Hello all. I place an order for the new Woodstock stove last week. Although very excited, I am starting to have some reservations that I am going to cook my family. My house has a footprint of roughly 1,100 square-feet. Almost 1,000 of that is basically a box and very open. There is an upstairs "loft" over two thirds of that space. The rest of the house is an addition, connected by a hallway with cathedral ceilings going up to 14 feet.
If I compare my home's volume to a typical home with 8-foot ceilings, it would represent more like 1,700 square-feet. I guess I would call my insulation "average", but I do know I lose quite a bit of heat out through the cathedral ceilings and there is no easy way to fix that. We do ahve ceilings fan to help move the heat around.
I live in the northern portion of the Michigan's lower pennisula. It does get cold, but we are basically surrounded on three sides by Lake Michigan. This creates a very long early winter shoulder season since the lake keeps us quite a bit warmer than the middle of state until the lake gets cold. We don't typically see single digits until well into January.
I am enamoured with cat stoves due to their versatility. However, I'm not sure this new stove will by quite a versatile. I spoke with Woodstock and asked about the secondary air. Specifically, is it controllable or is it always fully open? Frankly, I don't think the person I spoke with knew the answer as she basically said that yes, it was controllable and yes, it is always open at different points in the conversation. If the secondary air is always fully open, am I right to think that I won't get the versatility of a typical cat stove (i.e. will I really be able to turn it way down during shoulder seasons)?
When I run a rough estimate on BTU's needed, I come up with almost 50,000. Theorectically, that should be perfect for a stove rated from 10,000 to 80,000 BTU's. So, maybe I'm over-thinking this. I know most people say when in doubt, go bigger. Has anyone ever had too large of a stove?
Thanks for any input.
If I compare my home's volume to a typical home with 8-foot ceilings, it would represent more like 1,700 square-feet. I guess I would call my insulation "average", but I do know I lose quite a bit of heat out through the cathedral ceilings and there is no easy way to fix that. We do ahve ceilings fan to help move the heat around.
I live in the northern portion of the Michigan's lower pennisula. It does get cold, but we are basically surrounded on three sides by Lake Michigan. This creates a very long early winter shoulder season since the lake keeps us quite a bit warmer than the middle of state until the lake gets cold. We don't typically see single digits until well into January.
I am enamoured with cat stoves due to their versatility. However, I'm not sure this new stove will by quite a versatile. I spoke with Woodstock and asked about the secondary air. Specifically, is it controllable or is it always fully open? Frankly, I don't think the person I spoke with knew the answer as she basically said that yes, it was controllable and yes, it is always open at different points in the conversation. If the secondary air is always fully open, am I right to think that I won't get the versatility of a typical cat stove (i.e. will I really be able to turn it way down during shoulder seasons)?
When I run a rough estimate on BTU's needed, I come up with almost 50,000. Theorectically, that should be perfect for a stove rated from 10,000 to 80,000 BTU's. So, maybe I'm over-thinking this. I know most people say when in doubt, go bigger. Has anyone ever had too large of a stove?
Thanks for any input.