Equinox or Mansfield in Double sided enclosure? Pics attached

[Russ in Chicagoland]

Hi Friends,
I am having some serious anxiety about my decision. Many folks on here say I will not regret going bigger, but my local dealer (the sale card crumpler ) tells me the Mansfield is a better choice because it is better to run the stove at capacity, rather than run a bigger stove with a smaller fire due to creosote accumulation. Not sure you agree. I was all set on the EQ before he pretty much talked me out of it. The $1,000+ I would be saving with the smaller stove and smaller chimney made it easy to listen to his argument. He said he would only put the EQ in an auditorium size room. I have a feeling after seeing these pics, you all will have a few other opinions. The house is 3400 ft total, 1800 first floor, 1550 second floor. Fairly drafty, 9 ft ceilings first floor, vaulted ceilings in the first floor "sun room" and all 3 bedrooms upstairs. Right now, we only use the furnace on the first floor and heat gets upstairs pretty good to heat the BRs. There are several return ducts close to where the stove will sit for air circulation via furnace fan.

My goal is to put the stove inside of the double sided masonry structure 44w x 50d x 38h. Class A chimney will be run straight up through second floor BR, then attic, then out.

I do not know how to post a pic and type a description under it yet, so hopefully these pics give an idea. The wall with the bank of windows is opposite the fireplace. The "preview" doesn't show the pics. If not, I'll try again.
Thanks for your input, much appreciated. If I can return the favor with advice on my areas of expertise, please let me know, I run a Deck Maintenance business and also PT Realtor.

 

[afguy]

Hi Russ,

Beautiful house. However, I can't answer your question as I am no expert in this field. But I can tell you that we have the Mansfield in an 1800 sq. ft. house, and I am very glad we DID NOT go smaller.

Our stove is located in the central part of the house with the bedrooms on either end. At night, we get the living area (where the stove is) up in the lower 80's, crack the door to the master area so it stays 65-68, and the other bedrooms get in the 70's. We do not put in any more wood until morning. And it feels so good to wake up in a 65 degree room, and walk into the living room where the sudden warmth of low to mid 70's temperature hit you.

During the day, as stated in another post, the stones throw out enough heat to burn down the coals before reloading and gives the house a chance to cool off, so it doesn't get too hot. If it does, we open a window.

I hope our experience helps you even a little bit.

Nina

 

[Jags]

"The house is 3400 ft total, 1800 first floor, 1550 second floor. Fairly drafty, 9 ft ceilings first floor, vaulted ceilings in the first floor “sun room” and all 3 bedrooms upstairs.'

Go with the EQ.

 

[edthedawg]

VERY interesting setup. You'll lose access to the side door, which makes cleaning, use, and maintenance of the EQ a tiny bit harder. But at the same time, you have enough house size, location, and draftiness wildcards that I think the Mansfield is could be too small.

If the 8" pipe requirement doesn't screw things up, I would go w/ the EQ in this case. 120k BTU vs 80k BTU is a HUGE step for a drafty northern Ill. house w/ vaulted ceilings.

That said, the Mansfield oughta do you fine, if you choose. Probably will be running a little harder, but that's ok since these stoves don't particularly enjoy start-stop operation.

How tall is that chimney run gonna be once all is said and done?

 

[Wet1]

I have to agree, go with the EQ if you are planning to do all your heating with wood. If you don't mind a little suplimenting and are around more ferquently to reload, your dealer makes a good arugment for going with the smaller stove. Your call.

You'll want those ceiling fans working either way!

 

[madison]

EQ, especially if it is going to reside within the existing firebox. Though paying for the soapstone, and resetting it into the firebox seems like a waste. Would the Blaze King fit ? Does the EQ have a fan? If yes, I would get it.

Sliding anything, especially the EQ back into the firebox is going to be a back breaker, maybe why the dealer was pushing towards the lighter unit.


Also I would think you have to remove that natural gas pipe within the firebox?

 

[Wood Heat Stoves]

you should add the other pics you sent us... the conversion at the top of the brick chimney( terminates in the attic) should be fun

i forwarded your message to my boss for review btw...

