Cookstove -- new or old?

[old greybeard]

We have a old Roberts and Mander propane/coal cookstove. Have never hooked a pipe up to it as we just use the propane. But I bet it would throw some heat with a small load of anthracite.
Best propane burners I’ve ever used, able to make fine gas adjustments. Wonder if these are in demand.

 

[Max W]

There's an easy way to shorten the list of acceptable wood burning cookstoves, do you need homeowner's insurance? If so, then only look at UL approved cookstoves. If you don't need homeowners insurance, there is a larger market.

Unfortunately there are not many wood burning cookstoves that will put out heat all night. If your house is well insulated this doesn't matter. I used to think an "overnight burn" was a big deal, but BTU's are BTU's. Size the cookstove to what your home needs to stay warm in the winter, not to a specified burn time. It's also going to be primarily a cooking appliance, so you have to ask yourself if absolute high output is really worth it. Do you want something that can heat your house or do you want something that can cook a good meal? To me a giant cookstove was counterintuitive, I want to use the cookstove as much as possibqle, and a larger stove is harder to use in milder weather. We just light our other stove when the weather gets really cold, just like @Morso1bo[/USER
[/QUOTE]
A dedicated cookstove along with a heating one is a fine combination. We had both at our previous house. I had hoped for that when we were redoing the 1850’s farmhouse that we moved down to. It’s not a large house and we just didn’t have the space. We put in a min split instead which turned out to be a good choice. That leaves us with our Waterford Stanley, a very good cookstove. It has a firebox much larger than our previous Atlantic cookstove but still only a little above a cubic foot. You could say it’s matched for the btu’s we need, but just barely. We live on one floor year round and mostly block heat going upstairs during the winter. Still we have to work the Waterford pretty hard in cold snaps. Of course it seems we are getting less of those. I’ve looked into larger capacity cookstoves and at heating stoves but guess we will stay with what we know and do enjoy.

 

[3650]

To go with the 57 Chevy analogy, the goal with an "antique home" is not to restore it as much as "restomod" it where the home retains the external looks while performing like a modern home. For an example, many homes of that vintage in VT are sitting on granite or rubble rock wall foundations with no perimeter drainage. Therefore, the basements are wet several months of the year which means that the basement has to have good ventilation. That means a cold first floor. So, jack up the house, and dig underneath it (if its capable of being dug) then pour a new foundation faced with granite above ground with perimeter drainage. Thats 40 to 50K. Odds are there will be sill replacements needed. Now that the house is sitting on proper foundation. Now either upgrade the single pane windows to architectural double panes or maybe have the existing windows switched over to double pane lights. Then rework the sides of the windows to put in new sliding tracks and remove the old window weights and insulate the pockets. The cost to upgrade the old windows compared to replacement is usually double to triple. Plan on 1K per window for restore, less for replace. My guess is 20 windows for full two story, 14 for a cape. Now pump the walls full of foam by removing exterior shingles of clapboards and drilling holes. Figure 30K. Now retrofit the attic with upgraded insulation after dealing with the usual sins of ventilation from bathrooms. Plan on new custom sized architectural doors to match the building 5K as the old ones probably leak lots of air. There will also need to be trim repair and upgrade to keep critters out, New screened soffits and gable end vents. Plan on new roof membrane and plan on finding rot in the sheathing underneath. Oh by the way, everything has layers of lead paint so that adds to the cost. Plan on year if the house is vacant.

Add it all up and the cost and hassle is going to exceed the cost to build a new "boring" modern building. VT has more than few rural towns where the coast for the rehab is never going to be made back unless the location is something special and an out of stater picks it up.

Try burning anthracite coal in your cookstove. You may be surprised at how long you can burn between loading and how much heat will build up from those long burns. Heat a house? No. Help heat a house? Yep.

 

[bholler]

Try burning anthracite coal in your cookstove. You may be surprised at how long you can burn between loading and how much heat will build up from those long burns. Heat a house? No. Help heat a house? Yep.

Only if the stove is designed to burn coal many new ones are not.

 

[Max W]

Somehow I managed to paste my post above into quotes. My stove

Only if the stove is designed to burn coal many new ones are not.

My Waterford cookstove is likely from the seventies or before and unlike other W S s I’ve seen is actually able to burn coal. The plate on front says wood stove but I think it may have multi-fuel grates and liners. I know Waterford did make those. There are three grates designed be turned. I never have tried. The spaces in between the forks are small enough so that it is easy to build up ash and coals unlike some coal grates.

