Help picking insert for a tricky cabin situation

[ThereAreGoats]

Mod Edit: Here is the original thread with more info.

Help choosing insert/stove for fireplace

Hi all, I'm renovating a cabin in the Catskills and need some advice picking a new stove or insert for the existing fireplace. My main questions are: Stove or insert? Steel or cast iron? Some important stuff up front: Total area of cabin: 950 sq ft Placement of stove/insert: In hearth on...

www.hearth.com

Hello wood burning Jedi.

I asked a version of this question earlier this year, but I have far more information and stove choices now so I wanted to ask it again, building on things @begreen, @EbS-P and others said.

In short, I'm looking for a hearth insert to use in my 1,000 square foot Catskills cabin once I finish renovations. I currently have a Green Mountain 40 in a central location, and even with shoddy insulation, it heats the space beautifully (though the cabin is a tad smaller pre-renovations, at around 850 sf). After my renovations, though, I'll no longer have a spot for that stove and will need my secondary heat source to be in my hearth.

A few things are changing with my renovations. On the plus side, I'm adding top-notch insulation. On the negative side, I'll need to downgrade from a stove to an insert (my GM40 isn't rear vented and would be swallowed in the hearth), the insert will be on a far wall, and the hallway leading from the room w/ the insert to the other half of the cabin is narrowing considerably, to 3.5 x 11 feet. Another factor is that I have frequent power outages and would generally just prefer to not have to use a blower. I also really enjoy using the stove as my primary heat, even though I do have mini-splits. Lastly, I might prefer hybrid stoves, since cat operation can be tedious for guests and hybrids can typically be run without engaging them. But this is the least important issue.

This is a tricky situation, because there's the issue of not wanting to roast myself one one half of the cabin, and the issue of not wanting to freeze on the other. Perhaps a BK, with the ability to go pretty low, is the answer to the first problem, and the blower (or perhaps my mini-split, mounted near the hall) is the answer to the second. @begreen, in the other thread, frowned on the mini-split idea, and perhaps rightly. There is also a slight chance I'll install the GM40 on that opposite end, in my sun room, just to have on the coldest days. But that side of the cabin is only 350 square feet and it would likely be overkill as well.

The stoves I'm looking at are below (and all seem to fit). Any thoughts on any of these given my circumstances?

STOVE CHOICES:
Blaze King Sirocco and Ashford (I really don't like the look of the Princess)
Regency Cascades Hybrid
Lopi Answer
Lopi Evergreen Hybrid
Morso insert

HEARTH STATS:
Width: 38.5"
Width (back bottom): 34
Height: 29.25
Depth (bottom): 26.25"
Depth (top) 19"
Distance from front to middle of flue: 16

 

[Dix]

Floor plan, please

 

[ThereAreGoats]

Floor plan, please

Just added

 

[begreen]

Just added

Just showed up

Previous thread for reference

Help choosing insert/stove for fireplace

Hi all, I'm renovating a cabin in the Catskills and need some advice picking a new stove or insert for the existing fireplace. My main questions are: Stove or insert? Steel or cast iron? Some important stuff up front: Total area of cabin: 950 sq ft Placement of stove/insert: In hearth on...

www.hearth.com

 

[begreen]

The hallway is the blocking factor. The insert will heat the area in which it's located. A flush insert is mostly dependent on the blower to convect decently. The more an insert sits out on the hearth, the better it will radiate heat into the room with the blower off during an outage.

 

[ThereAreGoats]

Not seeing anything.

Previous thread for reference

Help choosing insert/stove for fireplace

Hi all, I'm renovating a cabin in the Catskills and need some advice picking a new stove or insert for the existing fireplace. My main questions are: Stove or insert? Steel or cast iron? Some important stuff up front: Total area of cabin: 950 sq ft Placement of stove/insert: In hearth on...

www.hearth.com

Ok now it should be attached to the original post.

 

[begreen]

Yes, now I see it. During an outage, with no blower, only the Living Room will be heated by the insert. Even with power on, the LR will be where the heat mostly stays. The Kitchen will be a lot cooler due to the sunroom and the exisiting bedrooms will also be notably cooler unless some sort of fan system is used to move some of the heat. Maybe consider eliminating one window (F?) in the sunroom and keep the GM40 for that location.

What is the ceiling height in the Living Room?

 

[ThereAreGoats]

@begreen around 11 feet. But they're much shorter elsewhere. I've considered doing what you recommended in the sun room; I already have the stove, after all, and it would be easy to install it in there, although I'd hate to lose a window. But running two stoves starts to get pretty tedious. I also worry that the GM40 would be too much for that space on the other side of the hallway, which is only 300-400 square feet. A tough situation.

