Cookstoves

[Cowboyswife]

I’ve been doing a lot of research on cookstoves recently, as we want to install one for heat and cooking purposes. The first one I came across that I liked was the margin flameview, but I’ve read several things about it that make it sound less attractive than I first thought- about quality/design mostly. The local installers want to sell me a hearthstone deva, but I’m not at all enthused about the glass top.
on reading through some previous posts on here and other research, I came across the JA Roby Cuiseniere (not sure if I spelled that right ) which is made in Canada and available through a local hardware store for what seems like a really decent price. I can’t, however find much for updates or real user feedback in the last few years. I see Obadiah’s still carries them, so I’m guessing they can’t be all that terrible, but is there anyone out there who has one that would be willing to chime in with likes/dislikes? Any other recommendations that are decently easy to get in Canada? We are looking at heating as much as possible of our 1700sqft main floor as well as being able to cook on it. Thanks in advance!

 

[begreen]

I'm not sure what stoves are available in Canada or your area. There are some folks with the Kitchen Queen 480 (@coaly) here that like them and @SpaceBus got a Tim Sistem North Wood Cookstove. @akbear has a Deva 100. The Heartland Oval is a classic design. Search on "cookstove" in this forum, titles only, and you will get several threads on the topic. Here is a discussion comparing the Esse Ironheart and Margin Flameview.

Esse Ironheart vs Margin Flameview cookstoves

We're building a small place in southwest Wisconsin, 500 sq ft with a 2nd floor. Want to get a woodburning stove for cooking as well as heating. Have pretty much narrowed the search down to the Esse Ironheart and the Margin Flameview. Margin is cheaper, but Esse says they have a secondary...

www.hearth.com

 

[peakbagger]

Of course if you want small a footprint, hard to been a Jotul 404. They pop up on occasion despite only being imported around the year 2000.

Update: Stove install - Jotul 404

Thanks for everyone’s input and posting on this site. Truly the best source for my install. Here are some photos to share and hopefully aid someone else in the future. Stove is a Jotul 404. Rear Through wall install and then through soffit. Required custom brackets on exterior. Roof...

www.hearth.com

 

[begreen]

Of course if you want small a footprint, hard to been a Jotul 404. They pop up on occasion despite only being imported around the year 2000.

Update: Stove install - Jotul 404

Thanks for everyone’s input and posting on this site. Truly the best source for my install. Here are some photos to share and hopefully aid someone else in the future. Stove is a Jotul 404. Rear Through wall install and then through soffit. Required custom brackets on exterior. Roof...

www.hearth.com

I can't see heating the house with that little stove.

 

[coaly]

You won’t find a “bad” one, instead of going crazy researching, make a list of your priorities and one will stand out.
Back when I was deciding, I looked at water heating capacity, oven size, material, heating capacity. Now some are using secondary burn and many have glass firebox and oven doors.

I was looking for utility, not fancy looks. I had a cast iron cook stove and a few collectible cast iron stoves that always need parts cast when I find them, so I wanted steel plate. I didn’t want glass doors, since it is my only heat source and can’t have problems with breakage, although rare. Secondary combustion was not available then, so that would be a requirement now. The Amish stoves had everything I needed including reasonable pricing.

Later I found the Kitchen Queen used flat gasket material folded in a slot that uses no cement, never had to replace gasket, but I know it can be done without cooling down stove. It has the largest cistern available, heats the water in tank without the optional coil that could be used for radiant or baseboard in another room. It also has a shovel type ash pan, open in the back like a scoop. I found the bypass that opens into chimney that allows quick starts and dumps heat in spring and fall when done with stove top, prevents heating entire range, without adding more heat to the house when not needed. Those are the things that stand out with use if you have no experience with wood cook stoves.

Another major deciding factor for the Queen was the counter rotating oven flow. Unlike most, the oven control allows flow across oven bottom, up the side and across top. Ovens that circulate across top, down side and across bottom give up so much heat, they condense and can form sticky creosote under the oven. This was a problem with antiques that rotted the cast passageway out. When the fire goes sideways under oven, this is prevented.

The Suppertime Stoves are the best selling Amish stoves from Canada, and many colonies use them in the US. Not as heavy as the Queen, but would have been my second choice.

 

[Cowboyswife]

I'm not sure what stoves are available in Canada or your area. There are some folks with the Kitchen Queen 480 (@coaly) here that like them and @SpaceBus got a Tim Sistem North Wood Cookstove. @akbear has a Deva 100. The Heartland Oval is a classic design. Search on "cookstove" in this forum, titles only, and you will get several threads on the topic. Here is a discussion comparing the Esse Ironheart and Margin Flameview.