In answer to 3650, (I somehow managed to paste my above post into the quote section, out of sight.) Thank you for your suggestion. I could get more heat from coal and have more cushion with the same small firebox. Still, I will happily accept the btu difference of wood . I am able to be home and feed the fire, have a very good set up for storing and burning wood, have easy access to it and while it might sound odd I feel a connection to wood. Whether through the bit of logging I’ve done, time in the woods or the cords I’ve cut split and carried, it just feels like it’s a small piece of who I am.

 

[peakbagger]

Try burning anthracite coal in your cookstove. You may be surprised at how long you can burn between loading and how much heat will build up from those long burns. Heat a house? No. Help heat a house? Yep.

My guess is if someone were to try to burn coal in ultra green Vermont they would be run out the state

My Jotul 404 came with parts to burn coal but the US manual does not show them or given any mention of how to do it.

 

[SpaceBus]

My guess is if someone were to try to burn coal in ultra green Vermont they would be run out the state

My Jotul 404 came with parts to burn coal but the US manual does not show them or given any mention of how to do it.

My 2b Classic is designed to burn coal, even has a shaker. The bottom air has been forced closed on US models, but it wouldn't take much to make it work. I don't think I ever will, but nice to have the option. My cookstove is rated for coal, but no shakers makes it a non option for me. It might do well with the European compressed coal dust products, since they burn more like wood and might not need the shakers.

 

[Piney]

I need to begin with a rant. How many similar vintage capes and farmhouses are there in VT in similar condition? I have run into many over the years and they inevitably are poorly insulated "barns". A few will have modern additions where the family can take refuge but the main part of the house with a hacked in bathroom seem to kept as a museum to cheap fuel, frozen pipes and drafts. The problem seems to be that the various owners over the years decide that to fix them right is going to be far more expensive then to just sell it to someone else as a summer place or to someone who thinks they are buying a classic. Yes I appreciate exposed beams, wide pine floors and wainscoting but they leave legacy of tenants and buyers who have the death by a thousand cuts buying fuel of some sort to keep them above freezing. I remember one such place that a tenant was renting where she got 8 cords of wood to feed a wood furnace in the basement with a grate in the main floor and still nearly went broke buying 1000 gallons of oil on top of that. It wasnt unusual that the water would freeze in the toilet in the early morning after the fires inevitably went out. It also came with the usual cast of raccoons in the attic. It also seemed to be the tradition that the 8 cords of wood was cut green and delivered in the fall at the last minute so the only way the wood would burn would be full out with a smoke dragon. At best the effective heat output of the wood was 50%, the rest of the heat formed creosote in the chimney and the valley the villages these homes were in inevitably stunk of poorly combusted wood in winter. My mom grew up in similar farmhouse in Quebec in the 1930s and the truth of homes of that era pre-plumbing was that they were not designed to stay above freezing 24/7. The family warmed them up at night went to bed and warmed them up again in the morning. There was no plumbing so if it dropped below freezing at some point in the night it wasnt an issue. Adding plumbing meant that it had to be kept heated 24/7 or the lines needed to be heat traced.

Wood cookstoves are not designed for heating. Their efficiency is abysmal, and they are not designed for a long burn. It is just the wrong tool for the job. Inherently if a heat load calculation is done you need a high output wood stove or multiple stoves fed with dry wood. Dry wood is cut and split hardwood that has dried 24 months properly stacked and covered in sunny spot with breeze. The new EPA wood stoves will just not run right with damp wood. Yes, wood cook stoves are exempt from EPA regs as they are a cooking appliance. That doesn't mean they defy the laws of physics it just means they fit through a loophole.

One good thing about VT is there are enough of these homes of this vintage that there are various agencies and third party organizations who exist to try to tame the energy use of these homes. They are quite familiar with short term fixes to make the structures a bit tighter, and they usually have lots of subsidy money. Its a case of pay them up front and hopefully get a subsidy or wish and hope that you qualify for home heating subsidies. The down side is the fixes tend to be temporary, spray foam is neat stuff but the racoons, red squirrels and the mice will tear it up in few years.

