Choosing the Correct Wood Stove for 750 sqft Home in Alaska

[begreen]

The concern we all have is this statement:
We like it chillier than most indoors, 55-60F range is ideal; anything hotter and we are miserable.
At that temp, my wife would be heading to the nearest hotel.

How much do you use downstairs where the pellet stove is? What temp does the pellet stove maintain downstairs at say 0ºF?

I ask because if the downstairs is just a little used, but it has to maintain 75º downstairs for upstairs to be at 60º, then backing off on the pellet stove output to maintain 50º downstairs could make a small stove upstairs more feasible. Otherwise I would be looking at the worst case scenario for a power outage and get a battery bank (or generator fuel) that can cover that time period. You could install a Tesla wall now and connect it to the solar in the future to do this.

 

[ChristyInAK]

I'm sure you have good reasons to want what you want where you want it, but I'll say that I have a similar setup to yours, where I'm not downstairs much, but having my wood furnace downstairs is not a problem, at least when I'm not nursing a leg injury. I haven't owned one (yet, maybe), but from what I read of those who do, putting a BK King or the like downstairs would be similar to my situation. You fill it up every 12, 24, or 48, or whatever it takes, set the thermostatically controlled burn rate, and come back when you know it's going to need reloaded. Not much interaction required.

While my furnace downstairs chugs away taking care of the baseline heating, my desire (that I haven't worked out yet) is for a more adjustable form of heat upstairs. Similar to you, my house is usually 60 degrees +/- 3 degrees year-round. It would be nice to be able to have a little shot of heat in the master bedroom or living room for an hour or two in the morning or evening, when there's large daily temp swings, or when you stumble in damp or half frozen, especially radiant heat. I have the same fear as you that even the lowest btu output wood stove would often be too much heat, or too long of a heat source in the upstairs supplemental role. I currently have a fireplace type stove in my living room that's pretty, but it's just too much unless it's seriously sub-zero, and repeated fire starts get to be a pain. A pellet stove would do much better in that role, I think (if you could tolerate the noise - I couldn't), or pretty much any fuel other than wood.

In my case, a propane stove in the living room and bedroom would probably be ideal - I just can't get past the propane part.

Just something to think about, and again, I'm sure you have your reasons, that you certainly don't have to defend to me, but from what I've read, I'd be thinking about moving the pellet stove upstairs (if you could tolerate it there), and putting in a large capacity, but very controllable stove like a King downstairs to handle the main load.

Thanks for the input! We do have a few reasons for wanting the pellet stove downstairs, which honestly will probably make more sense when we get to a more "finished" house state. It's a process, ha! But at the top of that list is stable heat to keep our water lines from freezing. The thing we like about pellets is the consistent burn rate/ pellet feed rate. We know how often we have to fill the hopper, based on the setting we have it on. It's totally possible I don't understand the reliability of a BK, but having a wood stove fire go out in super cold temps when we're unaware of it, could potentially lead to a disaster.

I'm with you, I don't think I'd love the sounds of a pellet stove upstairs. We do have the option of oil here (not propane due to the low temps we get). But we don't love the "feel" of oil heat, we don't want the maintenance of operating an oil heating device regularly, and heating oil is crazy expensive here!

I do hope you find a solution that works well for your situation! It's definitely a learning experience, that's for sure!

 

[ChristyInAK]

The concern we all have is this statement:
We like it chillier than most indoors, 55-60F range is ideal; anything hotter and we are miserable.
At that temp, my wife would be heading to the nearest hotel.

How much do you use downstairs where the pellet stove is? What temp does the pellet stove maintain downstairs at say 0ºF?

I ask because if the downstairs is just a little used, but it has to maintain 75º downstairs for upstairs to be at 60º, then backing off on the pellet stove output to maintain 50º downstairs could make a small stove upstairs more feasible. Otherwise I would be looking at the worst case scenario for a power outage and get a battery bank (or generator fuel) that can cover that time period. You could install a Tesla wall now and connect it to the solar in the future to do this.

Haha! We get that a lot! A lot of folks here like to keep their houses in the 70-80F range, and we get lots of odd looks when we say we like it cooler!

Downstairs is technically a garage - though unfinished, and we don't park our cars in it yet (we may never, but that's a different story). When it IS finished, and sealed off, and all of that, then we'd really just need to keep it slightly above freezing for the water lines in to not freeze. We have a pantry down there, extra storage, outdoor gear, washer/dryer, etc. We don't spend a lot of time downstairs, unless we're working on a house project.

I don't think we've ever been that hot downstairs, at least not in winter! We're right around 0F outside right now, and the garage temp is around 50F. That's a great idea - we'll do some looking into a Tesla wall!

 

[BKVP]

Make sure you have enough wood up! Sellers usually sell wood on the green side and cat stoves are more sensitive to wetter wood than non cat stoves!

Wood cutters/sellers in FNSB are regulated! They must be registered and prove the wood is what level of preparedness to burn they claim. All part of the efforts to help reduce PM in the serious nonattainment area. And ADEC is now practicing contriction of choice. They placed into state law a new metric to reduce consumer choice on EPA 2020 clean burning stoves.

Emissions are based upon weighted averages from a specific number of test runs. Added to the 2015 EPA test methods was a requirement to pull the filter after the first hour. This was added to satisfy claims by a New England agency of PM potentially escaping the filter if not changed until test run was completed.

ADEC has used the first hour filter "catch" metric to eliminate stoves. Not just any stoves, but dozens and dozens of stoves that have 50% or less of the overall PM EPA passing grade. So if the EPA standard is 2.0 g/hr and stoves' test results are below that, it doesn't matter if in the first hour the filter catch was greater than 6 g/hr. Everyone knows the first hour is the most challenging dealing with moisture in the fuel. Burning cordwood, an unmetered fuel, has great variability.

ADEC does not acknowledge any benefit to the remaining many hours of life sustaining heat. They believe interior wood burners have cold starts on every single load, just like the EPA test runs. This new list of ADEC approved stoves is referred to as the "Alaska List".....coming to the town near you!

Lastly to the OP, the even heat output of your pellet stove satisfies your lower level needs. The thermostat in a Princess will do about the same, if that is what you want for the upper floor.

BKVP

 

[BKVP]

I should clarify the purpose of my previous post. Just because a 2020 EPA approved, super clean, tax credit qualifying wood or pellet stove exists, doesn't mean you can own/use it in the serious nonattainment area.

Contributors here at hearth do not necessarily know the complexity of FNSB wood burning requirements. The dealers in Fairbanks will provide specific guidance. Lucky to live outside the area of heavy regulation.