Firebox Size and Square Footage Effectively Heated

[Sean Truesdell]

I am hoping to start a simple thread that will allow easy comparison between the volume of the firebox on any given unit and the area of the home that is effectively heated by that unit. So responses should include:

1. Make/model and size of firebox on your unit.
2. Geographic location.
3. Square footage effectively heated.
4. Is that space wide open (no walls or doors) or more closed off by walls and doorways.

I realize there are many other factors that will determine how effective a particular stove/insert/fireplace will be in providing heat to any particular area but I feel this simple comparison may assist some who are shopping for a new heating device narrow their focus.

 

[matt1@]

I have a quadra-fire 4300 step top acc in an addition off the rear of my home, which is a 1500 sf older colonial. The heating is sufficient although I do run a ceiling fan to help circulate the air around. I believe the firebox is 2.4 cu ft. I chose this model because it takes 20 inch logs. Any smaller I would have to cut some of my cordwood down to shorter lengths. I'm in berks county pal about 15 miles west of allentown. Hope this helps

 

[johnpma]

US Stove Model 2000 w/100cfm blower 2.0 cu ft fire box 21" logs
2100 sq ft farm home with tons of small rooms/low ceilings
poorly insulated not air sealed but replacement windows
Stove inside fire place opening in living room heats 3/4 of the home to 68ish
location Mass-northeast

 

[Nick Mystic]

Another important factor to control for is whether the stove is installed in the basement (finished or unfinished) or in the main living area. However, I have to warn you that your data might not prove to helpful in deciding upon which stove someone should purchase due to the fact that burning styles vary so much. If you spend some time at the forum reading many posts you'll see that some folks burn their stoves like steam engines in that they will tell you things like, "Got the stove up to 800 F last night and really warmed the place up." While others will make posts like, "Can't seem to get the stove over 400 F and the bedrooms were ice cold." And sometimes those two posts will come from people with the exact same stove!

Another critical factor, of course, is wood quality. Some folks will say, "My wood is well seasoned since I cut it last spring and it's been sitting out all summer." Others will say, "I never burn wood before it's seasoned at least three years and is reading under 20% on my MM." And of course you have the subjective factor of what "comfortable" means to people. Some folks will tell you that they like to get their place up around 80 F so the wife will be happy. Others will say that like the bedrooms to be cool for sleeping, down in the low 60s for them.

 

[begreen]

3 cu ft PE Alderlea T6 heating 2000 sq ft old farmhouse with an open floor plan in Western WA, no basement.

 

[chazcarr]

I have a Regency 2400 with a 2.3 cu. foot box.
I have a two story house with a kind of mixed floorplan. Around 3k sq feet total.
The downstairs (where the stove is) is open, with no doors. The stove is in the living room which is the largest room and all the way on the left side of the house. That room gets to around 90 when everything is humming along.

The rest of the downstairs gets around 70-73.

For the upstairs the master bedroom is on the far right of the house and can get to about 69-70.
In order for that to happen I have to close the doors to the other bedrooms and I put a fan in the wall to bring warm air from the hallway directly into the bedroom.
There is a 15 foot long hallway from the top of the stairs to the bedroom with a 90 degree curve so heating that bedroom has always been tough.

I recently added a bouncing baby girl to my family, and her room almost gets nothing from the stove so there is a wall hanging electric heater in that room for now to keep her comfy. The door to her room is in that 15 foot long hallway but for some reason no hot air circulates into that room.

If I was to do it again, I would have gotten the regency 3100 for that extra power.

Oddly, adding new insulated windows and siding has not helped and in fact makes it harder to heat the house. I have no idea why but some people tell me that the house is now too airtight and the fire cannot breathe properly. Go Figure.

 

[Hogwildz]

3 cu ft PE Summit Insert heating 2666 sq ft 2 story with an open floor plan, cathedral ceiling throughout in NE PA, with basement(unheated, and not included in the SF.
750 SF addition, not yet finished or heated yet. Have a Summers Heat equivalent to the Englander 30, that will heat the addition and also contribute to the main house once the addition is done and opened up to the main house. Main house heated fairly well & evenly with the Summit. One room in back with just standard doorway opening, and very air leaky. This is the one cold room of the house.

 

[Sean Truesdell]

Thanks for the responses! I have been reading these forums for weeks now, comparing stoves, contemplating the install, and gaining tons of useful information. I know there are many variables to the performance of these stoves and the area they will heat, but I think honest real-world feedback from those using them is a much better reference for performance than the propaganda put out by the manufacturers.

 

[Sean Truesdell]

I have a Regency 2400 with a 2.3 cu. foot box.
I have a two story house with a kind of mixed floorplan. Around 3k sq feet total.
The downstairs (where the stove is) is open, with no doors. The stove is in the living room which is the largest room and all the way on the left side of the house. That room gets to around 90 when everything is humming along.

The rest of the downstairs gets around 70-73.

For the upstairs the master bedroom is on the far right of the house and can get to about 69-70.
In order for that to happen I have to close the doors to the other bedrooms and I put a fan in the wall to bring warm air from the hallway directly into the bedroom.
There is a 15 foot long hallway from the top of the stairs to the bedroom with a 90 degree curve so heating that bedroom has always been tough.