If you insist on a wood cookstove you need a workhorse. The Amish built plate steel wood cookstoves are the cheapest and still probably exceed your desired budget. They are functional and bare bones, some complete with weld spatter. I think Pioneer and Bakers Choice are two brands. I think most are direct sold within Amish and Menonite sources, but Lehman's has always mainstreamed them albeit with hefty markup up and expensive shipping. My guess is with high fuel costs, they are long since sold out for this winter.

An older fireplace insert is better than a fireplace but not much. Ideally you need to build a legal stove pad with proper clearances , seal off the insert and drop a good size wood stove in front of it. That is going to up you usably output considerably. The early VC Defiants were designed for homes like these and they worked well if they were fed dry wood.

Sorry to lay it out but I have heard similar stories for years with folks who move up to rural VT who fall in love with these old places and have a rude awakening for several winters. Most of them eventually figure it out and the usual approach is sell and move up to a newer home or burn their house down with a chimney fire and hope they have adequate insurance and build new with the insurance check.

This is true. Best bang for the buck is a bit by bit removal of siding and interior cladding, add what wraps, insulation and vapour barriers are required then replace the siding and interior cladding. Seal the windows when you have access. We did that with one wall in one room at a time. We did higher areas first. But before that do the roof.
It will only take a few years.

 

[Piney]

FWIW we cook on a 1921 Great Majestic. In time you master it to get heat but save fuel (or your mom teaches you as her mom taught her and her mom before her because great grandma infuriated great grandpa by ordering it through the mails and using seed money to cover the freight from the factory). It is coal and wood ready but we can’t easily get coal. If our house were a 500sq foot cabin we could heat it handily with it - even when it’s -40. Conveniently the cook stove can even be loaded only every 2-3 hours once you master it.
But 45 minutes to just over an hour is also normal. Especially for helpful guests who want to do the feeding but aren’t familiar with how it works best. That said, someone is always here to regularly feed it but our house is about 2500sq feet so it only ‘helps’. Some nearby ranches have bought brand new stoves over the past few years and report excellent heat out put, efficient (and large) fireboxes and 4-6 hour burns. The new stoves strike them as vastly better than the old ones.
But they are still no way to heat a detached home in a cold or wet location. Great supplemental heat though. Ymmv

 

[BVB]

Cookstoves certainly are designed for home heating as well as stove top cooking and baking. Many heat up to 3000 and 3500 square feet.

The Amish stoves have no “weld spatter” and use secondary burn technology. Most are painted shields with baked on enamel. They are laser cut and machine welded.

The Heco brand comes with a coal grate that can be added if coal is desirable. Their larger size heats up to 3500 sf.

The cheaper brands from Suppertime have been made of gauge steel for quite some time, not as heavy duty as the Kitchen Queen, but very popular.

The largest water heating tank is on the Queen, with or without using the add on stainless steel 3/4 pipe coil in firebox. If this is not the only hot water used in the home, it is not necessary and advised against using the firebox mounted coil due to over humidification when not using enough hot water. This tank holds 24 gallons.

Smaller stoves not made for home heating such as the Tim Sistem have very close clearances, but are not for space heating.

Check out the Grand Comfort 750 by Kitchen Queen that has been improved over the years from the original 480. Secondary burn, thermostat, front oven clean out;


Another advantage of some Amish built stoves is the door gasket used is the flat type. It is installed into a slot instead of using cement. It can be replaced hot or cold unlike any other stoves that need to be cold to service gaskets.

Coaly, I've appreciated your thoughts as I've read through the forum. I hear that you are extremely happy with your 480. If you were to do it again right now, would you do the 750 or the 480 again? I have a smaller kitchen so am looking at the 550, but it's difficult to find much info/reviews online! I'd love to be as happy with my choice as you are!

 

[coaly]

Coaly, I've appreciated your thoughts as I've read through the forum. I hear that you are extremely happy with your 480. If you were to do it again right now, would you do the 750 or the 480 again? I have a smaller kitchen so am looking at the 550, but it's difficult to find much info/reviews online! I'd love to be as happy with my choice as you are!

750 Grand Comfort without a doubt. Mainly due to secondary burn tech in the newer model.

If I wasn’t capable of adding secondary tubes to my 480 I would consider moving the nearly 1000# stove and changing to the new model.

The older stoves have a few things that have gone away, such as stainless steel used for entire oven, and 7 inch outlet that puts the connector pipe very close to water tank on both sides of the pipe. This allows the warm tank after the stove had been out for 2 days to warm the pipe assuring an instant draft when lighting, and the heat radiated from pipe adds to water heating. The newer 6 inch pipe has more clearance to tank, so would lose some of that capability.

