Avalon Olympic opinions

[Bushman1]

I was just trolling for opinions about this stove. I came across a deal too good to pass up and just wanted to hear some feedback about it on the forum in addition to the reviews already searched. Is there any drawbacks or things to think about before signing on with an Olympic? Not an awful lot of discussion about this model.

Bushman

 

[Patapsco Mike]

There has been more than a little discussion about the Olympic, most of it very complimentary. I heated my house with one last season. It's a great and well made stove that puts out a tremendous amount of heat very efficiently. It's very big, and burns a lot of wood. It turned out to be a bit much for my needs but other than eating a lot of wood I love mine. Were it not for the tax credit I'd still be happily burning it.

 

[newguy08]

This is my first winter using the Avalon Olympic. I have had many friends who have experience with various type of wood heating appliance but I have not had any experience heating with a wood stove for long periods of time prior to this. I have to admit this stove was not my first pick as I had conducted a lot of research and was leaning towards the Lopi Freedom. For some reason I had overlooked the Avalon Models and it was not until someone on this site pointed out the models manufactured by Travis Industries that I took notice. I am very happy with the stove and the family loves the heat that is produced. I heat over 2,000 sq ft of fairly open tri-level floor plan comfortably. The large fire box enables me to use up to 24 inch splits with plenty of coals remaining in the morning for restarts. Hope that helps!

 

[Apiator]

I installed my Olympic insert back in Aug/Sep timeframe. We really enjoy this stove Unfortunatley, the wood that I'm burning isn't really as seasoned as it needs to be, but I can still keep temperatures in the 400-500 degree range. On the occasion that I've had dry wood, the stove can reach those optimum burn temps quickly, have the air turned down, and enjoy secondary burns for a long time. We've gone through about 2.5 cords of wood so far, and I'll probably use 2 more. Our house is about 3400 sq ft, and we heat around 1800-2000 with the stove. Our stove is at one end of the house, so we use a few oil-filled radiator heaters for some of the back rooms. Our central heat is propane, and we've only turned it on a couple of times this season. I'll probably end up needing 4-5 cords/yr for future heating seasons, and hope to use less than 100 gallons of propane.