In the market for a new stove

[NectarNook]

My husband and I are building a house in northeastern Wisconsin. It's sole source of heat will be a wood stove. While I'm familiar with heating using a wood stove, I find myself adrift in a sea of choices with a deadline closing in.

Here's a few details of our home, if it helps.

That is the layout of our home. It will be on an unheated full basement. It is 24'x40', giving us a total of around 960 sq ft to heat. According to ResCheck, our total building heating load is 23,578 BTU/hr. The bedrooms, hall, and bathroom are 8' ceilings, and the kitchen/living area is open beam to a height of 18'. All wood floors. Ceiling fans in every room to help circulate air. The stairs and entry are on the south side of the house where there are no shade trees. The north side of the house is shaded.

We have a trusty indoor kerosene heater for a just-in-case backup. We are on the grid, but would like to avoid using electricity to move the heat through our house if at all possible. We're kind of a long way from civilization, so we really want to be able to function on our own through storms and power outages. I would like a stove I can put pots and kettles on to boil water and cook meals. Nothing huge, just two at a time would be nice.

I'm enjoying browsing the threads here. I hope to be able to find a wood stove to meet our needs and have it installed before winter hits. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to offer advice. I'm overwhelmed and very grateful for assistance.

(I have at least two years worth of dry, split wood 16-20" long. 14 acres of hardwood forest to replenish it as I go. I'm all set there... just need help choosing a wood stove.)

 

[BrotherBart]

Great floor plan for wood heating. Everybody will ring in with stove suggestions but I will start it with the Woodstock Fireview for not only a nicely tempered stove but a nice piece of furniture. Well, if you like the Laotian temple look. Or the Pacific Energy T5 for a great looking a cast iron clad non-cat that will get'er done and cook yer food nicely.

I will leave the picking of nits to those who follow.

Welcome to the forum. And congrats on the best floor plan ever posted.

 

[Augie]

Contrary to popular belief, as long as you stick with the reputable brands, Lopi, Woodstock, Avalon, Osburn, US Stove, Vogelzang, Drolet, Jotul, and others there are really no "bad" stoves. All will heat fine, all behave slightly differently. With every brand you will have a few that say they are no good and a few that say they are the best. Dry wood, learn how to run it and you will be happy. Pick for looks, firebox size, and Guarantee. IMHO

 

[BrotherBart]

PS: I would seriously advise talking to your homeowner's insurance company of choice before you go with wood and a kero heater as sole source. I don't know of a company in the country that will insure a place like that any more.

 

[NectarNook]

Great floor plan for wood heating. Everybody will ring in with stove suggestions but I will start it with the Woodstock Fireview for not only a nicely tempered stove but a nice piece of furniture. Well, ifyou like the Laotian temple look. Or the Pacific Energy T5 for a great looking a cast iron clad non-cat that will get'er done and cook yer food nicely.

I will leave the picking of nits to those who follow.

Welcome to the forum. And congrats on the best floor plan ever posted.

Can you cook on top of a soapstone stove? It certainly is beautiful.

I've never used a catalytic stove, but I've been reading about them on the topic pages here. I'm almost starting to lean toward them simply because of their long burn times. I grew up having to take turns waking up to stoke the wood stove a couple times a night - what a pain in the buns! My husband and I have done a tiny amount of research before now, and we liked the Alderlea T4. Looks like a good stove. But... I wanted to resist the urge to buy the very first one we saw. I'm so bad about that, and I usually end up finding something I like more after the fact.

Thanks for the super fast feedback.

 

[Michael Golden]

Our house has almost the exact layout as yours, but 1232 sq ft. I have a Jutol Oslo and it can run us out if I really crank it. If I was to do it again it would be in the basement! But, I would still have a stove upstairs because the aesthetics of It.

 

[BrotherBart]

Many people cook on the soapstone stoves. I would never be able to bring myself to do it. We have heated with wood sole source for a long time but I got tired of the mess of cooking on the wood stove 20 years ago. During power failures the little Coleman camp stove does just fine.

What really did it was a stew boiling over on the wood stove 20 years ago in nasty cold weather. Couldn't shut it down for cleaning and smelling burning stew for a couple of days did me in.

 

[Grisu]

Can you cook on top of a soapstone stove? It certainly is beautiful.

I've never used a catalytic stove, but I've been reading about them on the topic pages here. I'm almost starting to lean toward them simply because of their long burn times. I grew up having to take turns waking up to stoke the wood stove a couple times a night - what a pain in the buns! My husband and I have done a tiny amount of research before now, and we liked the Alderlea T4. Looks like a good stove. But... I wanted to resist the urge to buy the very first one we saw. I'm so bad about that, and I usually end up finding something I like more after the fact.

Thanks for the super fast feedback.

Since you do not have much space to heat and I assume your place will be fairly energy efficient I would also recommend a catalytic stove. With those you can regulate the heat more easily especially in the shoulder season when you do not need the stove cranking. With a normal EPA stove you run the risk of heating yourself out of the house in those months. Woodstock is certainly a good suggestion as they have also one of the best customer services in the industry besides making very nice stoves. Other catalytic stoves to look at would be Blaze King and Buck stoves. A firebox size of 2 to 2.5 cu ft. should be sufficient for your place.