The front oven clean out is a must for some installations. Mine is in the center of kitchen with accessible back. I couldn’t imagine cleaning the oven passageway or even removing the cover on the rear of the olde models close to a wall.

I can live without glass doors, but a nesting type lid over firebox is absolutely necessary on any of these stoves for me. Only larger pans fit over the open eye, a #8 pan sits down in the opening and is the smallest to use over direct heat contact. No kettles or coffee pots set over the 10 inch opening. Even a lid with removable center would work with a 6 inch opening. I’ve put off talking to Duane about it too long. He may have something being used for Amish families, not advertised since UL Listing is so critical for non-Amish users. He was adding thermostats long before they became available to non-Amish that needed the UL Listing.

 

[BVB]

750 Grand Comfort without a doubt. Mainly due to secondary burn tech in the newer model.

If I wasn’t capable of adding secondary tubes to my 480 I would consider moving the nearly 1000# stove and changing to the new model.

The older stoves have a few things that have gone away, such as stainless steel used for entire oven, and 7 inch outlet that puts the connector pipe very close to water tank on both sides of the pipe. This allows the warm tank after the stove had been out for 2 days to warm the pipe assuring an instant draft when lighting, and the heat radiated from pipe adds to water heating. The newer 6 inch pipe has more clearance to tank, so would lose some of that capability.

The front oven clean out is a must for some installations. Mine is in the center of kitchen with accessible back. I couldn’t imagine cleaning the oven passageway or even removing the cover on the rear of the olde models close to a wall.

I can live without glass doors, but a nesting type lid over firebox is absolutely necessary on any of these stoves for me. Only larger pans fit over the open eye, a #8 pan sits down in the opening and is the smallest to use over direct heat contact. No kettles or coffee pots set over the 10 inch opening. Even a lid with removable center would work with a 6 inch opening. I’ve put off talking to Duane about it too long. He may have something being used for Amish families, not advertised since UL Listing is so critical for non-Amish users. He was adding thermostats long before they became available to non-Amish that needed the UL Listing.

Thank you so much, Coaly! Your thoughts and insights are so valuable! I am trying to learn about woodstoves from a base of 0, and I greatly appreciate your thoughts as someone more seasoned with much more experience! Thank you so much for all of these thoughts!

 

[Max W]

750 Grand Comfort without a doubt. Mainly due to secondary burn tech in the newer model.

If I wasn’t capable of adding secondary tubes to my 480 I would consider moving the nearly 1000# stove and changing to the new model.

The older stoves have a few things that have gone away, such as stainless steel used for entire oven, and 7 inch outlet that puts the connector pipe very close to water tank on both sides of the pipe. This allows the warm tank after the stove had been out for 2 days to warm the pipe assuring an instant draft when lighting, and the heat radiated from pipe adds to water heating. The newer 6 inch pipe has more clearance to tank, so would lose some of that capability.

The front oven clean out is a must for some installations. Mine is in the center of kitchen with accessible back. I couldn’t imagine cleaning the oven passageway or even removing the cover on the rear of the olde models close to a wall.

I can live without glass doors, but a nesting type lid over firebox is absolutely necessary on any of these stoves for me. Only larger pans fit over the open eye, a #8 pan sits down in the opening and is the smallest to use over direct heat contact. No kettles or coffee pots set over the 10 inch opening. Even a lid with removable center would work with a 6 inch opening. I’ve put off talking to Duane about it too long. He may have something being used for Amish families, not advertised since UL Listing is so critical for non-Amish users. He was adding thermostats long before they became available to non-Amish that needed the UL Listing.

I guess I have been missing something. It’s clear you highly value a lid to allow direct heat cooking. I have never felt that I needed any more heat than the stove top gave and why deal with a blackened pot or pan. As I think about it, it can help for cooking in summer where a small hot fire directly under a pan could save putting more heat into the house. I suspect it it is a lot more than this for you. With our Princess Atlantic I just used one of the lid openings over the firebox to add wood. (Great little cooking stove that my wife used to bake bread for our family almost every other day for seven years). Our present Waterford has a hinged rectangular plate over the firebox. I had been wondering about the purpose of lids beyond cleaning the passage. What have I been missing?

