Looking to replace an old Buck 27000, don't have the coin for a Blaze King, what do your recommend?

[tpcolson]

I have a very old Buck 2700(0?) that does "OK" heating the whole house, it's just it at what I half-jokingly assume is 5% efficiency. I regasket it every few years but it's leaky as heck and I can get a "house-heating burn" for maybe 3-4 hours. Overnight in the winters, it's damned cold in the mornings. As I'm nearing the end of an energy-efficient remodel of a 2 story Appalachian-style log cabin, I want to burn less wood and heat more efficiently. I'm really interested in a cat stove. I am not interested in retrofitting the buck nor am I interested in troubleshooting why the buck is inefficient/leaky. It's beat to heck, the blower is long dead, one corner is propped up with a brick. It's going to the scrap yard. Here's my environment:

• Existing stove is downstairs, between floor fan works extremely, exceptionally well at moving heat from down to up.
• House is very well insulated, but I'm not passing any blower door tests. plenty of air exchange.
• I harvest, split, and stack my own wood and would rather sever my own arm than burn wood that is more than 15% wet and/or not dried 3 years. I have a pin moisture meter
• I'll sever the other arm before I burn poplar, pine, etc. It's all oak, ash, walnut, maple, cherry, all free
• Woodworker. Bottomless supply of kindling. Too much, in fact....I'm a really bad woodworker.....
• Existing SS, double-wall insulated chimney. Professionally cleaned every 3 years, I run the brush-drill thingy in between, never seen a molecule of creosote
• Would like to be able to stack the box N/S with 16-20" splits? I usually buck my logs at 16, but towards the end of the day and a dull chain, you know how it goes...
• On that note I want a cavernous box. Like hide a body in there
• Really like the idea of a CAT. Save the environment and all, and ain't gonna lie, harvesting 3-5 cords a year is getting a bit long in the tooth. My friend works for NOAA and he dies a little each time I light the stove. So does the ozone layer....
• I realize stoves are expensive, but a BK is out of the cards due to cost. I also have to pay for professional installation (per insurance) and that's a few thousand, likely more than the stove. Not an alternative. That's what stove installers charge around here because they know the insurance rule. I'm not DIY'ing it.
• I'm really interested in long, long burn times.
• Could care less if it has glass doors. I'm not sitting down there staring at it, I'm lying in bed freezing my ass off because I spent the afternoon splitting wood and the damned buck stove died down to nothing in that short time.....
• Clearances really aren't an issue. I have non-combustible on the two walls where the stove is (corner), brick, and brick underneath. And if they are an issue, stove pipe is cheap and floor space is plenty....

What say you? Reading this forum it looks like some of you have PH'D's in stoves, but it's too technical for me. I know wood, not stoves....

 

[begreen]

Sounds like a BK Princess would do the job. What size is the current chimney, 6" or 8"?
If the chimney system is good to go then just put the stove in place on the hearth and then call in the pro to do the connection. That should be under $1k.
Can you use the $2,000 tax credit? If so, BK stoves qualify.

 

[tpcolson]

Sounds like a BK Princess would do the job. What size is the current chimney, 6" or 8"?
If the chimney system is good to go then just put the stove in place on the hearth and then call in the pro to do the connection. That should be under $1k.
Can you use the $2,000 tax credit? If so, BK stoves qualify.

Therein lies another problem. Princess stands 33" from floor to deck, and requires 2 feet from deck to bottom of pipe horizontal to the thimble.

I got 47 inches. Moving the thimble is even more "not in the cards", it's currently through a CBU wall, and moving that would involve such a cost, at that point I'd be better off buying a SEER 10000 heat pump for every room in the house, it'd be cheaper. I do realize that 47" might not only limit stove replacement choice, it might mean I'm stuck with the buck because nothing else will fit under that thimble...

 

[joop]

black stag II by drolet maybe,should be a nice workhorse. takes 20"splits

 

[TomMcDonald]

What's the stove got to do with the ozone layer?

 

[Woody Stover]

What's the stove got to do with the ozone layer?

When you forget that you left the air open on a fresh load, the stove may go ballistic. If it's moving fast enough, it rips a hole in that protective layer, exposing us to harmful radiation. Naturally we'd like to avoid that if at all possible. 😮
Now, if we keep pumping too much carbon into the system, we'll be fried by the rising heat, long before enough radiation gets through the occasional stove-poked hole in the ozone caused by a newb who hasn't discovered hearth.com yet, and it's all academic--a red herring...or white elephant if you prefer. 😏

 

[Woody Stover]

Overnight in the winters, it's damned cold in the mornings. As I'm nearing the end of an energy-efficient remodel of a 2 story Appalachian-style log cabin

• Existing stove is downstairs, between floor fan works extremely, exceptionally well at moving heat from down to up.

I'm guessing you are at elevation, because lower is warmer and even up here, one state or more north of TN, January still averages 40/20, day/night. Not very cold. We are at about 600' elevation.
Is downstairs a basement or is it just the first floor? Living area on the second floor, right?
We also have a log cabin..old phone pole cabin to be more accurate, with no wall insulation and wind causing cold air movement between the logs and wall covering, pulling the heat out of the room.

 

[begreen]

What is the diameter of the chimney pipe? It might be tall enough to draft ok for the Princess with the 18" rise on a 2 story chimney.

If you are looking for a nice, low-cost stove get a Drolet Escape 1800 or a Drolet Legend III.

 

[Woody Stover]

If you are looking for a nice, low-cost stove get a Drolet Escape 1800 or a Drolet Legend III.

Yep, I'm thinking that with his good insulation, he doesn't necessarily need a long/low burning cat stove, a pump-and-glide secondary burn stove would work as well. Especially if it's mild (not high in the mnts.) He can probably tighten up the air-sealing as well, from what he was saying. SIL1's Pacific Energy T5 keeps throwing heat for hours and hours it seems, just in the coaling phase of the load. Secondary-burn stoves will be cheaper, as a rule.
That said, no matter what stove I chose, I'd buy a higher-quality make and model, and one with 75% HHV or above so I could get the 30% tax credit. You seldom regret investing in quality--all the better if it's discounted. 👌 A lot of the stoves that qualify are cat stoves or hybrids, however.

 

[Woody Stover]

Woodstove Database | Burnwise | US EPA

In the "Quick Search" box, click 2020 rule to get to the search where you can specify stove HHV 75%. Those qualify for the 30% fed tax credit.