 

[Russ in Chicagoland]

The guys at Woodheatstoves.com have been helpful and respond fast, even answered an email at 10:30 at night. Impressive. Anyway, the total chimney height will be about 30 ft., straight up with at most a set of 30 degree bends toward the top. If I ran it straight up and out the roof from where the stove will sit, it ends up coming out thru the roof about a foot outside the existing chase. I'd like to bend it thru the wall of the BR above the stove into the chase to save myself some work on expanding the chase. The existing chimney was B vent for a gas log set that used to sit in the fireplace, run thru the boxed in area above the brick, but the Class A won't fit safely.

The Chimney area that Dave is talking about is actually the original 1920's fireplace and chimney that was knocked down to only about 7 ft, just below where they built the second floor over it when they rebuilt this house in 1994. On either side of that 7 ft of original chimney, they built the brick and granite facades in 1994, while leaving the original 1920's structure intact. So yeah, it IS a shame to put soapstone into all that masonry, but I'm not the boss, I'm married.

Theses pics are looking into the hole I cut out above the brick facade, looking at the top of the old chimney in there. Also a few pics looking up thru the chimney at the subfloor above where my Class A will run, and one looking down into the old chimney from above. This install has not been an easy process, and I haven't even started! I can guarantee I have more hours logged onto this site in the last month than most

Thanks for your input friends.

 

[burnham]

I have a Mansfield in my 1500 sq ft house. The house is pretty open, and we have about 22 windows and 4 sky-lights, that all need to be replaced. The Mansfield may be "oversized", but in our house it just works great. The only problem we've found is, it only wants to eat seasoned wood. Anything that isn't dry isn't worth the effort because you have to run the stove "wide open" and it never gets up to temperature. Go with the EQ.

 

[Todd]

I also vote for the EQ. You have a large house and this is what the EQ was made for. If you don't need the heat just build smaller hot fires instead of full load dampened down fires to control creosote formation. It will be interesting to hear how your choice works out inside that fireplace.

 

[Pizzaman]

EQ, especially if it is going to reside within the existing firebox. Though paying for the soapstone, and resetting it into the firebox seems like a waste. Would the Blaze King fit ? Does the EQ have a fan? If yes, I would get it.

Sliding anything, especially the EQ back into the firebox is going to be a back breaker, maybe why the dealer was pushing towards the lighter unit.


Also I would think you have to remove that natural gas pipe within the firebox?

How much heat do you think you lose pushing it back into the firebox? I'm considering doing something similar with an Equinox or Mansfield. It would sit about 12" back into an existing fireplace in our new house. I lean towards the EQ, since we have 4000sf to heat. The house is newer and very well insulated, but I'd like to heat as much as possible so I can tell the propane crooks in my neighborhood to go pound sand.

 

[Russ in Chicagoland]

I was forced to go with the Mansfield due to chimney clearance issues. I'm going up thru a 2nd floor bedroom, then diagonally thru an exterior wall into an existing chase on the outside of the house for the last 12 feet of a 30 foot run. What a cluster #@$%. I could have crammed the 8" chimney in there with bare minimum clearances, but wanted some extra clearance going thru my son's room. I'll sleep better at night in exchange for an occasional blast from the furnace to supplement. In my case, I don't plan on losing much heat from my setup because all that masonry is contained in a 8x8x8 foot area in the center of the house, which I'm hoping will act as a giant Tuklivi and actually help me once it's all heated up. I will be burning 24/7/180? once I get rolling. I work from home during the winter and feeding the Mansfield regularly will not be an issue. Finally ordered the Mansfield yesterday from Woodheatstoves.com. I'm a little nervous buying from someone across the country, but to be honest, I've paid two different local companies to come out and look at my situation and neither of them gave me the impression that they would pay as close attention to the details as I will. One advised to install in the fireplace with no mention of determining EXACTLY where combustibles were located around the masonry, and the other had to check on clearances for Class A pipe! Thanks to the gang on this forum, this is the most fun I've had in a long time (and I race Motocross for a hobby!) I will be creating a thread of my install when the stove arrives in 7 - 10 days. Good luck with your project.