 

[coaly]

I guess I have been missing something. It’s clear you highly value a lid to allow direct heat cooking. I have never felt that I needed any more heat than the stove top gave and why deal with a blackened pot or pan. As I think about it, it can help for cooking in summer where a small hot fire directly under a pan could save putting more heat into the house. I suspect it it is a lot more than this for you. With our Princess Atlantic I just used one of the lid openings over the firebox to add wood. (Great little cooking stove that my wife used to bake bread for our family almost every other day for seven years). Our present Waterford has a hinged rectangular plate over the firebox. I had been wondering about the purpose of lids beyond cleaning the passage. What have I been missing? Pans set over the oven are simmer temps, stove top is medium heat, lids removed is high.

When you remove the lid I never get black or carbon on the pan bottom. It takes twice as long to cook on a stove top without removing lids. If you want to sear meats quickly, you need more heat than a stove top gives you. You also need to bring the temp of the entire stove up to cook on the top without removing lid. Opening the lid gets you much more heat direct to the pan quickly, even while the stove is just starting. We are spoiled with a Garland Commercial gas range in the kitchen which has large star burners and grates that hold larger pans. A commercial range cooks fast with much more btu and cooking on top of a stove top is slower than a smaller residential gas range.

If you cook bacon in a large skillet, it takes a long time, so you remove the eye over firebox and this will get it sizzling very quickly. It can become too hot easily, remove it from open lid as smoke starts. About half way done I set it on the closed lid to finish with medium heat. It will cook food so fast you need to stay with it, keep turning more like wok cooking. With a lid removed a wok also sets in the opening just right.

Older pans have what is called a smoke ring on the bottom. This seals to the stove top better than pans without. Pans without the ring are not flat right out to the edge where radius starts. So they let a little air in around them causing the fire to burn a bit hotter, so you will have to compensate by closing the air more with a lid removed without the correct pans.

If you want to boil water, it takes much longer than a gas stove on a a solid stove top. There is not much difference cooking on a heating stove top compared to a cookstove top without removing lids. Removing the lid you will find it boils in a fraction of the time. Using a nest of lids, you remove as many from the center out as needed for the exact amount of heat you want.



You can’t do much canning on a cookstove without removing lids. It will get far too hot in the house doing a lot of canning and even warps stove tops.

We do have a summer grate. A brisk fire with kindling and just a few pieces of wood less than 2 inch diameter will cook breakfast over an open lid without heating the stove. As soon as cooking is done, open bypass into chimney, stove doesn’t heat up.

We have antique waffle irons, and you want them over an open lid. If you pour oil on them, flip over to preheat, when you open it the oil runs onto the hot stove top. Over the opening it drips into fire without flaring up in your face on the stove top. Make sure you use irons for wood stoves, not gas. The support ring for gas is much higher and will not heat being raised on a wood stove. You will need the correct size nesting lid removed for this. A Griswold 8 takes a smaller opening than the Queen lids.

You can’t get flat griddles anymore for a flat cooktop stove. They all have a lip around the edge to keep centered on conventional burners. Using a newer griddle on a flat stove top raises the griddle so you have no direct contact with stove top like the antique type that lay flat. So the new ones you will need to open the lid to cook anything.

These stoves are also used for heating water for bathing, and washing dishes. You can’t heat 5 gallons of water without waiting hours on a stove top. We have the 25 gallon cistern with plenty of hot water, but larger families use both cistern and wash tubs. That is the reason for the double lids with the Y center piece that removes from antique stoves. Removing two lids and the support fits the bottom of a copper laundry tub.

There are 3 factors for cleaning. 1; soap or chemicals, 2; heat 3; agitation. If you reduce one, you need to increase one of the others. Less soap, more agitation, less agitation, more heat.
Soap is difficult and time consuming to make. Agitation was by hand, so it is easier to use hotter water, and was the reason for boiling clothes. Now you know why stoves have the two eyes with the center support that has a lifter recess, to remove when hot to do your laundry. And why it’s called a laundry boiler.

I’m going to set a large pan over an open lid and put a quart of water in it. And set a pan on the stove top next to it with a quart of water in it at the same time. I’ll report back with the time it takes them to boil. It will have to be after the stove top is up to temp, since it would not be a fair comparison setting a pan over the open hole after starting a fire with a cool stove. That is what you have in the morning if you want to make coffee or tea, you have to wait for the stove to heat, or remove a lid for instant heat. Coffee or tea is done before stove is hot enough to boil water.

