Kitchen Queen Grand Comfort 750 help

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lizz

New Member
Sep 15, 2022
3
Maine
Hi everyone, we are planning to build a new house next summer. We are going to design it to be suited to a wood cookstove. I have narrowed my search down to the kitchen queen grand comfort 750. It hasn't been easy finding reviews or real life experiences from people who own this stove. Anyone own one or know who does? The company claims they can heat up to 3000sqft and hold a burn for 12-16hrs with proper use and setup. Does this sound accurate? Our home will be around 1800sqft one level with vaulted ceilings over main living area and a loft over the bedrooms. I grew up burning wood with a small kitchen stove and wood furnace in basement but as an adult i haven't used a woodstove so I'm going to be a little rusty. We will be building in northern Maine and are hoping the kitchen queen will be able to be our main source of heat with a propane backup heater. Sorry for the long message. Just looking for any thoughts, insights, or advice. Thanks guys.
 
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A cook stove often has its own heating cycles based on cooking, not heating. Using it as the sole source of heat can mean timing baking to the refueling cycle. This is certainly doable, but it takes planning sometimes. I have no comment on this cookstove other than it's big. I don't recall anyone reporting on a large GC model before. Ask if this stove has an outside air connection option. In a tight new house, this may be a necessity.

Figure on the stove doing half the claimed burn times and heating during the dead of winter unless the house is super tight and insulated. The vaulted ceiling will be dead air space and a heat trap and the loft area will be hot. It's a waste of space IMO. In the least, plan on a couple of ceiling fans to help distribute the heat that will get trapped at the ceiling peak.
 
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Thanks for the reply begreen! I'm not sure about the outside air intake or what that is so I'll look into it. The loft will only be semi open to the downstairs and we don't plan on having the vaulted ceilings too terribly high because of the heat waste. Ceiling fans will definitely be installed. The plan is to have the house spray foamed to insulate. I'm hoping with the right setup we won't have to use the propane backup all that much. Our goal is to design a house that will be hooked to the grid but will also be very suited to being off grid even without solar if ever neccessary. A wood cookstove seems like a must for such a thing.
 
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First, kudos for designing a well-insulated home. That will pay off every year. Before going too far, get a good heat load analysis done on the house. Depending on the foam depth, it may need little to no extra heat for many months of the year, especially if this is 2x6 construction. Lighting, refrigeration, and human body heat will do the job.

You may need to consider a smaller stove if the numbers show the big Queen is too much heat.
 
Hi everyone, we are planning to build a new house next summer. We are going to design it to be suited to a wood cookstove. I have narrowed my search down to the kitchen queen grand comfort 750. It hasn't been easy finding reviews or real life experiences from people who own this stove. Anyone own one or know who does? The company claims they can heat up to 3000sqft and hold a burn for 12-16hrs with proper use and setup. Does this sound accurate? Our home will be around 1800sqft one level with vaulted ceilings over main living area and a loft over the bedrooms. I grew up burning wood with a small kitchen stove and wood furnace in basement but as an adult i haven't used a woodstove so I'm going to be a little rusty. We will be building in northern Maine and are hoping the kitchen queen will be able to be our main source of heat with a propane backup heater. Sorry for the long message. Just looking for any thoughts, insights, or advice. Thanks guys.
We don't have a cook stove (wish we did. long story! lol) but have you talked to anyone at Lehman's? They are a store in Ohio that carry items geared to folks that don't use electricity or simply don't have access to it. I bet their wood stove person(s) could help you out.
 
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It's funny, I was browsing the Lehman's sight as you were sending the info. Talking to someone with knowledge of modern wood cookstoves would be a great idea.
 
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Obidiah's is another great source for cookstove info.
 
Our main winter heat source is our cookstove. We do most of our cooking and baking with it as well. I find that satisfying. Also, it is nice to have when the power is out. When we bought our old farmhouse and redid and foam insulated the main floor. I had hoped to use our cookstove along with adding a heating stove. The limited space, aprox 30x30, with a center stairway made that impractical. We put in a heat pump instead. It was a god decision. We also have an oil fired boiler, rarely used. The cook stove has a firebox of just 1.2 cu ft . It can just heat the first floor which is where we primarily live. We also insulated between the first and second floor and have a quilt made to reduce heat and air flow from our main floor I’ve looked at replacing the Stanley with a stove with more capacity, heating or cook, but are staying with it. It is hard to know how a cookstove will cook and heat from reading the literature. It seems to me that along with the better options there are some less than great designs to both heat and cook. I know nothing about the 750 but it is wise to find one or more owner / users for a review. Like your family I once had a small cook stove and wood furnace. It was a nice combination. Similarly one can might do well with a small cookstove and a heating stove.