pollution, way down. So in my book, keeping a medium sized stove running steadily at a low burn is more efficient and less polluting then having a big stove start up, and burn a short hot fire twice a day.

Craig, Corie, is this confirmed by lab tests or does it come out as a wash?

On the basement front (actually the whole house), the more you can do to insulated and tighten the house envelope, the more a medium sized stove makes sense. And you'll have the benefit of much warmer floors once those basement walls are insulated.

Hi BeGreen,
Thanks again for another reply,you certainally sound extreemely knowlagable at this.As I try, to find as much info as possible I am certainally going to take heed to all of your info into my decision.
I am still not sure how hard it is to keep a stove like a summit/T-6 running steadilly at a low burn,rather than have it burn those shorter,hotter fires.(which is not what I am looking for,I want to be able to run my stove steadily at that low burn and possibly low heat output at times) If that is not possible or harder to do with the larger stove then maybe I will need the medium sized spectrum/T-5.Which may be what your telling me.If that is what you are telling me then why is it easier to keep a steady low fire in a medium sized stove vs. a larger sized stove.

BEST REGARDS
goose

 

[begreen]

That's a good question. We often see ratings for maximum output, but not so frequently for steady low output btus. I don't own a Summit and haven't run one, so best post it to PE owners in a new thread. Ask how low the stove can burn steadily for spring/fall burns.

I would think that less heat will be given off from a medium sized stove with a steady slow burn than a large stove due to the lower wood volume. If the house only needs 5000 btus per hour to keep warm in October, that might be a good match for a medium stove, but above the minimum steady output for a large stove. If I am correct it means one would likely not run the large stove steadily, but instead would build a small hot fire maybe twice a day. But I'll be interested to hear from the folks that owns them.

 

[Jimbob]

Our Summit seems to do fairly well on low burn during warmer days. Maybe because of the EBT system:
(broken link removed to http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/hoebt.htm)

That EBT is not available on the T-5.

To answer your other question, we are heating a 1000 sq.ft. bungalow from the basement with our stove.

 

[begreen]

Now I have to ask you Jimbob, what do you call a warmer day? Anything above -10 degrees? ;-) Is the basement the same square footage? That is, are you heating about 2000 sq ft? At what outside temp do you stop burning continuously?

 

[Jimbob]

I'd say anything above about -10C is a warmer day.
The basement is the same square footage, so yeah, that would be about 2000 sq. ft.
The cinder block basement walls are bare on the interior, and insulated with styrofoam on the outside. This lets the walls act like a huge heat sink.
Today for instance, I didn't build a morning fire before work (I probably should have because it was cool today).
(broken link removed)
When I got home at 7:30 PM (later than normal), the house had cooled down to 16C upstairs, and about 19 downstairs. Now I have the stove burning nice and hot to bring it back up to temp. Then, just before bed, I'll load it back up and turn it right back down to burn overnight. The temp. upstairs will still be about 20C in the morning.
It's supposed to be warmer tomorrow, so I won't bother loading it up in the morning. When I get home, I'll remove some of the ashes, and build a nice hot fire.
On days where I stoke the fire in the morning(6 am), I just add more wood when I get home (5:30 pm).

Our current forecast, in non-metric for you foriegn types
(broken link removed)

 

[Ken45]

Hi Ken45
I would also like to thankyou for your reply.You are not only getting the same stove I am looking at, but you are very close to me geographically, which I find those two things to be a bonus .How much space are you planning to heat with your summit?What are you using now,and how is it working for you(by that I mean is it giving you all the heat you want)I hope you are very satisfied with your new summit .
goose

Goose,

we have an 1800 sq ft ranch, decently insulated. Currently during cold weather we are heating with a Hotblast 1400 wood furnace (Tractor Supply) in the basement with a single duct to the first floor. It does a good job during cold weather but is too much for moderate weather (you can't keep it going with a small fire.)

Why are we getting the Summit? We want something on the main floor that we can enjoy. I also expect it to be more efficient and certainly easier to manage on more moderate days. Hopefully, it will be enough that we won't need to use the wood furnace, but it will be available if we need it.

BTW, we bought a pellet stove (Harman Advance) a year ago and it has been a big disapointment. It's only advantage is that it kicks in on cold nights when the wood furnace dies down, I don't have to get up at 3 am to reload the wood stove.

Ken

 

[bbc557ci]

Man, that is a COLD forcast Jimbob :bug:

goose - I'm a newb at wood burning. This is my 1st season at it (as of 1/21/08) but I'll throw in my $.02 for what it's worth. I have a T6. The house is a salt box design and +,- 1400 sf. The T6 is in the living room which takes up 50% of the 1st living level. Living room is about 29 feet by 16 feet with a vaulted ceiling 8 feet high at the short side and about 17 feet at the high side. With the vaulted ceiling in the living room I figured I'd need to heat the equivelant of about 1600 sf. I would also mention that the house is in a higher elevation. And in a wide open area with no protection from wind.