 

[Dix]

Hmmppfff, a better floor plan than mine *miffed*

Welcome to the forums, Nectar !!

You are getting good advise !Keep processing that firewood !

 

[begreen]

If you chose an Alderlea, go with the T5. It's a much better fit considering the high ceilings. You will also appreciate the longer burntimes.

Is there a ceiling fan in the 18' ceiling area? It will be needed to break up heat stratification at the ceiling peak.

 

[HollowHill]

Most definitely can cook on soapstone stoves. Look up posts by rideau, she is the queen of cooking on soapstone, both a Woodstock Fireview and Progress Hybrid. It's amazing what she has done. Gotta second a Woodstock, they are a pleasure to run, view, and live with. And they have a 6 month money back guarantee, which did my indecisive soul good. Was a big expense for me, but one which I now know was the right choice for me. I wouldn't have thought buying from the manufacturer rather than a local shop would have been the way to go, but I get better support by far from the manufacturer than my friends get from the local shop.

 

[Jags]

I would also take a look at the PE Super 27 for this install. I think it would be a nice combo of size and burn time. The fireview would also be on my short list.

Double check with whoever you need to, but Don't gloss over what BroB brought up. Many/most Ins. Co. don't like wood heat as the single source of heat and require a "backup" plan. Electric base boards, forced air furnace, etc.

 

[PapaDave]

Agreed, with one difference........Must have a furnace or boiler/baseboard type system as main, then wood as supplement/"backup". That's here, may be different for you.
Devil's in the details.
NectarNook, one bit of advice....and considering your location, it's probably already in the plan, insulate that place extremely well.
This will help for as long as the house stands. Less heat and cooling needed means less work..............
Pics to follow, we hope. Good luck in your stove quest.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

PS: I would seriously advise talking to your homeowner's insurance company of choice before you go with wood and a kero heater as sole source. I don't know of a company in the country that will insure a place like that any more.

No problem in this category for us. We have the wood stove as our heat source but no kerosene and I wouldn't really want that in the house. I will say that one time we needed to be away in the winter. It was not super cold. If my memory bank is working right I think it was high 20's to low 30's daytime and teens at night. We did use a little Pelonis heater (electric). Those are really small but put out some decent heat and they have a blower. The day we came home the temperature was 25 or around there and the house temperature was around 60 degrees. No problem with water pipes either.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Can you cook on top of a soapstone stove? It certainly is beautiful.

I've never used a catalytic stove, but I've been reading about them on the topic pages here. I'm almost starting to lean toward them simply because of their long burn times. I grew up having to take turns waking up to stoke the wood stove a couple times a night - what a pain in the buns! My husband and I have done a tiny amount of research before now, and we liked the Alderlea T4. Looks like a good stove. But... I wanted to resist the urge to buy the very first one we saw. I'm so bad about that, and I usually end up finding something I like more after the fact.

Thanks for the super fast feedback.

Welcome to the forum NectarNook.

For sure you can cook on a wood stove. We've done so for many, many moons and continue to do so with the Fireview. And as I stated above, we have no insurance problem.

Where you are building probably is not too far from where we once lived (Escanaba area) so we are somewhat familiar with your climate. For the house you describe I would not hesitate putting in a Fireview and would recommend the Progress but think that might be too much heat for you. You have the right requirement with good dry wood. I will add that we have recommended everyone be 3 years ahead on the wood and if you do that, you should never have a problem with your wood. Stack it outdoors, off the ground and cover only the top of the wood stacks.

On the Fireview, I'll add that our previous stove was much larger but we were never really comfortable with it except in spring and fall. During the winter months we were not comfortable and even closed off part of the house. Then we started shopping for stoves. At first we had our minds made up to not get a cat stove. However, we had heard great things about Woodstock and to make a long story short, we did buy the Fireview. I'll also admit that when I first saw the stove, although it was and is beautiful, I doubted it would heat our old crate. But then, there was that 6 month guarantee and that did go a long way towards making up our mind. In addition, we visited some folks who heated with the Fireview and that was the final straw. We came home and ordered one.

It did not take long to know that it was the right stove for us. In our first year we found that we no longer had to close off part of the house. We heated the whole thing and were finally warm in the winter. The really amazing part is that we used only half the amount of wood that we had been using! Then we also found that we no longer had to clean our chimney as often which is a blessing. We've had the stove for 6 full heating seasons now and we did clean the chimney once to get about a cup of soot and absolutely no creosote. That was 4 years ago when we cleaned it. We might clean it this summer to see what we get.

I'll add that our chimney is a SS chimney and the pipe goes out the rear of the stove, through the wall and then up alongside of the house. We do not have a chase but we do not have any problem with draft.

