Help -best Stove for 1600 sq ft central chimney circa 1790 Cape?

[ltng7679]

I've been doing some research trying to decide what size stove to put in my old 1600 sq ft central chimney Cape. The house was built in 1790 Cape and has 3 fireplaces in separate rooms around a central chimney on the first floor. I was going to put the stove in one of the smaller side fireplaces although it is still plenty large. I've already run a 6" stainless liner that I installed with an insulation kit. The house has very little insulation but does have storm windows. I have one zone central steam heat but the thermostat is in the room farthest from the stove.

I was looking at the Jotul F3 or maybe the F400. I also was looking at the PE T4. I was also considering a Soapstone - Woodstock Fireview but the log length the give is 16" and I already have a big pile of 18" wood with some 20" pieces. I'm willing to cut up some of it but don't want to cut it all. The big concern I have is stove size. I would like something that wil heat the house but not blast me out. Right now we keep the house at 64F. If I could get it up a couple degrees and save on oil that would be great.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Ed

 

[yukiginger]

Perhaps a Fireview owner can chime in as to the length wood that it will hold. Sometimes the manufacturer's are conservative; sometimes they're not. I would opt for a medium-large stove mounted as far out of a fireplace opening as is possible/reasonable. Soapstone is nice, and pretty. There are many other stoves available. I'd look in the 2.5-3 cu. ft. range if I were you.

Some manufacturers to consider (along with the local dealers of them) are: Lopi, Quadrafire, Pacific Energy, Jotul, Hearthstone, Woodstock, Morso, Napoleon). Perhaps peruse their internet sites so you can view their offerings.

MarkG

 

[edthedawg]

Yeah if you have the resources, maybe think of a Heritage. You can't be far from me - you could actually come visit and see mine

 

[ltng7679]

Edthedawg,

What size and type of house do you have the Heritage in? Does it over power the house? When I looked at the specs I thought it would be too big.

Thanks for the offer to see your stove. Maybe I'll take you up on it.

Ed

 

[begreen]

Greetings Ed. If you can supply a rough sketch of the floor plan and description of the fireplace (dimensions are important) and the room it is in we can fine tune recommendations.

In general a wood stove is an area heater. If it's placed in a small room, with only a standard doorway connecting it to the rest of the house, then overheating might be an issue. Conversely, if it's placed in a large open area of the house, with maybe access to an open stairway, then a fairly large stove can run 24/7 without overheating the house.

Pictures are always welcome. That way we can spot other issues that may need to be addressed like clearances.

 

[edthedawg]

A little bigger and little newer than yours - 1885 Victorian. ~2400 sq ft w/ marginal insulation (did the roof nicely before finishing the attic, and the walls have blown-in) plus about half new windows. Pic attached. The Heritage definitely doesn't overpower, BUT... This is new to me - we just installed a month ago, and we've got the Wet Wood Woes, so anything much past 425 F stovetop temp is a bit foreign thus far...

We plan to burn more or less 24/7 once the cold stuff really hits. Looking forward to NOT running the oil-fired boiler for the single-pipe steam radiators unless absolutely necessary... I'm in Stafford Springs - PM me if you wanna see it in action. Pretty warm today so wasn't planning to fire up, but I could be convinced ;-P

 

[ltng7679]

Here is a word document that contains a layout of my first floor. The fireplace the stove is going in is 4' wide, 41" tall and 2' deep. There is a 21" hearth stone in front of fireplace opening. I also attached two pictures of the room where the stove is going. I'm going to sell the Franklin stove that was there.

The ceiling height is 7.5 feet tall.

 

[Jimxj2000]

I can't speak to the newer stoves - but I can give you a point of reference.

We have a 1740's cape with the three fire places and central chimney arrangement. The wood stove is in the middle back room - the kitchen when the house was built. The whole floor plan is pretty open now. Off the back of the house is a newer addition with a dormered second floor above the addition. All together it is about 1,800 sq ft.

We have only been in the house for two winters. So far we run the stove 24/7 – wife and kids are home during the day – and can keep the house nice and warm (~70) without using the oil heat on all but the coldest days. Occasionally, we use the oil to warm the upstairs. This year we are tying to use the oil less and think we can get through the winter on about 8-10 cord and one tank (275 gal) of oil. (Oil does the hot water too.)

One of the previous owners did a good job insulating the walls and roofs. The basement is still a “bit drafty” (we had a pile of snow and froze part of the well last year) with no insulation under the first floor. Windows are early 1980’s vintage (good quality, but single pane) with aluminum storms.

We have a VC Defiant Encore 2140 – it’s max output is rated at 47,000 btu/hr. We are very pleased with it. However, I understand VC quality and service isn’t what it used to be. If you are planning on using the stove for daily heat I would not go with anything much smaller than that – although it will make the house nice and warm on the cool days.