Like you, I found this site and bombarded members with questions After listening to much good advice and lots of pondering in my own menial mind, I decided on a T6. I was told by local stove suppliers that the T6 would be too much stove with its 3.2 CF fire box. And was advised by most locals to get a stove with a 2 to 2.5 CF box. Well I gotta say, I'm glad I got the T6. With its larger fire box, I can load up on cold windy nights and get up in the morning and it will still be in the mid 60's inside.

Temps are beginning to get warmer outside now. Temps hit just over 50 by late afternoon today. When I got up this morning it was about 68 inside, and about 35 out side. I added three small spits to the hot coals left from the overnight fire, and let them burn pretty hot. After they burned down it was in the mid 70's in the house and there was a nice bed of hot coals in the T6. Inside temps stayed in the mid 70's all day. Sun went down and the house began to cool off about 8:30. About 9-9:30 I layed 2 small pcs. of kindling on top of the coals, and added 5 splits. Now the T6 is in its secondary burn and the house is 76 degrees. With the bigger stove I'm able to regulate inside temperatures faily well when it's warmer outside. Yet, the T6 is big enough to keep the house warm during the coldest days.

I'm not necessarily saying the T6 is the right stove for your application. What I am saying is, it seems a little overkill on the size of the stove I chose worked well, for my application.

Just a few thoughts from a newb. Best of luck with whatever stove you decide on

 

[eernest4]

If it were my house & my money,I would go with the T6 (rated slightly larger than house area) because how much heat the stove throws can be controled by using a smaller load of wood as well as setting the primary & secondary air down lower.

I have a 12 cubic foot secondary burn & i was able to start from a cold stove and maintain 175 deg F for two hours, without smoking out the neighbor hood by only placing 3 -2x3x 12 in
splits in the stove , for a special curing process of a mortar cement where I didnt want the curing cement to boil out water at 212 deg.

You can control the output of even an extra, extra large stove, by adjusting the fuel supply.
I heat 3000 sq.ft. with my stove.

a larger stove will give you a longer overnight burn because you can put more wood in it to last longer. This is very important if you dont want to wake up in the middle of the night or too early in the morning FYAO. (freezing your -- -- )

The larger stove has the capacity to heat extra rooms or to heat adiquately in the coldest weather , yet can be tamed down in the spring & fall by burning small wood loads & cutting back primary & secondary air.

Even more control can come from a in line smoke stack manual damper & a special smoke pipe draft dump to room air that fits into the smoke pipe with a tee. When you open this control,room air goes into the smokestack to lighten your draft, resulting in less draft over fire & less primary & secondary air intake into stove. a lot of stove experts don't generally recommend these draft controls, because most stove installs don't have enough draft to begin with & many stove owners don't know how to opperate them properly. And people tend to snarfle down their fires ; smoldering & smoking up the neighborhood. But that don't happen when you know how to use them properly.

Just like it take extra skill & knowledge to drive a six speed short throw stick shift on a hot car.

Wood can be made to burn more slowly by not splitting it, or making large splits.
The less surface area the log has, the slower it will burn. The purpose of splitting the wood is to increase the area that can be exposed to air to burn so that it burns faster & not just to make the wood lighter & easier to handle, which is a benificaial side effect of splitting.

A fire's temp can also be comtroled by putting in a certain amount of high moistuer content wood & it moisture will keep fire temp around 400* until the moisture is dryed out of the wood. However, ther is a danger associated with this technique in that when the wood finally dries out, you had the primary air adjusted more open to give more air to heat up the wet wood, and now, with the wood having dried out in the heat of the fire, the air setting is too high for dry wood , & the stove begins to get hotter & hotter unelse you are there to readjust the primary air setting.

YOU MAY WANT TO REMEMBER THIS IN CASE YOU RUN OUT OF DRY WOOD & HAVE TO MIX WET & DRY WOOD TO HAVE ENOUGH WOOD TO CONTINUE BURNING, AS YOU WILL NOTE THIS OCCURING TO YOU.

Anyways, I always buy the biggest stove I can get for the money I have to spend & I have been happy & warm, because of it.

 

[goose]

That's a good question. We often see ratings for maximum output, but not so frequently for steady low output btus. I don't own a Summit and haven't run one, so best post it to PE owners in a new thread. Ask how low the stove can burn steadily for spring/fall burns.

I would think that less heat will be given off from a medium sized stove with a steady slow burn than a large stove due to the lower wood volume. If the house only needs 5000 btus per hour to keep warm in October, that might be a good match for a medium stove, but above the minimum steady output for a large stove. If I am correct it means one would likely not run the large stove steadily, but instead would build a small hot fire maybe twice a day. But I'll be interested to hear from the folks that owns them.