As for the cat, it makes running the stove very simple and easy. You do have to clean the cat occasionally but that is a task that takes only a couple minutes. With the Fireview, it is a matter of letting the fire die out so only a few coals left. Naturally for protection the company has to say to do this when the stove is cold but we never wait. Just let it cool a bit, open the top lid, reach in with one hand and lift out the cat. I take it out on the porch and brush it lightly with an old paint brush. Sometimes I'll use canned air, like what you would use on a keyboard, and blow through the honeycomb (never used compressed air but the canned is okay). Then it is a matter of setting the cat back in place and closing the lid. Simple, quick and easy.

Good luck.

 

[jeff_t]

No problem in this category for us. We have the wood stove as our heat source but no kerosene and I wouldn't really want that in the house. I will say that one time we needed to be away in the winter. It was not super cold. If my memory bank is working right I think it was high 20's to low 30's daytime and teens at night. We did use a little Pelonis heater (electric). Those are really small but put out some decent heat and they have a blower. The day we came home the temperature was 25 or around there and the house temperature was around 60 degrees. No problem with water pipes either.

Maybe you should share the name of your insurance company.Not arguing, everybody is just saying that *most* won't insure a place without another heat source.

When we leave, the thermostat gets set as low as it goes, 45° I think. I'm pretty sure it has never come on over a weekend. Of course, that's with the stove loaded up with good stuff and set on low, so it's making some kind of heat for a day and a half

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Foremost.

 

[rijim]

Woodstock Progress and Lopi Cape Cod would be at the top of my list.
Jim

 

[NectarNook]

Thank you again for all of the replies. My husband and I took a look at the recommendations. We like the look of the Blaze King Princess and the Woodstock Progress Hybrid. The wood we have is all about 18-22" long, so a 16" stove would be a bit of a pita. Would it be worth trimming 3 years worth of wood to fit in order to have a smaller stove?

My fear with these bigger stoves is that our house is so small we'd end up needing to open every window in the house to let in cold air so we don't roast.



That's the start of our wood pile. I've stacked maybe 1/4 of what we have on hand. What is there is only about half of the total. I still have to do a few more trailer loads, but unfortunately my trailer is in the shop. It was throwing faults and the brakes weren't working. Turns out the guy who owned it before us was pretty free with his splits and cheap mismatched wiring. Lovely. I should be back to hauling at the end of July again.

I have the addresses for an Alderlea dealer and a Blaze King dealer south of us. I'll check them each out if I get a free day this week.

I'll keep y'all posted. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the advice!

btw - I've talked to several insurance agencies about home insurance. Of the seven so far, only State Farm is willing to work with us. I'll still make some more calls to find out if there are any others available. Foremost is at the top of my list to call now. The duds were Geico, Progressive, Travelers, AAA, Nationwide, and American Family.

 

[lumbering on]

I completely get the desire to heat one's house entirely with wood.

But I have to ask, what happens if you are away from your house for a while in the winter without a backup system on a thermostat?
Do you have to drain the pipes every time you go on a trip?

 

[begreen]

Heck no. Having no back up system is silly and most likely not going to sit well with the insurance company.

 

[jeff_t]

If you're looking at Blaze King, check out the smaller Sirocco 20 and Chinook 20. Might be a better fit. The Ashford 30 is supposed to be out this fall. I'm not sure if they will have a smaller version of that as well.

Trimming down splits seems like a PITA, but it's not that big of a deal. Quite a few threads on the subject. I wouldn't let it be a deciding factor.

 

[Woody Stover]

My fear with these bigger stoves is that our house is so small we'd end up needing to open every window in the house to let in cold air so we don't roast.

If you look at the EPA numbers, you'll see that you can run the Progress almost as low as the Fireview. The Progress has that nice big window. The Progress is reported to be even stingier with wood; Less wood needed means less work. That said, I'm selling the Fv and am going to heat with the Keystone. We have about the same sq.ft, no vaulted ceiling, not as tight an envelope, an unheated/uninsulate basement and milder climate to be factored in. I think the Fv could handle your place, with adequate reserve headroom, but I'd say get the stove that has the features you like as well, since it'll be there for a long time.

I completely get the desire to heat one's house entirely with wood.

But I have to ask, what happens if you are away from your house for a while in the winter without a backup system on a thermostat?
Do you have to drain the pipes every time you go on a trip?

They have a basement so the pipes should be OK, and like Dennis said, you can keep the upstairs warm enough with a small electric space heater when your house isn't huge....

 

[Todd]

If it were me I'd opt for one of the smaller Woodstocks. Your home is small at 960 sq ft and a Keystoneor Palladian would have little trouble heating a new home of your size. My Keystone is almost too much at times for my 1200 sq ft. A bigger stove may look out of place in a smaller home and take up more space with a larger hearth.

You can cut down splits pretty easy with a chop saw, I do it all the time and use the small chunks in the shoulder season or chop them into kindling.

 

[aansorge]

Blaze Kings are known to be the most controllable stoves. I'd get a Blaze King if it were my main source of heat (which it will be this year). I'd get a princess due to the fact that you have 20 inch logs already cut. Some of the other stoves listed above by others won't take that. It also has a very broad range of heat production. On those cold long nights in Northern Wisconsin, it would never be at a loss of providing long stints with plenty of heat.