BTU help

[retiredff]

I read somewhere a shortcut for calculating the needed btu's for a space is 20 btu x square footage. If I have a 1450 square foot area, 30,000 btu appliance should be close depending on:

- region
- insulation of the house
- current outside temp

my current home is 1450 down and 600+- up. Heating the upstairs is not mandatory. I would guess heat will radiate up there anyway as there are pass through ducts in 2 rooms upstairs. I can also open or close the door leading to the stairs going up. This home has good double pane windows and has blown in insulation w/2x6 dimensional lumber outside walls. I spent $1500 on propane each of the last 2 years for heat only.

Is this a close guide? I have been looking at the englander 13x medium size stove that puts out 60k btu!? The BTU thing is what is causing me problems. I don't want to keep the stove choked down and spew emissions nor do I want to overfire the stove to stay warm when the outside temp hits 0. Any suggestions?

Thanks

Tony

PS - I also been looking at the Sedore. Anyone have real world results with this stove?

 

[burntime]

I may be wrong but I seem to remember 40 btw per foot. It could have been a range 20-40 though? Look at some old posts from elkimeg, I know that he had given the number or a link to it...the search botton is your friend.

 

[Bad Wolf]

Don't guess. There are some very good heat loss calculators out there. Select "Main Information Articles" from the navigation drop down. If you know your dimensions, number of windows etc. you can get pretty close.

Greg H

 

[burntime]

That is too much work, just turn up the stove

 

[eernest4]

All that calculating makes my head hurt just thinking about it. You could get by with the 1800sq ft englander but buy the 2000/2300 sq ft englander just to be safe & load less wood on a warmer day. You can always put less wood in a big stove but you can never put more wood in a too small stove as you are limited by an inadiquate sized fire box.

Secondary burn stoves can't be snarfled down too much anyways because they design the primary air intake so that it can never be fully shut off but only partly shut down so that there is always some flame on the fire & some air over the fire. This is done so that not much smoke is allowed up the chimney as as to help the stove pass the envirenmental testing.

So you are not going to control the heat output so much by snarfiling down the air but instead
use a lighter lesser load of wood to control the heat output.

A smaller fire makes lesser heat but it is wise to have extra capacity in the fire box for them there- 5 above zero nights. They larger fire box gives a better & longer all night burn with warm embers left 12 hours later to start the next days fire from.

The smaller fire boxes have a really tough time giving a 6 to 8 hr overnight burn. They don't do so good.

 

[retiredff]

You are right, all of that calculating did make my head hurt!

Roughly, I find a medium size englander will work. We are going to use this stove when the outside temp drops below 25 deg. or so. And we probably won't stoke it up before we leave for work, I will just turn down the propane furnace to 65. If I find a close out sale on the larger englander I will buy it, but the medium size should work.

Thanks

Tony

 

[Redox]

Snarfling? Is than a technical term, EE? ;-)

All the calculators are just an approximation anyway and unless you do a full Manual J calculation, you will never know exactly.

BUT, this isn't rocket science. If I were designing a duct system or installing an expensive heat pump, I would want to run a full calculation. I have compared full calcs to rough rules of thumb and find that most of them are close enough for picking a stove. The manufacturers claims are the bigger question mark in my book. It also depend on your expectations; if you are trying to totally replace your central heat, go with the big gun. If you want a cleaner and more efficient burn, stick with the smaller unit. Sometimes I wish I had gotten the bigger stove, but my expectations have risen a little over time as well!

Hope this helps.
Chris

 

[savageactor7]

The way you describe your house I think an Englander stove will work well...even better if your chimney is in the center of the house. People that have them on this forum say they're really heat merchants. But I've never heard of the stove you describe as an englander 13x...is it an insert? Anyway it sounds like your home is well insulated so that is a good thing.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

there is no "13x" probably a typo , by the way , i should hire you guys , thanks for the kind words, i also think the 30 would be the guarenteed will never be cold solution maybe the 13 if you are really well inslulated and you really dont care about heating the upstairs that much , it is a bit much square footage for the 13 though.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

PS - I also been looking at the Sedore. Anyone have real world results with this stove?

i had looked at that brand once before , interesting concept they have , i regret to tell you i know nothing about them other than what i saw on their website, hopefully someone will come along with practical knowledge of them , in the mean time if i can answer any questions on the 13 or the 30 , or any other of our products , please feel free to contact me.

 

[BrotherBart]

there is no "13x" probably a typo , by the way , i should hire you guys...