THANKS BeGreen I think I will do that

 

[goose]

I'd say anything above about -10C is a warmer day.
The basement is the same square footage, so yeah, that would be about 2000 sq. ft.
The cinder block basement walls are bare on the interior, and insulated with styrofoam on the outside. This lets the walls act like a huge heat sink.
Today for instance, I didn't build a morning fire before work (I probably should have because it was cool today).
(broken link removed)
When I got home at 7:30 PM (later than normal), the house had cooled down to 16C upstairs, and about 19 downstairs. Now I have the stove burning nice and hot to bring it back up to temp. Then, just before bed, I'll load it back up and turn it right back down to burn overnight. The temp. upstairs will still be about 20C in the morning.
It's supposed to be warmer tomorrow, so I won't bother loading it up in the morning. When I get home, I'll remove some of the ashes, and build a nice hot fire.
On days where I stoke the fire in the morning(6 am), I just add more wood when I get home (5:30 pm).

Our current forecast, in non-metric for you foriegn types
(broken link removed)

HI Jimbob
Thanks for replying again! WOW I sure do appreciate all the input I am receiving.Just when I think I know what I want to go with, I'll read something else and change my mind again.This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for(by that, I mean getting all of this feedback before making a purchase)when I joined and wrote into this site.
THANKS
goose

 

[goose]

Hi Ken45
I would also like to thankyou for your reply.You are not only getting the same stove I am looking at, but you are very close to me geographically, which I find those two things to be a bonus .How much space are you planning to heat with your summit?What are you using now,and how is it working for you(by that I mean is it giving you all the heat you want)I hope you are very satisfied with your new summit .
goose

Goose,

we have an 1800 sq ft ranch, decently insulated. Currently during cold weather we are heating with a Hotblast 1400 wood furnace (Tractor Supply) in the basement with a single duct to the first floor. It does a good job during cold weather but is too much for moderate weather (you can't keep it going with a small fire.)

Why are we getting the Summit? We want something on the main floor that we can enjoy. I also expect it to be more efficient and certainly easier to manage on more moderate days. Hopefully, it will be enough that we won't need to use the wood furnace, but it will be available if we need it.

BTW, we bought a pellet stove (Harman Advance) a year ago and it has been a big disapointment. It's only advantage is that it kicks in on cold nights when the wood furnace dies down, I don't have to get up at 3 am to reload the wood stove.

Ken

Hello Ken45
Once again your input is very much appreciated! I wont be getting a stove until this summer ,if you still get yours next week(I think you said earlier)and have it installed ,and able to use it on both colder and warmer days before the end of winter ,if you think of it ,you could let me know how it is woking out for you ,that would be some excellent feedback on how it is performing for you in those different temps.
THANKS
goose

 

[begreen]

That's a good question. We often see ratings for maximum output, but not so frequently for steady low output btus. I don't own a Summit and haven't run one, so best post it to PE owners in a new thread. Ask how low the stove can burn steadily for spring/fall burns.

I would think that less heat will be given off from a medium sized stove with a steady slow burn than a large stove due to the lower wood volume. If the house only needs 5000 btus per hour to keep warm in October, that might be a good match for a medium stove, but above the minimum steady output for a large stove. If I am correct it means one would likely not run the large stove steadily, but instead would build a small hot fire maybe twice a day. But I'll be interested to hear from the folks that owns them.

THANKS BeGreen I think I will do that

I posted the question for you. So far it looks like most people burn the way I mentioned during spring/fall, short hot fires. It's the cleanest, most efficient way to run a big stove in the shoulder seasons. You can follow the comments at this thread:

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/16134/

 

[goose]

goose - I'm a newb at wood burning. This is my 1st season at it (as of 1/21/08) but I'll throw in my $.02 for what it's worth. I have a T6. The house is a salt box design and +,- 1400 sf.

I'm not necessarily saying the T6 is the right stove for your application. What I am saying is, it seems a little overkill on the size of the stove I chose worked well, for my application.

Just a few thoughts from a newb. Best of luck with whatever stove you decide on

HELLO bbc557ci
Thankyou for your reply.I am glad you are enjoying your T-6 it is a beautiful looking stove.I must say you seemed to kinda go out on a limb and purchase the T-6 when it seems everyone was telling you differently.GOOD MOVE! Like you,I hope to make this purchase once only.It seems to me ,what I am kinda of hearing from you is that burning with smaller hot fires while still acheiving that longer burn time(within reason of course)isn't to difficult.If so ,that is exactally the kind of info I was hoping to see on here.Thanks again for your $.02 ,hope to burning along sde the rest of you next winter!