 

[begreen]

@begreen around 11 feet. But they're much shorter elsewhere. I've considered doing what you recommended in the sun room; I already have the stove, after all, and it would be easy to install it in there, although I'd hate to lose a window. But running two stoves starts to get pretty tedious. I also worry that the GM40 would be too much for that space on the other side of the hallway, which is only 300-400 square feet. A tough situation.

Understood, but it is a poor floorplan for wood heating from a sole source. The plan resolution and size is small and the text is fuzzy. Is the sunroom open or closed off from the kitchen? If open, the GM40 would heat the sunroom and the kitchen. With all that glass, the heat loss in the sunroom is going to be quite high.

 

[ThereAreGoats]

@begreen around 11 feet. But they're much shorter elsewhere. I've considered doing what you recommended in the sun room; I already have the stove, after all, and it would be easy to install it in there, although I'd hate to lose a window. But running two stoves starts to get pretty tedious. I also worry that the GM40 would be too much for that space on the other side of the hallway, which is only 300-400 square feet. A tough situation.

Understood, but it is a poor floorplan for wood heating from a sole source. The plan resolution and size is small and the text is fuzzy. Is the sunroom open or closed off from the kitchen? If open, the GM40 would heat the sunroom and the kitchen. With all that glass, the heat loss in the sunroom is going to be quite high.

Apologies for the low resolution. The sun room and kitchen are one continuous space, with the ceiling height expanding in the sun room. I think I will go ahead and install the GM40 in there, likely against the N wall. (We're squaring off that space/removing the octagonal end, which will provide room for three windows on the N wall instead of two. I think removing the middle of those and installing the stove between the two others, or even in front of the middle window, is the best solution). The back clearance on the GM40 is only 10" so, together with the floor protection, it won't take up too much space in the room. (Here are the GM40 installation requirements).

 

[dafattkidd]

Apologies for the low resolution. The sun room and kitchen are one continuous space, with the ceiling height expanding in the sun room. I think I will go ahead and install the GM40 in there, likely against the N wall. (We're squaring off that space/removing the octagonal end, which will provide room for three windows on the N wall instead of two. I think removing the middle of those and installing the stove between the two others, or even in front of the middle window, is the best solution). The back clearance on the GM40 is only 10" so, together with the floor protection, it won't take up too much space in the room. (Here are the GM40 installation requirements).

This is the most cost effective plan. The living room and bedrooms will not get much heat from this as @begreen mentioned. If you’re like me, and love to have the fire/wood heat in the room you spend the most time (in my case the living room), you may want to consider an insert in that existing fireplace eventually- as your budget allows. Probably not a great source as a primary source of heat, but a lovely attribute to a cabin living room.

Do you mind if I ask where in the Catskills and where is your primary residence? I’m in Smithtown on Long Island. I’m in the Catskills regularly for camping and hiking.

I can recommend the BK Ashford insert. It’s beautiful and has been an absolute pleasure for us the past two winters.

 

[ThereAreGoats]

Definitely doing an insert in the fireplace as well! That might have gotten lost in the stuff about the GM40 on the other end of the cabin. The Ashford (I'd probably do the Sirocco, whch is the same thing, basically) is one of the two or three I'm considering. Glad to hear it's working well for you. Do you ever use it without the blower?

The issue with the BK is that, depending on how you look at my circumstances, it's an expensive stove to be using. If no stove is going to heat the entire cabin, I might as well get something much smaller, like a Lopi Answer or Morso or something, and just enjoy the flames and the limited heat on that side. On the other hand, I kinda want to see if it can be done somehow. I honestly don't see myself running two stoves/inserts at once very often, since it can be a bit tedious (especially when the burn times on my GM40 are so short, despite trying absolutely everything to lengthen them) and I will probably roast myself. So it would be nice to have something that could at least generate enough heat to play with in terms of heating the entire place (long hallway difficulties notwithstanding) but that can also turn down enough to just heat that side of the cabin if needed. It's gonna be a crap shoot in the end; the narrow hallway really screws things up and I'll just have to see how the air ends up moving.

(I'm near Phoenicia, btw).

 

[dafattkidd]

Sounds good. I would recommend a mid sized firebox minimally. Generally people wish they had a larger firebox. Almost never so people complain a firebox that is too large. You can burn small loads in a larger firebox, but you cannot increase your capacity of a small firebox.

 

[begreen]

In this case a large insert, if it fit, might never see more than a half load. Keeping it simple with a decent 1.5 - 2.0 cu ft insert is a good plan. It's mostly only going to heat the LR unless a fan is put in the entry way blowning into the LR to help distribute some heat to the kitchen.