For a year now, we’ve been planning to have a wood stove installed for supplemental heat in the Spring of 2016. We had settled on the Osburn Matrix (with soapstone panels) free standing stove because it seemed to balance an interesting style with about the right amount of heat output for what we wanted to do. However, starting in to another winter, I’m beginning to second guess our choice. I’d like some input from you guys on stove sizing rather than specific stove models.
The house is an odd blunted A-frame shape, that’s basically 20x40’ floor, with the top floor being a little narrower due to the fact that it’s an A-frame shape. The bottom floor is a basement on one side and a walk-out garage on the other (house is set into a steep hill). The main floor is predominantly open floor plan with a 2-story great room with a vaulted-ish ceiling. The top floor has the master bedroom walled off, then a loft open to the main floor via the great room. One end of the great room is nearly entirely glass (~300sqf of single-pane glass). Unfortunately, the only possible position for the stove is in the great room near the end with all the glass. The walls and roof are R30. However, errors in the initial construction and subsequent water damage mean that the house leaks a HUGE amount of air. We don’t have blower door numbers yet, unfortunately. We live in central Ohio, which is Climate Zone 5. Our mean low in the heating season is 20F and our 10th percentile low is 10F. Record low is -22F, which we’ve hit several times in recent years. We typically have about a week a year where it stays below 10F all week and 3-5 nights a year where it’s below 0F.
Our initial goal with the wood stove had been to provide some supplemental heat in the late afternoon and evenings until we went to bed. The central furnace we have does hold the house at a temperature but it always feels cold anyway. We’ve been using a 10kBTU kerosene heater to make the main floor comfortable in the evenings and want to replace that with the wood stove. However, as I sit here watching energy costs rise and wages fall, I’ve gotten more and more interested in having a source of heat other than electricity available.
So here are my questions:
1) If we go with the initial plan of just trying to replace the kero heater we use now, what size stove do we need to sustain a 10-15kBTU output (maybe a max of 20kBTU when it’s really cold) over the course of late afternoon to the middle of the night? Yes, reloading during that timespan is fine.
2) If we want to have the stove able to take over the main heating duties under duress, what size of stove would we need to be able to heat 24 hours a day providing sufficient BTU output for the conditions above, if we want to maintain a 70F indoor temp at our mean low of 20F and at least keep the place above 40F during our record lows of -20F?
Thanks guys!
The house is an odd blunted A-frame shape, that’s basically 20x40’ floor, with the top floor being a little narrower due to the fact that it’s an A-frame shape. The bottom floor is a basement on one side and a walk-out garage on the other (house is set into a steep hill). The main floor is predominantly open floor plan with a 2-story great room with a vaulted-ish ceiling. The top floor has the master bedroom walled off, then a loft open to the main floor via the great room. One end of the great room is nearly entirely glass (~300sqf of single-pane glass). Unfortunately, the only possible position for the stove is in the great room near the end with all the glass. The walls and roof are R30. However, errors in the initial construction and subsequent water damage mean that the house leaks a HUGE amount of air. We don’t have blower door numbers yet, unfortunately. We live in central Ohio, which is Climate Zone 5. Our mean low in the heating season is 20F and our 10th percentile low is 10F. Record low is -22F, which we’ve hit several times in recent years. We typically have about a week a year where it stays below 10F all week and 3-5 nights a year where it’s below 0F.
Our initial goal with the wood stove had been to provide some supplemental heat in the late afternoon and evenings until we went to bed. The central furnace we have does hold the house at a temperature but it always feels cold anyway. We’ve been using a 10kBTU kerosene heater to make the main floor comfortable in the evenings and want to replace that with the wood stove. However, as I sit here watching energy costs rise and wages fall, I’ve gotten more and more interested in having a source of heat other than electricity available.
So here are my questions:
1) If we go with the initial plan of just trying to replace the kero heater we use now, what size stove do we need to sustain a 10-15kBTU output (maybe a max of 20kBTU when it’s really cold) over the course of late afternoon to the middle of the night? Yes, reloading during that timespan is fine.
2) If we want to have the stove able to take over the main heating duties under duress, what size of stove would we need to be able to heat 24 hours a day providing sufficient BTU output for the conditions above, if we want to maintain a 70F indoor temp at our mean low of 20F and at least keep the place above 40F during our record lows of -20F?
Thanks guys!