Esse Ironheart vs Margin Flameview cookstoves

We're building a small place in southwest Wisconsin, 500 sq ft with a 2nd floor. Want to get a woodburning stove for cooking as well as heating. Have pretty much narrowed the search down to the Esse Ironheart and the Margin Flameview. Margin is cheaper, but Esse says they have a secondary...

www.hearth.com

Thanks for the reply, I have eliminated the Esse, just due to budget, though it looks like a neat stove, I am also unsure it would heat as many sqft as we'd like. I had searched some different terms and read quite a few threads, but hadn't seen that one - it has some good info, thanks!

You won’t find a “bad” one, instead of going crazy researching, make a list of your priorities and one will stand out.
Back when I was deciding, I looked at water heating capacity, oven size, material, heating capacity. Now some are using secondary burn and many have glass firebox and oven doors.

I was looking for utility, not fancy looks. I had a cast iron cook stove and a few collectible cast iron stoves that always need parts cast when I find them, so I wanted steel plate. I didn’t want glass doors, since it is my only heat source and can’t have problems with breakage, although rare. Secondary combustion was not available then, so that would be a requirement now. The Amish stoves had everything I needed including reasonable pricing.

Later I found the Kitchen Queen used flat gasket material folded in a slot that uses no cement, never had to replace gasket, but I know it can be done without cooling down stove. It has the largest cistern available, heats the water in tank without the optional coil that could be used for radiant or baseboard in another room. It also has a shovel type ash pan, open in the back like a scoop. I found the bypass that opens into chimney that allows quick starts and dumps heat in spring and fall when done with stove top, prevents heating entire range, without adding more heat to the house when not needed. Those are the things that stand out with use if you have no experience with wood cook stoves.

Another major deciding factor for the Queen was the counter rotating oven flow. Unlike most, the oven control allows flow across oven bottom, up the side and across top. Ovens that circulate across top, down side and across bottom give up so much heat, they condense and can form sticky creosote under the oven. This was a problem with antiques that rotted the cast passageway out. When the fire goes sideways under oven, this is prevented.

The Suppertime Stoves are the best selling Amish stoves from Canada, and many colonies use them in the US. Not as heavy as the Queen, but would have been my second choice.

You're right, I'm likely over doing the thinking/researching, I'm also waiting for info back from a local company before I make decisions, but they admitted they've never actually sold a cookstove and only ever installed two that were previously owned by the clients - so I'm not really putting a ton of weight on their info :/ The counter rotating oven flow is a definite plus, I'm having a hard time finding info on exactly how the flow goes on these different stoves so far, but the path of oven heat was a big topic of conversation with my dad today - both his mom and my mom cooked on old cook stoves, so he's seen a few and had a few tips on what to look for.

The CUISINIERE seems to maybe only run the hot air under and then up the back of the oven, the picture isn't that clear, and I'm not sure where to find one to look at in person or how to confirm the set up.
The pioneer princess from suppertime is one I've looked at a few times, it must have efficient oven heating as they say you can open the oven door for more heat output...
I can't see any info on how the heat travels on a margin flame view either :/
Sure wish it was as easy to lay eyes/hands on these different models of stoves as it is on different models of cars *haha* I feel like this is a pretty decent investment and I want to make the best choice!

 

[Alpine1]

La Nordica America Wood Cookstove at Obadiah's

The La Nordica America Wood Cookstove features a massive firebox and the largest oven of any La Nordica model, plus 3 ringed burners, and a cooking grate

woodstoves.net

We own a similar model (ours has an integrated boiler) and we’re very satisfied of the build quality, look and performance of the stove. Here in Italy those are very reasonably priced stoves for the quality they offer (reasonably priced doesn’t mean cheap though).
De Manincor is another factory famous for their wood cookers (just for curiosity, the Pope’s kitchen has a de Manincor wood cooker) but prices are higher...
Rizzoli is another factory famous for the quality and durability of their stoves (many are still in use after more than 30 years!)
Alas, wood cookers are designed for efficiently cooking, not for efficiently heating a whole house... will a wood cooker heat your home? Of course yes, but seldom as easily and efficiently as a proper wood stove. Just my 0.02$

 

[begreen]

How much of the time will the stove be heating vs cooking? What is the primary purpose?

 

[begreen]

Have you read this thread?

Wood Cook-stove Arrives

As the title suggests a wood cook stove has arrived at my house! It was actually delivered to a nearby business that can better accept freight and I unloaded it from my truck with my tractor. The cook stove is a Tim Sistem North sold through Obadiah's and it arrived in flawless condition...

www.hearth.com

 

[SpaceBus]

I'm happy to answer questions,but I have a few if you don't mind.