Still waiting for the checks. I started this craziness here. Typed the word "Englander" the first time it was ever seen in the Hearth Room. Got laughed at. :coolsmirk:

And I bet Craig is still pissed about the Forum selling so many stoves for a company that isn't a sponsor.

 

[retiredff]

Thanks for the reply's. Here is a little more info.
13x was a typo I meant the 13.
My chimney is centrally located and it's an old one that needs to be relined. I probably will not use this stove to replace my 90% Trane propane furnace. We probably will burn when we are at home. Someone said the 13 might be a little small for my home. On england's site it says 1800 sq. feet, and if I remember correctly the main difference between the 13 and 30 is the fire box is deeper and the 30 puts out 15k more BTU. My main level is 1450 and I have ceiling fans in most every room. The stove will be in the dinning room that is in the same room as the stairs for the 2nd floor bedrooms. Did I mention about 75% of my wood will be free! The farmer that owns most of the property around me has piles of wood he said I could cut and use. He does not burn nor do any other family members and they have no intention to. They usually dig a hole and bury the wood if it gets in the way!!

Tony

 

[stoveguy2esw]

there is no "13x" probably a typo , by the way , i should hire you guys...

Still waiting for the checks. I started this craziness here. Typed the word "Englander" the first time it was ever seen in the Hearth Room. Got laughed at. :coolsmirk:

And I bet Craig is still pissed about the Forum selling so many stoves for a company that isn't a sponsor.

god bless ya for it too BB, guess who's laughing now (just kidding but i am happier now that this "big box store junk" mantra has been lifted with help from all my new friends)

to craig , web , i am working on it trust me , every chance i get i mention "2.5 million hits a year" and "think about how much interest 2.5 million potential customers could have" it'll happen , i just gotta keep beating on em, and in the interum , thanks again craig for allowing me to play in your yard, i mean that.

by the way , home depot is going to do a deal on MSNBC sometimes in the next several days , they are featuring a few of our stoves, might be interesting even if you arent interested in our stuff , might be interesting to hear what they have to say. if i find out when it airs i'll post it.

 

[RedRanger]

That is too much work, just turn up the stove

It is summer right now. but come winter, ya just can`t be warm enough. Go big, big, and bigger!!

 

[VTSR5]

I read somewhere a shortcut for calculating the needed btu's for a space is 20 btu x square footage. If I have a 1450 square foot area, 30,000 btu appliance should be close depending on:

- region
- insulation of the house
- current outside temp

my current home is 1450 down and 600+- up. Heating the upstairs is not mandatory. I would guess heat will radiate up there anyway as there are pass through ducts in 2 rooms upstairs. I can also open or close the door leading to the stairs going up. This home has good double pane windows and has blown in insulation w/2x6 dimensional lumber outside walls. I spent $1500 on propane each of the last 2 years for heat only.

Is this a close guide? I have been looking at the englander 13x medium size stove that puts out 60k btu!? The BTU thing is what is causing me problems. I don't want to keep the stove choked down and spew emissions nor do I want to overfire the stove to stay warm when the outside temp hits 0. Any suggestions?

Thanks

Tony

PS - I also been looking at the Sedore. Anyone have real world results with this stove?

Sorry to revive an old thread, but this is a common question, and there is an easy answer -- estimate heat loss by looking at your gas (or oil) bill. Fuel goes into the house, and heat goes out. The BTU content of the fuel is known (or easily found). The number of days between the meter readings is known. Hence, your BTU use per average winter day over the billing cycle can be found by simply dividing.

Want to get fancier? Consider making a few adjustments before dividing. First you might deduct something for gas used for non-heat uses, like domestic hot water, cook stove, gas drier. Look at a summertime bill to get some idea of this. Next you should probably knock down your estimate of BTUs used to allow for the efficiency of your heating system, because the amount of BTUs you bought isn't necessarily the amount you lost directly through the heated air of the house. Some was lost up the stack of your boiler through "inefficiency". I figure my 10 year old oil-fired boiler is 75% efficient, but your gas system is probably much better than this.

If you make these estimates with reasonable accuracy, you can arrive at a real-world average daily BTU requirement for your household for, say, the month of January, simply by looking a few old gas bills and punching a few keys on the calculator. Want to get even fancier? Google up the heating degree day history for your region over the billing period and you could come up with a BTU-per-degree day rate. With this, you can model the heat loss on a very cold day, if that's of interest in sizing your stove.

Or you could just buy a big stove like everybody says...