With the large central chimney the house takes a bit of time warm up when cold and seems to retain the heat quite well. The stove flue runs through a stainless steel liner in the chimney so I don’t think there is much heating of the brick work from flue. But after a day or so of burning the mass of brick will heat up nicely.

Good luck and enjoy the history of the old cape. My wife and I like to sit by the fire and say “you know for over 200 years people have sat by the fire here and thought – “I wish we had a second floor on the house”.

 

[begreen]

Great pics, that helps a lot. This is a challenge due to the nearby combustibles. The Alderlea may be a good bet with its close clearances.

The layout of the house is not the most conducive to good central heating. I'm guessing that originally they closed off rooms they weren't using and only lit a fire in them when company came. This fireplace would mostly be just a room/area heater in which case the T4 might work. From the looks of it, the kitchen fireplace holds the most promise for locating a larger, stove for better heating.

 

[ltng7679]

When I look at the specs which number tells me the distance to the mantel (top clearance) that I need? I think that I'm fine to the rear and sides.

Thanks
Ed

 

[begreen]

That's the problem. There isn't a spec for the clearance to mantel. I'm not sure they tested for this, but suspect not.

 

[edthedawg]

Coupla quick thoughts:

- With a fan or two to circulate air & create a good convection loop, you'll get decent heat balanced around the house.

- The Heritage will want to stand out into the room a bit. You'll have to walk around it, plus you'll need a lot more hearth there. I've posted pix of mine elsewhere, but there's lots of ways to do it. If you tuck it back into the fireplace, you'll likely lose access to the side-loading door. Might even have to add the lock-out kit for it lest you be too close on the left side combustibles. I don't think you'll have an issue w/ the mantel clearance provided you use a heat shield. That will be a must.

- Do you have a plate inside the top of the firebox to go along with that liner? Or is it just hanging there?

 

[woodconvert]

That's the problem. There isn't a spec for the clearance to mantel. I'm not sure they tested for this, but suspect not.

First...the pic of that house is way bitchin'. Looks tough to heat but a neat looking house.

Second, I don't have any specs on the proper distance to the mantel....but my stove pipe goes into my hearth wall less than two feed below my mantel. It's a doozer of a mantel (solid oak) but i've been burning with it that way for 8 years with no problem (for the record, some A-hole didn't have this much reference into when he built his house so he just went with it :sick: )

 

[RedRanger]

Looks too Gothic to me... How do you sleep with the ghosts roaming about? Just wondering :roll:

 

[Backwoods Savage]

We too had some of our wood cut too long to fit into the Fireview. We simply cut the ones that wouldn't fit in half (we still have some as we have a large wood pile). The stove will take longer than 16" pieces, but the 16" work the best. 18" don't work too bad but all the wood we cut now is 16" maximum.

Even though some of the wood was a problem we certainly have not been sorry we bought the Fireview and I think it would work for you too.


Ed, that is a beautiful home!

 

[edthedawg]

Thanks for the kind words - the house is truly a labor of love. We fell in love with it the moment we first saw it. And yes the house is tough to heat. We've been here 10 years heating exclusively w/ oil (single pipe steam radiators). In the depth of the cold season (Dec-Feb) we get 200 gal fillups like every 3 weeks!! Incredibly inefficient.

We based the decision on the Heritage (with its significantly high up-front cost) partially on the payback from NOT buying that much oil - estimating we could at least pare 50% off last year's oil purchases, and it'd sorta pay for itself in a few years... If experiences thus far are any indication, we should be able to top that estimate. My goal now is to simply stretch the oil tank (just filled up w/ 150 gal @ 2.609/gal) as far as we can. If it goes to Christmas, I'll be tickled. We do expect we'll need the oil to fire on every now and again - esp in the mornings just to warm up the place while we get ready for school/work. And I'm more than a little concerned about possibly freezing the watermain without the boiler spilling so much heat out into the basement space...

 

[jpl1nh]

I think your challenge is that it will be difficult to truly heat your whole house due to the configuration but you certainly can make a huge dent in your heating bill and be quite a bit warmer at the same time. I think this actually might be a great application for the Woodstock Keystone or Palladian. While you'll have the same log length issue as the Firewview, Todd's advice is right on. It will take an 18" though a 20" won't fit and 16" really is ideal. The smaller soapstone won't heat you out of the room, but the consistant radiant properties of the stove will help the rest of the house a lot as well. The Fireview would work too though in that set up you probably wouldn't often take advantage of the extra 10k BTU it provides, The fireview will give you longer burn times by an hour or two but the Keystone already does fine on that aspect.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

Is two or more inserts completely out of the question? That's what I'd do. . .

 

[branchburner]

Our layout is similar to yours except the stairs were moved to the opposite side (taking up some of what would be the righthand side of your large room). In our house the location where your stove will be is the largest fireplace, and we also have a one-story on-slab addition across from that fireplace, so it was central and the best option. We don't expect the opposite room (upper left) to ever get very warm, and I'd guess neither should you.