Is your house an open floor plan?
Do you already have a wood stove?
What is your primary and backup heat?
Do you love to cook?
What is your chimney plan?

 

[Cowboyswife]

How much of the time will the stove be heating vs cooking? What is the primary purpose?

This is a bit difficult for me to answer- our home is fully functional on electric heat/cooking. I’ve always wanted to have a cookstove, but it hadn’t ever happened- we feel it is a good thing to have in place for scenarios where we could be without power- this past year, part of our small village was without power for 5 days after a blizzard, and I don’t see society getting a lot more stable at this juncture. So- while I hope to do a lot of my cooking on the cookstove, I don’t exactly have a history of do so.

Have you read this thread?

Wood Cook-stove Arrives

As the title suggests a wood cook stove has arrived at my house! It was actually delivered to a nearby business that can better accept freight and I unloaded it from my truck with my tractor. The cook stove is a Tim Sistem North sold through Obadiah's and it arrived in flawless condition...

www.hearth.com

I will go back and skim through again, but I’m pretty sure I did read that thread.

I'm happy to answer questions,but I have a few if you don't mind.

Is your house an open floor plan?
Do you already have a wood stove?
What is your primary and backup heat?
Do you love to cook?
What is your chimney plan?

The great room where the stove will be is 16x27, and attached to that, with two large openings, is a spacious eat in kitchen, the rest of the sqft of the main floor is bedrooms/office/bathroom off of a hallway that loops around from one big room to the other- so it’s not a completely open floor plan, but the living area is, and the loop I think will allow for decent air movement towards the bedrooms, but we are ok with them being cooler.
We’ve only been in this house for 2 years- it came with a big pellet stove, which we have made good use of and I hope we can sell to help put $$ towards the cookstove. In our previous home we always had a woodstove in our basement, until a combo of insurance and chimney issues forced a change and we went to an wood fired outdoor boiler. So we are quite familiar with Woodstoves in general, cutting wood, etc.
Besides the pellet stove we have forced air electric heat in half the house and baseboard heat in the rest-they didn’t put ducting into the addition.
I do love to cook- I’m a stay at home mom with 4 going on 5 homeschooled kids- so we are at home a lot and eat mostly homegrown/from scratch meals- I also do quite a bit of canning.
The great room where we are planning to put the stove has a cathedral ceiling, It will be a new chimney, straight up with double wall, changing to insulated pipe, unless clearances/rafter location mean we need a slight offset.

 

[begreen]

Many years ago I heated a small place with a turn of the century wood cookstove with a propane heater for back up. It was a lot of work due to the small firebox. That said, I liked the old stove a lot and cooked many goodies in it. It's a way of life and more work, but it is also very satisfying.

 

[peakbagger]

Over the years I have known several folks who bought wood cookstoves for their homes with the intention of heating and cooking. Of all of them only one really used the cookstove for cooking and heating for one season and then realized that it was too much work and oveheated the house far too often. They take up a lot of room for the stove and the clearances around it. Fundamentally they are a compromise. Spacebus appears to be pulling it off but his house and dedication is probably atypical. IMHO Ideally in a climate where space heating is needed, you want a efficient stove to minimize fuel usage and get reasonable burn times. From an emergency situation, you can cook on any woodstove with a flat top. Many folks have gotten creative and cook inside the firebox with a low bed of coals.

 

[coaly]

I built my own home in NE PA with open floor plan. Cookstove is centrally located in middle of kitchen. Heated with Fisher wood stoves and other coal stoves for many years since the 80's. Upgraded to the Kitchen Queen for water heating, stove top size and oven. It is capable of heating up to 3000 sf. and we heat just under 2000. I also installed 6 inch chimney instead of 7 since higher heating capacity was not needed. I also installed a thermostatically controlled air intake which is now available on the newer stoves. That was the best mod I could have made. The KQ with secondary burn was not available at the time, I would now certainly go with the new Grand Comfort.

I decided on the Amish design since they heat, heat domestic water, and cook with no electric. Best stove we've ever had. Does what we need with no other heat source. I do have a second chimney with coal stove in case we would not have wood or physically be able to do it some day.

