30 years ago I had an Earth stove and love that unit. I have not had that stove in 20 years. (long story) Over the last month or so I have been looking at Craigs List and Ebay for another Earth Stove to put in my pole barn. In the last week I found this site looking for information about the different models of Earth stoves. I believe I had a model 500 and it could put out the heat. ( just what I need for the barn) Well my ultimate plan is to try and sneek the stove into the house in the next year or two but after reading the storys on how much better the new ones are, I am starting to wonder. I could load that stove up twice a day and it would heat the house quite well but I had to clean the chimney every 3 weeks. Are the new ones that much better than the old? Do they burn as long and put out the same amount of heat without the same amount of creosote? Like I said I want to move this into the house eventually, so I wont be running it as hard in the house as out in in the barn. I am starting to get up in age where I don't know if I want to be climbing on the roof to be cleaning it out every 3 weeks. What is everybodys thoughts?
First post. Old Versus new
- Thread starter Brian in Michigan
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Brian, two years ago we bought a new stove. We now burn only half the amount of wood we used to and stay a lot warmer too. In addition to that we cleaned the chimney after 2 full winters use (we heat 100% with wood) we got less than a cupful of soot from the chimney. Burns super clean. Imagine having to cut only half the amount of wood as before. Nice!
Comparing every 3 weeks to every 2 years, I'd have to say that Dennis burning nice dry wood makes more of a difference than the stove WRT how clean the flue stays. Dry wood makes the most difference. At least the new stove will force you to burn dry wood.
For the house, no question, get a new stove.
For the barn, it depends how much you intend to use the stove and if you can find a deal on a decent used stove...or go get a lower cost stove like an Englander 30. You'll recoup the $ in wood savings alone in a year or two.
For the barn, it depends how much you intend to use the stove and if you can find a deal on a decent used stove...or go get a lower cost stove like an Englander 30. You'll recoup the $ in wood savings alone in a year or two.
I had an old fireplace insert for years and I had a Drolet Savannah for a year. I had to get up in the middle of the night with both of them, then I'd barley have a fire in the morning. I went through ALOT of wood. My wood consumption now is waaay down and I dont have to get up in the night. Get a new EPA stove. You will not regret it.
Before you do anything secure a year or two's worth of dry firewood, and a dry, well ventilated place to put it.
I came back to the world of wood burning last year . . . and I haven't looked back to burning oil since.
While I cannot say I am lots warmer than when I was burning with oil as some folks can say (I had baseboard heat), I will say I believe I am keeping the house as warm as before, I'm using a renewable resource, not paying anywhere near as much money as I was when I was burning with oil and since the stove burns so much cleaner and uses less wood it means I don't have to work as hard to get in the firewood (or in other's cases not have to pay for so much firewood.)
Do they burn cleaner? Yes.
Do the new stoves use less wood? Yes.
Do they burn as long, if not longer? Well, this one's a qualified answer . . . since a lot of folks using the pre-EPA stoves would get the fire going and then damper them right down . . . the old stoves could go for a long time . . . but the flip side is they smoldered most of the time and produced a lot of creosote. The EPA stoves today can get some pretty long burn times (of course this term is pretty subjective) . . . the ones with the cats get almost undreamed about times. I think a better question to ask when comparing burn times of EPA and pre-EPA stoves is to try to compare apples to apples and ask which stove has a longer burn time -- while at the same time burning cleanly and efficiently . . . and then the answer would undoubtedly be the EPA stoves. Incidentally, last night I did my final reload at 9:30 p.m. . . . and when I woke up this morning at 5:30 I still had enough coals to just throw on some kindling and brought the fire back up to speed in about 20 minutes . . . more importantly, during the night I was getting plenty of heat and burning cleanly . . . and when I woke up the house was at 62 degrees . . . still above the 60 degree temp that I have set my oil boiler to kick on at.
While I cannot say I am lots warmer than when I was burning with oil as some folks can say (I had baseboard heat), I will say I believe I am keeping the house as warm as before, I'm using a renewable resource, not paying anywhere near as much money as I was when I was burning with oil and since the stove burns so much cleaner and uses less wood it means I don't have to work as hard to get in the firewood (or in other's cases not have to pay for so much firewood.)
Do they burn cleaner? Yes.
Do the new stoves use less wood? Yes.
Do they burn as long, if not longer? Well, this one's a qualified answer . . . since a lot of folks using the pre-EPA stoves would get the fire going and then damper them right down . . . the old stoves could go for a long time . . . but the flip side is they smoldered most of the time and produced a lot of creosote. The EPA stoves today can get some pretty long burn times (of course this term is pretty subjective) . . . the ones with the cats get almost undreamed about times. I think a better question to ask when comparing burn times of EPA and pre-EPA stoves is to try to compare apples to apples and ask which stove has a longer burn time -- while at the same time burning cleanly and efficiently . . . and then the answer would undoubtedly be the EPA stoves. Incidentally, last night I did my final reload at 9:30 p.m. . . . and when I woke up this morning at 5:30 I still had enough coals to just throw on some kindling and brought the fire back up to speed in about 20 minutes . . . more importantly, during the night I was getting plenty of heat and burning cleanly . . . and when I woke up the house was at 62 degrees . . . still above the 60 degree temp that I have set my oil boiler to kick on at.
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