Jotul GF 400 Sebago, gas stove heating options.

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kybishop

Member
Feb 9, 2016
62
Kentucky
I am a wood burner and I am getting familiar with the gas stoves. I am looking to acquire more than one for heating options in the old house I grew up in and am currently renovating. The home is a bit secluded and can be cut off by floods at times.

We have a Vermont Castings Defiant wood stove that my father bought in the early 70's. I recently rebuilt it and we use it regularly. Heats great. I also have propane forced air furnace as heat. The house is in large part divided. There is the original stone part and a 1970's addition. It is just about half of each, as in half the house is un-insulated stone walls that are about 2' thick and the other half very well insulated 2x6 stud walls. Luckily the stone walls consists of an outer stone wall and inner stone wall with a bit of a rubble/air gap between them. Helps a good bit.

Anyway. The two different portions of the house take on very different heating and cooling characteristics. The big Defiant is in the newer (70's) insulated portion of the house. I am looking to put some vented gas stoves in the rooms of the old stone part so that each room can be heated as needed. They are large rooms with existing fireplaces I can use for venting. About 18'x20' rooms roughly.

I was looking for a larger gas stove for the first floor of the stone part which is about 1000 sf. The heating of this area will be a bit more of a task than your well insulated modern 1000 sf house.

I am a fan of both Jotul and the old Vermont Castings. I am drawn to the Jotul gas stoves. I have found one local that has been used for a couple of years. They have since gotten alternative heat and want to sell their Jotul gas stove that has been converted for propane. They didn't know exactly what model it was. I am guessing that it is a version of the GF 400 Sebago by looking at the pictures and technical info. They are wanting $450 for it. I am thinking this may be a good size if not a bit large for the first floor.

Looking for thoughts and opinions on this from those that know gas stove heat and some small gas stove options. These will be backups for power outages, floods etc in addition to heat for comfort as needed. The old stone part has forced air duct work as well. All this is propane gas.

As I mentioned I need these to work during a power outage. The power lines to the house on our property are all underground. We have not had issues with this (knocking on wood enthusiastically...) but we do have outages from time to time as the county we are in is pretty heavily wooded. Ice and wind from storms can take out the lines.

A picture of the Jotul I found for sale is attached. Comes with the fan, thermostat and chimney pipe.

There is a link in my signature to the blog about the house in question.

Thanks!


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