Finding a stove that's not too big for my house...

[WATYF]

I searched for months last year for a wood stove and finally settled on a Drolet Baltic. The stove works fine, but after months of burning with it, I've finally accepted that it's just too much stove for my house. My house is 1200 sq ft but the stove is all the way at the far, back right corner of the house. So I wanted to get something rated for my square footage and above, so the heat would reach the whole house. I also wanted something that could burn all night.

The problem is... I have to keep it on the lowest possible setting just to keep from overheating my house. The pipe temp is lower than the recommended temp, and originally, I tried to avoid that by running it just hot enough to keep the pipe temp in the "safe" range, but if I did that, then the house would get too hot.

So now I'm in a quandary... I need a stove that will heat my house... but not too much... but it can't have a tiny firebox, because I absolutely have to have an all-night (and all day while I'm at work) burn. The smaller Englanders are at Lowes/Home Depot for pennies right now, and I'd love to jump on those, but that 1.8 cubic ft firebox just won't hold a fire for 8+ hours.

So what exactly are my options? I can't get a stove with a huge firebox, because those tend to be larger and run hotter and will be too much for me. But I can't get a stove with a small firebox, because those won't burn long enough.

Any ideas?

WATYF

 

[Nic36]

I don't think you are get going to find any stoves with small fireboxes that have a good overnight burn. My stove has a 1.4 cubic foot firebox and it will not burn all night, and heat output will taper off dramatically by the early morning hours. But, I will usually have coals under the ash as late as the next evening to restart my fire.

From what I have heard here, I think the longer burns in small stoves will probably be achieved with catalytic burner types.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Open the window.

HTH,
Matt

 

[BrotherBart]

Try not worrying about the pipe temp for a while if you have good dry wood. Run it at a temp that keeps your house comfortable and inspect the chimney often. If the wood is good and dry you would be surprised how low you can run that stove and not crap up the chimney. Worst case you end up cleaning the chimney once a month rather that living in a pool of sweat 30 days a month.

Forget the secondary burn light show stuff and use it like a steel fireplace where you just keep a small amount of flames going in it and check for the chimney smoking.

 

[annette]

My house is 1100 sq ft, but I only heat about 800 of it with my 2.3 cu. ft stove. I burn 3 or 4 splits at a time, usually 3 fires a day. With those few pieces of wood, I can easily get the stove up to 600 degrees (or more), and I have negligible creosote accumulation. Is your whole house getting really hot? Or, would improving air movement even out the heat more? A fan that pulls cool air down the hallway and into the stove room will move the hot air down the hall, and it will make you feel cooler if you're in the stove room. (I tilt my fan towards the ceiling so it doesn't blow directly on me). Add little fans on the floor of each bedroom, pushing cold air down the hall.

With 3-4 splits, I don't maintain heat all though the night. Usually the stove room is about 70 when I go to bed, and in 20 degree weather it drops to 58 degrees after about 7 hours, and the furnace comes on. I can get it back up to temp just fine from 58. If it's 30 degrees or above outside, I have a good chance of the furnace not coming on. I prefer the 58 degrees to getting up in the middle of the night, or overheating the house before bed , even though I hate being cold! You may find you prefer to do the things I don't.

Also, I just want to check that you have single-wall stove pipe? If you have double-wall, the thermometer range is incorrect.

 

[WATYF]

No, the whole house is getting hot. It's not a an air circulation issue... just too much heat for the house, in general. I can try to just keep running it really low. But I was just wondering if there was a stove that was more suited to heat a smaller house, but still had decent burn times.

WATYF

 

[begreen]

There are smaller stoves than the 3 cu ft Baltic that have good overnight burns. Putting such a big stove in a 1200 sq ft is, as you've discovered, is overkill. One option is a small cat stove like the Woodstock Palladium or Keystone. Or a 2 cu ft stove that has a wide burn temp range may also work. You won't get long burn times in fall and spring burning without overheating the house. Those conditions require shorter hot fires maybe twice a day. But in mid-winter you should be able to run the stove 24/7 and still be comfortable.

 

[Hiram Maxim]

Try not worrying about the pipe temp for a while if you have good dry wood. Run it at a temp that keeps your house comfortable and inspect the chimney often. If the wood is good and dry you would be surprised how low you can run that stove and not crap up the chimney. Worst case you end up cleaning the chimney once a month rather that living in a pool of sweat 30 days a month.

Forget the secondary burn light show stuff and use it like a steel fireplace where you just keep a small amount of flames going in it and check for the chimney smoking.

Damn good advice BB

 

[WATYF]

There are smaller stoves than the 3 cu ft Baltic that have good overnight burns. Putting such a big stove in a 1200 sq ft is, as you've discovered, is overkill. One option is a small cat stove like the Woodstock Palladium or Keystone. Or a 2 cu ft stove that has a wide burn temp range may also work. You won't get long burn times in fall and spring burning without overheating the house. Those conditions require shorter hot fires maybe twice a day. But in mid-winter you should be able to run the stove 24/7 and still be comfortable.

I'm not interested in a cat stove, but what are some examples of the 2+ cu ft stoves that you mentioned?


WATYF

 

[WATYF]

really? you can do that without screwing up the efficiency/function/whatever of the stove? Hmmm... I might look into that.


WATYF

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Certainly nothing wrong with a cat stove, or at least, most of them. One really good thing about them is that you can burn those small fires without clogging the chimney. The cat keeps things clean....as long as you have good wood.