I recently added a bouncing baby girl to my family, and her room almost gets nothing from the stove so there is a wall hanging electric heater in that room for now to keep her comfy. The door to her room is in that 15 foot long hallway but for some reason no hot air circulates into that room.

If I was to do it again, I would have gotten the regency 3100 for that extra power.

Oddly, adding new insulated windows and siding has not helped and in fact makes it harder to heat the house. I have no idea why but some people tell me that the house is now too airtight and the fire cannot breathe properly. Go Figure.

Hey Chaz,

After reading that the room with the stove gets up to 90 I was surprised to read that you would still prefer extra power! Wouldn't you be concerned with driving that room even hotter in an attempt to push more heat to the rest of the house?

 

[chazcarr]

Hey Chaz,

After reading that the room with the stove gets up to 90 I was surprised to read that you would still prefer extra power! Wouldn't you be concerned with driving that room even hotter in an attempt to push more heat to the rest of the house?

Yeah you are right about that. Extra power though can be controlled. The reason I would have liked to have gone bigger is extra burn time. Right now I can only really hope to get nearly 7 hours of heat from a well packed stove. That means getting up at 5am or something in order to take the morning chill out of the house before my wife gets up.

Also, a few times last year the temp was around -10, and the stove could not keep up at all. The oil heat had to come on a few times.

This forum has made me wish I had a Blaze King. Sounds like my kind of stove.

 

[jeff_t]

Yeah, I can mess up your comparisons, because I have a 4.3 cu ft Blaze King King heating only 1600 sq ft.

Of course, it is a drafty, early 70s ranch with crappy insulation on the east end of two miles of farm fields in southeast Michigan. The front of my house faces north, and except for a fence row that runs N-S directly across the road, it is also wide open for about 3/4 mile to the north. So yes, wind is a huge factor. The big stove struggles sometimes.

The living room it is in is open to the kitchen and dining room, which total at least 1000 sq ft, with a short hallway to the bedrooms. Heat distribution isn't an issue.

 

[fire_man]

I have a Regency 2400 with a 2.3 cu. foot box.

Oddly, adding new insulated windows and siding has not helped and in fact makes it harder to heat the house. I have no idea why but some people tell me that the house is now too airtight and the fire cannot breathe properly. Go Figure.

Finally somebody agreed with my experience. Seems most people that replace windows/siding swear their house becomes practically self heating. I replaced windows and double insulated the attic - and I blamed the lack of improvement on the existing lousy/porous paper building wrap they used on the house in 1986 which probably leaks air through the wall insulation.

1. Make/model and size of firebox on your unit. Woodstock Progress with 2.8 cu. foot box
2. Geographic location. North Eastern MA
3. Square footage effectively heated. 2200 sq. feet
4. Is that space wide open (no walls or doors) or more closed off by walls and doorways. 2 Story Colonial, stove on first floor installed in wide open 600 sq foot open area - rest of house closed off with doorway openings. Heats pretty good until it gets below about 20 F outside so I recently added a second small woodstove on other side of house. We'll see how that goes!

No matter how great a stove is, it's still just a space heater!

 

[begreen]

The gain by updating windows is over-rated IMO unless you get some very expensive units. The usual gain folks note is because their old windows were leaky, usually around the window casing. The actual R-value gain going from single-pane with storm windows to double pane is small. Reducing thermal loss through the attic and wind infiltration will usually provide much faster gains and is typically a better investment.

fire_man, you're lucky your house has building wrap. Our's has none except around the foundation perimeter and 18" up from there. I did that part when the new foundation was put in.

 

[Laurent Cyr]

1. Make/model and size of firebox on your unit. Jotul F600 3 cu. ft
2. Geographic location. South-Western Québec, Canada
3. Square footage effectively heated. Bungalow 3,000 sq ft. (basement and main floor)
4. Is that space wide open (no walls or doors) or more closed off by walls and doorways. Wood stove is in the basement. Basement is insulated and finished. A lot of enclosed spaces. I have a hole in the middle of the main floor with a grate to assist the heat to rise. Using a floor fan, I assist in the heat going upstairs by pushing the cold air from the bottom of the basement stairs toweards the stove. It gets really cold here during the winter. We do regularly get -20F, -40F with the Wind chill factor. On really cold winters, we`ll get the odd 2-3 days of cold at -58F. Average winter temps are between 0F and 13F. With well seasoned hardwood, I have no trouble heating the house without relying on the forced air furnace. Wood costs $300 + for a cord. Most people here heat using electricity. Our electricity is pretty cheap compared to other places. We pay 8.55 cents per kwh. I don`t buy my wood. I have a small wood lot. Last year I started heating in September until May. I saved $1,000 on my electrical bill compared to when I was heating with my electric forced air furnace, however I went through 10 cords of wood. Given my small wood lot size, I will cut back on my heating with the wood stove. I`ll just heat in the really cold months (Dec to March), and try to use only 4 cords.