Alderlea T5 for 800 sq ft apartment?

[coffeebean]

Hello,

We're looking at installing an Alderlea T4 or T5 for a 800 sq ft apartment. We own the building, its got two apartments one up and one on the main floor, we occupy both apartments (small business downstairs, living upstairs) We'd be installing the stove downstairs for supplemental heat & ambiance. No existing chimney, we'd plan to run the chimney inside, straight up, no bends, estimate 23' of pipe/chimney when it's done. The apartment has fairly leaky windows, but we're going to correct that soon. The apartment also has an HRV, which could allow additional fresh air in to the apartment, and may help with spreading the heat. Existing heat is electric baseboards. The room that the stove would be going into is the main room, it's about 17' x 15', with an open 15' long hallway leading to all the other rooms. 8' ceilings.

We were originally thinking of getting the T4, given the square footage, but we're in Ontario, and the building is late 1960's. I was also thinking the T4 would burn through it's wood to quickly given it's small firebox. So, I started thinking the T5 might be a better idea.

Are there issues running larger stoves with large wood loads to achieve long burn times, running on low intake air? Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thank you
Chris

 

[Grisu]

The T5 is probably one of the best secondary burn stoves if you want to achieve long burn times with moderate heat output. Nevertheless, to control the heat properly you will need to adjust the amount of wood you are loading. Could be that you will be running it rarely on a full load of wood. Be aware that secondary burn stoves run in cycles. They produce a lot of heat early after an reload that then tapers out at the end of the burn cycle. They are intentionally designed that you cannot "choke" them down by restricting the air too much.

I would also suggest to take a look at the BlazeKing 20 stove (Ashford/Sirocco/Chinook) series. Those stoves are catalytic which means you can turn down the air more and a get a lower, more constant heat output. Thus, you can load the stove up, turn the air down, and you will get long, steady heat for many hours.