How much heat are you hoping for upstairs? It looks like the stairway opens on the opposite side of the house, so that could present a problem getting heat up. Because of our stairway location and header, our upstairs gets warm so fast we need to close the door. Another thread mentioned door headers being a big factor to warm air flow. I had never noticed it before, but our stairway has the highest doorway opening, so the warm air just shoots right up.

Downstairs I put a box fan in the doorway just to the left of the front door, blowing cooler air into the warmer room. It helps.

Regarding stove size, I was advised multiple times (and agree 100%) to error towards the larger firebox. You can always build smaller, shorter fires. With a stove that's too small, all you can do is overfire it.

 

[begreen]

From what I see, the two big challenges here are the large opening which is entirely surrounded by wood. That creates issue #1 - clearance to combustibles. Issue #2 here is size. This is a closed floor plan. The best place for a big stove appears to be the large kitchen fireplace. A large stove in this little room (196 sq ft.), is not going to work well. For a freestanding stove to work it is going to have to fit entirely within the fireplace to avoid clearances issues. But that will reduce the heating efficiency unless the stove has a blower.

Within these constraints, I see this location as needing a front loading, top vent stove, under 2 cu ft. that runs well with a partial load of wood, has a blower option and looks appropriate for the setting. That's how I came up with the T4. It's 20" depth will fit entirely within the fireplace and it has a blower option. Another stove to look at would be the Hearthstone Craftsbury or perhaps the Tribute?

 

[branchburner]

I was looking at the floor plan and thinking about air flow and didn't even look at the pics - all that wood is a big problem. I would consider the other two fireplaces depending on their surrounds. As Bigg Redd said, maybe two is the way to go.

I've found that even heat distribution is a problem in any house with a stove I've ever lived in. I just take it for granted that it's going to be 80 in one part of the house and 60 in another. If that is going to bug you, explore other options. Like they say, if you can't stand the heat get outta the kitchen (which I think is where you should put your stove).

 

[ltng7679]

All,

Thanks for all the great advice. I'll answer a couple questions people posed here and then write a new thread of advice for the final stove selection just to keep people's future searches for advice clean.

Ed asked if the stove pipe just hangs in the flue or if I have a plate there. There is some old sheetmetal that I have from the old Franklin that I'll be using and adjusting since it is nicely formed (my neighbor made it for the previous owner when he had a heating business with all the sheet metal equipment)

I am going to take the advice I got and put the the stove back in the firebox with a blower. Since the house is small, this will give me a little more floor space and keep me from using it as a shelf for clutter during the non heating season.

Someone asked about a fireplace insert or two. I guess that making the custom front plates would be pretty expensive and kill the charm of the old fireplaces. Anyway it is sort of fun to think about all those wasted energy $ floating up the 200+ year old chimney (just kidding). The house isn't that expensive to heat since it is small and we keep it cool. It has steam heat which is another adventure. My same heating neighbor says I should switch to hot water but I like the steam for now.

It was also suggested that I put the stove in the larger fireplace. I don't think my wife would go for it because that is where we roast most of our pinecones (they are in the pots in the attached picture in case you can't see) I'm not a big fan of that location since I'm almost done on the roof and I'd hate to have to break the motar away and remove the large piece of ganite (countertop grade) that I installed to replace the broken up concrete cap. It is 42" X 42" and I have a 45 degree pitch roof so getting it up there took an ariel lift and staging and a friends time. I almost done with the final stages of the chimney repair (the stones above the roof line were pretty loose).

Thanks again
Ed

 

[begreen]

Great looking fireplace. I suspected it would be massive. With a big Alderlea in there your wife could roast pinecones to her heart's delight. The trivet top gives lots of control over the temps and is ideal for slow roasting. There should be no mods to the top of the chimney, just another 6" liner. But I can respect your desire to stay off the roof.

 

[80s Burnout]

I have an 1820 cape with exact same set up. We put our Olso in the back room given that it is more centrally located. With small fans, I can easily draw the warm air into the front rooms. My house is a bit bigger, but have no problems heating the downstairs. I do have a tough time heating the upstairs given the multiple doorways and the very small and tight staircase. Still thinking about how to get the heat upstairs.

I also have wood surrounding my fireplace. Unfortunately, I had to remove the mantle and cut back some of the wood above the fireplace. The clearance for my stove was 30". If you go with a stove, it looks like you will also need a new hearth / hearth pad. But this of course all depends on what stove you put in. If you go with an insert, then it sounds like you can avoid some of the clearance issues.

I would consider putting the stove in that back room.

 

[branchburner]

Just curious - do you use your third fireplace much? I was amazed at how much heat was shooting out the top of my unused flues, even with dampers closed. I decided to seal off the flue top of our third and smallest fireplace.

Wondering what you other guys with antique center chimney capes have noticed when you're messing around up on the roof.