 

[Max W]

When you remove the lid I never get black or carbon on the pan bottom. It takes twice as long to cook on a stove top without removing lids. If you want to sear meats quickly, you need more heat than a stove top gives you. You also need to bring the temp of the entire stove up to cook on the top without removing lid. Opening the lid gets you much more heat direct to the pan quickly, even while the stove is just starting. We are spoiled with a Garland Commercial gas range in the kitchen which has large star burners and grates that hold larger pans. A commercial range cooks fast with much more btu and cooking on top of a stove top is slower than a smaller residential gas range.

If you cook bacon in a large skillet, it takes a long time, so you remove the eye over firebox and this will get it sizzling very quickly. It can become too hot easily, remove it from open lid as smoke starts. About half way done I set it on the closed lid to finish with medium heat. It will cook food so fast you need to stay with it, keep turning more like wok cooking. With a lid removed a wok also sets in the opening just right.

Older pans have what is called a smoke ring on the bottom. This seals to the stove top better than pans without. Pans without the ring are not flat right out to the edge where radius starts. So they let a little air in around them causing the fire to burn a bit hotter, so you will have to compensate by closing the air more with a lid removed without the correct pans.

If you want to boil water, it takes much longer than a gas stove on a a solid stove top. There is not much difference cooking on a heating stove top compared to a cookstove top without removing lids. Removing the lid you will find it boils in a fraction of the time. Using a nest of lids, you remove as many from the center out as needed for the exact amount of heat you want.

View attachment 294210

You can’t do much canning on a cookstove without removing lids. It will get far too hot in the house doing a lot of canning and even warps stove tops.

We do have a summer grate. A brisk fire with kindling and just a few pieces of wood less than 2 inch diameter will cook breakfast over an open lid without heating the stove. As soon as cooking is done, open bypass into chimney, stove doesn’t heat up.

We have antique waffle irons, and you want them over an open lid. If you pour oil on them, flip over to preheat, when you open it the oil runs onto the hot stove top. Over the opening it drips into fire without flaring up in your face on the stove top. Make sure you use irons for wood stoves, not gas. The support ring for gas is much higher and will not heat being raised on a wood stove. You will need the correct size nesting lid removed for this. A Griswold 8 takes a smaller opening than the Queen lids.

You can’t get flat griddles anymore for a flat cooktop stove. They all have a lip around the edge to keep centered on conventional burners. Using a newer griddle on a flat stove top raises the griddle so you have no direct contact with stove top like the antique type that lay flat. So the new ones you will need to open the lid to cook anything.

These stoves are also used for heating water for bathing, and washing dishes. You can’t heat 5 gallons of water without waiting hours on a stove top. We have the 25 gallon cistern with plenty of hot water, but larger families use both cistern and wash tubs. That is the reason for the double lids with the Y center piece that removes from antique stoves. Removing two lids and the support fits the bottom of a copper laundry tub.

There are 3 factors for cleaning. 1; soap or chemicals, 2; heat 3; agitation. If you reduce one, you need to increase one of the others. Less soap, more agitation, less agitation, more heat.
Soap is difficult and time consuming to make. Agitation was by hand, so it is easier to use hotter water, and was the reason for boiling clothes. Now you know why stoves have the two eyes with the center support that has a lifter recess, to remove when hot to do your laundry. And why it’s called a laundry boiler.

I’m going to set a large pan over an open lid and put a quart of water in it. And set a pan on the stove top next to it with a quart of water in it at the same time. I’ll report back with the time it takes them to boil. It will have to be after the stove top is up to temp, since it would not be a fair comparison setting a pan over the open hole after starting a fire with a cool stove. That is what you have in the morning if you want to make coffee or tea, you have to wait for the stove to heat, or remove a lid for instant heat. Coffee or tea is done before stove is hot enough to boil water.

Thanks for the great and detailed explanation of the benefits and the well thought out systems that I wish I had not missed. Makes me a little bit disapointed that our current Waterford Stanley doesn’t have the option to cook directly but then I am retired now and time is in fair supply.

 

[coaly]

Thanks for the great and detailed explanation of the benefits and the well thought out systems that I wish I had not missed. Makes me a little bit disapointed that our current Waterford Stanley doesn’t have the option to cook directly but then I am retired now and time is in fair supply.