 

[begreen]

Heating and cooking centered around a cookstove is a lifestyle thing. Modern cookstoves are improving and making it easier. If one has a big kitchen that can fit a wood cookstove and doesn't mind that area being idle from late spring to early fall, then a cookstove can be a wonderful addition, especially if one cooks and bakes a lot. It takes time to learn to cook well on a wood cookstove. There is a certain talent needed to balance the art of burning wood with the art of cooking well. But when everything is right, it's a real joy. One nice feature is the infinite heat cooktop, just move the pot closer or farther from the fire. With my old cast iron monster of a cookstove, it would take hours to get it evenly heated. But, once the mass of the stove was fully warmed up, it baked the best bread.

Conversely, for someone that primarily wants to heat with wood and occasionally cook on the stove, then I agree with peakbagger that a freestanding stove with a flat top can more than suffice. We cook around once a week or two in winter on the T6. The swing-out trivet top affords a wide range of temperatures. But, we don't bake in or on it. Yes, it's possible to rig up something, but our convection oven does it better and it's in the kitchen where all the prep work is done. The Alderlea sits in the living room which is central to the house where it heats with remarkable evenness. And where it provides us with a wonderful fire view that is often better than what's on the tube. Both options have their benefits and caveats.

 

[SpaceBus]

This is a bit difficult for me to answer- our home is fully functional on electric heat/cooking. I’ve always wanted to have a cookstove, but it hadn’t ever happened- we feel it is a good thing to have in place for scenarios where we could be without power- this past year, part of our small village was without power for 5 days after a blizzard, and I don’t see society getting a lot more stable at this juncture. So- while I hope to do a lot of my cooking on the cookstove, I don’t exactly have a history of do so.

I will go back and skim through again, but I’m pretty sure I did read that thread.


The great room where the stove will be is 16x27, and attached to that, with two large openings, is a spacious eat in kitchen, the rest of the sqft of the main floor is bedrooms/office/bathroom off of a hallway that loops around from one big room to the other- so it’s not a completely open floor plan, but the living area is, and the loop I think will allow for decent air movement towards the bedrooms, but we are ok with them being cooler.
We’ve only been in this house for 2 years- it came with a big pellet stove, which we have made good use of and I hope we can sell to help put $$ towards the cookstove. In our previous home we always had a woodstove in our basement, until a combo of insurance and chimney issues forced a change and we went to an wood fired outdoor boiler. So we are quite familiar with Woodstoves in general, cutting wood, etc.
Besides the pellet stove we have forced air electric heat in half the house and baseboard heat in the rest-they didn’t put ducting into the addition.
I do love to cook- I’m a stay at home mom with 4 going on 5 homeschooled kids- so we are at home a lot and eat mostly homegrown/from scratch meals- I also do quite a bit of canning.
The great room where we are planning to put the stove has a cathedral ceiling, It will be a new chimney, straight up with double wall, changing to insulated pipe, unless clearances/rafter location mean we need a slight offset.

My cookstove is sized to be usable as a cooking appliance for 9 months of the year, but this means it is not sized for the cold days. We have a small house but still use a Morso 2b Classic as the primary heater. Most of the heating season the cookstove does heat the house, but the burn times are shorter than most wood heating stoves. I can have decent coals in the morning if I stuff the cooker firebox up to the baffle with hard maple, but usually I just let it go out and the Morso does all the work while we sleep.

You will not find a more enjoyable cooking appliance than a wood fired cookstove. Ours has an optional glass top that warms up almost instantly and is easy to clean. We do still have the original steel top, but I don't like it as much. The oven rarely burns our food and keeps things very moist. Now that we are in the off season I really miss the wood cooker and don't enjoy cooking on our LG glasstop.


What model is the pellet stove?

If i had a large house and wanted to try only one stove perhaps the Margin Flameview you mentioned isn't a bad pick. The Flameview is more like a wood stove with a range oven attached. The only other large cookers I can think of that will capable of providing primary home heat would be the Heco 520 or the Kitchen Queen 480.

 

[Morso1bo]

I too had always wanted a cook stove and finally bought a La Nordica Milly last fall. It replaced an old Lange 6302k which was also great. The Milly is easy to cook on and bake with. It can hold coals overnight once the heating season is underway. That being said, on cold N.H. winters I found myself burning more oil to keep our 200 + year old cape warm. We also have a Moro’s 2b standard which overheats the upstairs bedrooms, and is only used when it’s very cold. I love the Milly and it will heat the house by itself except for January and February. Hope this helps!

 

[begreen]

How about some pictures of your cookstove installations to help others reading this thread?

 

[Morso1bo]

Here is a photo of my stove

 

[Cowboyswife]

Thanks for all the replies, everybody, we are still deciding. The quote we were given was about $3500 for the flame view and approx equal for installation. Not a small chunk of change, so we aren’t leaping too fast!

What model is the pellet stove?