Yes, you can add firebrick to a stove without doing harm.

 

[begreen]

There are smaller stoves than the 3 cu ft Baltic that have good overnight burns. Putting such a big stove in a 1200 sq ft is, as you've discovered, is overkill. One option is a small cat stove like the Woodstock Palladium or Keystone. Or a 2 cu ft stove that has a wide burn temp range may also work. You won't get long burn times in fall and spring burning without overheating the house. Those conditions require shorter hot fires maybe twice a day. But in mid-winter you should be able to run the stove 24/7 and still be comfortable.

I'm not interested in a cat stove, but what are some examples of the 2+ cu ft stoves that you mentioned?

Cat stoves will give you the long burn times with a low fire that you are looking for. But if that's not your cup of tea, then maybe a smaller PE? The longest burning non-cat stove that Tom Oyen tested out of 61 stoves was the PE Super 27. Our neighbor is heating his house in our milder climate with this style stove and has not complained about it being too hot (except when the in-laws come to visit ). He says always has coals in the morning for a restart.

(broken link removed to http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/pacsup27.htm)

 

[Wet1]

I'd also suggest going with a cat stove. Even with a large cat stove, you can slow the burn way down and still have a nice clean and long burn. Yes you have to replace the cat every so often, but that's a trade off I'm willing to pay.

 

[WATYF]

The longest burning non-cat stove that Tom Oyen tested out of 61 stoves was the PE Super 27. Our neighbor is heating his house in our milder climate with this style stove and has not complained about it being too hot (except when the in-laws come to visit ). He says always has coals in the morning for a restart.

(broken link removed to http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/pacsup27.htm)

Yeah, I had looked at that stove, as well as the Napoleon 1400P, as a possible alternative. Do you happen to have a link to that test you mentioned (if it's online anywhere)?


WATYF

 

[EddyKilowatt]

Forget the secondary burn light show stuff and use it like a steel fireplace where you just keep a small amount of flames going in it and check for the chimney smoking.

This works pretty well for me in both my Avalon and Jotul when I need low steady heat and I'm around to tend the stove. I feed quite small splits (no bigger than 3" on a side) in a continuous burn mode... put one in at a time, when the previous split is about 10 minutes from coal stage, typically every 45-60 minutes. I run the draft about half open which gives much more air than needed and would make quite a hot fire if the firebox was full, but with just one split burning at a time, the excess air helps give a clean, flaming, smokeless burn. Kind of halfway to being a pellet stove, I guess.

I also run a few extra firebricks in the firebox during 'shoulder seasons' when I don't need full capacity... as noted by the Czar anything you can do to reduce heat flow out of the firebox will help a small fire to stay hot and clean.

None of this is a lot of help with getting you a long slow burn though... I agree for that you may need to look at Cat stoves.

Eddy

 

[WATYF]

I'm thinking of just getting a Napoleon 1400-P. I was looking at those when I was deciding on my stove last fall. It's a 2.25 cu ft. box, which should reduce temps a little, and it can burn for 8-9 hours (as attested by plenty of people around here). The primary impetus for this decision is that I just found a place locally that's trying to sell their last one for $1000 (which is about $300 less than anywhere else I've ever seen it). I figure it's worth a try, since it'll be less than I paid for the Baltic, and I can probably turn the Baltic around for about what I paid for it, since I also got a good deal on it.

WATYF

 

[BrotherBart]

Forget the secondary burn light show stuff and use it like a steel fireplace where you just keep a small amount of flames going in it and check for the chimney smoking.

This works pretty well for me in both my Avalon and Jotul when I need low steady heat and I'm around to tend the stove. I feed quite small splits (no bigger than 3" on a side) in a continuous burn mode... put one in at a time, when the previous split is about 10 minutes from coal stage, typically every 45-60 minutes. I run the draft about half open which gives much more air than needed and would make quite a hot fire if the firebox was full, but with just one split burning at a time, the excess air helps give a clean, flaming, smokeless burn. Kind of halfway to being a pellet stove, I guess.

None of this is a lot of help with getting you a long slow burn though... I agree for that you may need to look at Cat stoves.

Eddy

I do it with three big splits for eight to nine hours at a time. Stove top between 400 and 450. And my 30-NC is pretty much the same stove as that Drolet size and design wise.

 

[WATYF]

Just to follow up on this... I ended up getting the Napoleon 1400P. It seems to be doing the trick. I can run it at full without it roasting the whole house and it burns long. The only remaining test will be to see if it puts out enough heat to heat the house when it gets ridiculously cold, so we'll see about that next winter (unless we get a surprise cold snap in the next couple weeks).

WATYF

 

[pen]

Just to follow up on this... I ended up getting the Napoleon 1400P. It seems to be doing the trick. I can run it at full without it roasting the whole house and it burns long. The only remaining test will be to see if it puts out enough heat to heat the house when it gets ridiculously cold, so we'll see about that next winter (unless we get a surprise cold snap in the next couple weeks).

WATYF

That's the problem, it is tough having things both ways.

pen

 

[begreen]

Good choice WATYF. It should work ok for colder temps, but your burn times will go down as you push the stove harder to achieve hotter stovetop temps. More fuel consumed = shorter burn times. Same thing with a bigger stove, pellet burner, oil furnace etc. This summer, put time into insulation, caulking and sealing improvements and you'll be snug as a bug next winter.