I’m retired too, but we have chickens with plentiful eggs and garden for canning. Boiling a dozen eggs on the stove top when not in a hurry is fine, but getting home and wanting to eat, sometimes the faster the better.

At 4 PM it hit 64 in the rear bedroom, and it’s 23*f outside, so started the fire. At 4:15 it was established with 550* stove top temp.
Water was 63.5*. We keep large bottles filled for watering outside animals and in case of power failure, so the test water is all the same temp.

To use the same area at lid, I poured 1 quart of water in pan and timed on stove top to boil. After the test, I dumped hot water, cooled pan with water bottle, and emptied to measure a quart of the same 63.5* water. Removed lid, timed to boiling. Here are the results;
No lid —————- with lid
130 2 minutes 100
140 3 min. 108
155 4 min. 117
163 5 min. 130
172 6 min. 137
180 7 min. 142
185 8 min. 147
190 9 min. 150
195 10 min. 160
200 11 min. 168
210 12 min. Boil 174
The stove top was still 550* but on top of lid it only gained a couple degrees per minute from 12 to 20 minutes. Very slow getting to boil, so I think it needs to be covered when losing steam to boil. The old saying a watched pot never boils might be true on the stove top!

The pot is an all stainless steamer. You will find the pan construction makes a huge difference. We use anodized aluminum fry pan by All-Clad. Copper bottom pots for soups are much faster than stainless only. And our crazy expensive stuff is All-Clad copper bottom with aluminum core. We do use cast iron for most everyday cooking, only because I collect it, and have it. The newer high tech stuff is quicker with less mass to heat. But some things you want the more gentle heat from cast, so it depends, one excels over another for different uses.

Bottom line we can boil water in 12 minutes with open lid. Possibly 25 minutes to half hour stove top. Bedroom went from 64 to 68 during this test. This is the only heat source.

We load through the top lid. Dump paper and cardboard in, toss kindling from top without placing it carefully and put 3 or 4 small splits on top. Light it with thermostat open which is under air, and fire is established in minutes. Easiest stove we have had.

 

[SpaceBus]

Modern cookstoves get past this quick heat up problem by compromising with a ceramic glass top. It heats up faster than steel or iron, but not as fast as direct flame contact. If I need to boil water in a hurry I'm using an electric kettle, but my cookstove at full blast is a bit faster than the electric range.

 

[Max W]

I’m retired too, but we have chickens with plentiful eggs and garden for canning. Boiling a dozen eggs on the stove top when not in a hurry is fine, but getting home and wanting to eat, sometimes the faster the better.

At 4 PM it hit 64 in the rear bedroom, and it’s 23*f outside, so started the fire. At 4:15 it was established with 550* stove top temp.
Water was 63.5*. We keep large bottles filled for watering outside animals and in case of power failure, so the test water is all the same temp.

To use the same area at lid, I poured 1 quart of water in pan and timed on stove top to boil. After the test, I dumped hot water, cooled pan with water bottle, and emptied to measure a quart of the same 63.5* water. Removed lid, timed to boiling. Here are the results;
No lid —————- with lid
130 2 minutes 100
140 3 min. 108
155 4 min. 117
163 5 min. 130
172 6 min. 137
180 7 min. 142
185 8 min. 147
190 9 min. 150
195 10 min. 160
200 11 min. 168
210 12 min. Boil 174
The stove top was still 550* but on top of lid it only gained a couple degrees per minute from 12 to 20 minutes. Very slow getting to boil, so I think it needs to be covered when losing steam to boil. The old saying a watched pot never boils might be true on the stove top!

The pot is an all stainless steamer. You will find the pan construction makes a huge difference. We use anodized aluminum fry pan by All-Clad. Copper bottom pots for soups are much faster than stainless only. And our crazy expensive stuff is All-Clad copper bottom with aluminum core. We do use cast iron for most everyday cooking, only because I collect it, and have it. The newer high tech stuff is quicker with less mass to heat. But some things you want the more gentle heat from cast, so it depends, one excels over another for different uses.

Bottom line we can boil water in 12 minutes with open lid. Possibly 25 minutes to half hour stove top. Bedroom went from 64 to 68 during this test. This is the only heat source.

We load through the top lid. Dump paper and cardboard in, toss kindling from top without placing it carefully and put 3 or 4 small splits on top. Light it with thermostat open which is under air, and fire is established in minutes. Easiest stove we have had.