Our Current pellet stove is an Osburn 5000

we are still Waiting for a price on a kitchen queen, since I found a Canadian dealer- they’re quite a ways from us though, so I imagine freight wouldn’t be cheap- we shall see!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I don't have any advice for you on cookstoves, but I just wanted to say "hello" from one homeschooling mom to another. My kids (and my husband and I) love wood heat, and when stove season starts, our homeschooling location tends to shift to right in front of it. Even though cold weather is far away from us, my eight year old just mentioned the other day that we should move the school table back to the family room for the winter.

 

[SpaceBus]

Thanks for all the replies, everybody, we are still deciding. The quote we were given was about $3500 for the flame view and approx equal for installation. Not a small chunk of change, so we aren’t leaping too fast!


Our Current pellet stove is an Osburn 5000

we are still Waiting for a price on a kitchen queen, since I found a Canadian dealer- they’re quite a ways from us though, so I imagine freight wouldn’t be cheap- we shall see!

Does the installed price include the chimney? Another nice thing about most cookstoves is the ability to heat domestic hot water, something to consider on an expensive appliance. $3,500 for a quality cookstove is pretty reasonable. My North was a bit lower in price, but it is smaller and doesn't have the back splash/ overhead warming oven. The Osburn in your house has a $5,000+ CAD suggested price. More importantly is the 48,000 BTU output you will need to exceed in your cookstove choice since many of those BTU go into your food and the mass of the stove. Also this is assuming that Osburn can adequately heat the entire home.

 

[Cowboyswife]

Does the installed price include the chimney? Another nice thing about most cookstoves is the ability to heat domestic hot water, something to consider on an expensive appliance. $3,500 for a quality cookstove is pretty reasonable. My North was a bit lower in price, but it is smaller and doesn't have the back splash/ overhead warming oven. The Osburn in your house has a $5,000+ CAD suggested price. More importantly is the 48,000 BTU output you will need to exceed in your cookstove choice since many of those BTU go into your food and the mass of the stove. Also this is assuming that Osburn can adequately heat the entire home.

yes, the 3500 includes the chimney and a steel hearth pad with insulation under it.
keep in mind also, that this is canadian dollars- the $7k Price would be more like 5kUSD or a bit less. Our pellet stove does a lot of the heating for our house, but we don’t run it overnight or when we are away from home. The basement and to a lesser extent, back bedrooms, rely some on baseboard backup heat. I anticipate the woodstove to be hotter to sit beside, as we don’t run the pellet stove higher than about half power most of the time, but that we could move more air to distribute the excess heat, possibly by adding a cold air dump to the basement from one of the back rooms. We loved the DHW aspect of the boiler when we had it, but with the layout of our house, I don’t think we could use the cookstove in conjunction with our current system (my understanding is that the HWT needs to be higher than the stove?), though having a reservoir of hot water would definitely be handy, and better than nothing- the reservoir is the only feature that the JA Roby stove I’ve been considering is missing when compared to the Margin.

 

[SpaceBus]

yes, the 3500 includes the chimney and a steel hearth pad with insulation under it.
keep in mind also, that this is canadian dollars- the $7k Price would be more like 5kUSD or a bit less. Our pellet stove does a lot of the heating for our house, but we don’t run it overnight or when we are away from home. The basement and to a lesser extent, back bedrooms, rely some on baseboard backup heat. I anticipate the woodstove to be hotter to sit beside, as we don’t run the pellet stove higher than about half power most of the time, but that we could move more air to distribute the excess heat, possibly by adding a cold air dump to the basement from one of the back rooms. We loved the DHW aspect of the boiler when we had it, but with the layout of our house, I don’t think we could use the cookstove in conjunction with our current system (my understanding is that the HWT needs to be higher than the stove?), though having a reservoir of hot water would definitely be handy, and better than nothing- the reservoir is the only feature that the JA Roby stove I’ve been considering is missing when compared to the Margin.

You are correct that the tank should be higher to be safe in a power outage. I'm pretty sure the JA Roby stoves also have an optional reservoir. The Kitchen Queen stoves have a huge reservoir, but clearances are also huge. I think the flameview is probably your best bet if it will work in your space, and $7,000 CAD (or $5,000 USD) is less than I have invested into my cookstove install, but my cookstove is integrated to the water heating.

 

[Cowboyswife]

There is a line of j a Roby stoves with a 2 gallon reservoir, but the big cookstove that I’m looking at (cuisiniere) does not seem to have that option unfortunately, but it is available locally with a short delivery time, so it may be the choice we make. My hubby also likes the looks of it a lot.