Despite my intention It wasn’t apples to apples but timing water to boiling left me feeling satisfied with the old Stanley and reinforced my cooking experience with this stove. I started with water at 62.6, close enough to 63.5 without making much fuss. Unfortunately I measured with a quart mason jar and filled it to the neck and not to the very brim. Should have known better. Double checking the jar later I found it was 28 not 32 oz.. 7/8th of a quart. Water was in a three quart stainless pot with a good flat surface and no cover used. Using a pot with a larger surface area obviously speeds heat transfer.


The spring Inferno brand stove top gauge read 550 when I started and the temp held steady. It was in it’s usual spot, when not in the way of cooking, next to the hinged rectangular plate that covers the firebox front to back. Here is where this stove may be different. The large cover plate is not thick. This allows very good and faster transfer. It gets it’s strength from ribs spaced under its length. It’s likely not as good as ceramic or as surely not fast as direct flame but pretty efficient from all I can see. Designed this way the plate seems to run up to 75 degrees hotter than the nearby stove top.

Keeping in mind the differences this is what I got. At 11 minutes the temp topped out at 109 degrees. The 28 ounces of water was boiling rapidly. I waited for it to go to 112 and kept the thermometer in the water. It would not rise above the 109 reading.

We learned and are still learning about using and cooking on our cookstoves, previous and present. This was mostly by trial and error and by somewhat common sense and without the guidance or knowledge of previous generations. I enjoy the chance to expand that understanding of these kinds of stoves, old and new, and fill in some gaps.

edit: I wonder if the ribs under the plate might intensify the heat.

 

[coaly]

Yes, that gives it a lot of surface area to conduct heat. Being cast iron it also moves heat faster than steel plate. My top and lids are steel plate.

The lid runs about 50* hotter than stove top. It is the same thickness. If I could remove a 3 inch lid, and 6 inch lid it would be perfect. We can only remove the entire 11 inch lid. I’ll make a round flat plate to be able to remove the lid and set the ring in place to adjust the opening smaller. 6 inch opening will support an 8 inch kettle just right.

 

[River]

My Waterford cookstove is likely from the seventies or before

Max,

I am sorry, I am way behind the 8-ball, here, but I wondered what information you have to date your Waterford cookstove. I have one I would like to date, but there seems to be very little information "out there" on which to base an estimate.

Thanks!

 

[Max W]

Max,

I am sorry, I am way behind the 8-ball, here, but I wondered what information you have to date your Waterford cookstove. I have one I would like to date, but there seems to be very little information "out there" on which to base an estimate.

Thanks!

I wish I had a way to share that would help you figure the age of your stove. How do you / will you be using the stove and how is the lack of time of manufacture causing difficulty?

I can guess the age of our stove based on the time these cookstoves were sold by a small dealer in the 70’s in the area where I bought the stove. I bought mine used maybe 15 years ago. I would not have had a chance to convince my wife to part with her beloved Atlantic Princess that we bought in 1973 except the Waterford was built in Ireland.

 

[River]

I wish I had a way to share that would help you figure the age of your stove. How do you / will you be using the stove and how is the lack of time of manufacture causing difficulty?

No difficulty -- just natural curiosity. I have put a lot of time and money into this stove, and knowing its age might add to my satisfaction (or not).

I purchased this stove six years ago and have been working on it on and off (mostly off, until very recently) since. I am just about finished with a fairly major overhaul.

I can guess the age of our stove based on the time these cookstoves were sold by a small dealer in the 70’s in the area where I bought the stove. I bought mine used maybe 15 years ago.

That is the kind of information I was seeking because I don't have the benefit of experience such as yours (i.e. "a small dealer in the 70’s"). I had been going by this brochure, apparently published in 2013, which says the Waterford Stanley cookstoves were "...first sold in North America over 30 years ago..." If I have the publication date correct, it dates the first importations to the U.S. to earlier than 1983. Of course "the seventies" are earlier than 1983, but that's not how marketing people think. I suspect, if it had been closer to 35 years ago, they would have said that: "nearly 35 years ago," rather than "over 30 years ago." Anyway, if I were in marketing, that's the way I would see it. So, given all the "ifs" and conjectures, and considering only this brochure, that would suggest Stanley might have begun importation sometime after 1980.

So, that is (largely) the basis for my attempts at estimating the age of my stove, but that does not factor in your experience. So I appreciate knowing what you wrote, above. Thank you for your input.