looking to update current stove, thinking soapstone?

[elfsmachone]

hello everyone i am completly new to this forum and it looks great. well here is the deal i have a cheap wood stove know, it has however done the job it was intended BUT is slowly starting to give more and more issues.
i am going to replace stove with a new one. i am looking to burn 24/7 but am to darn lazy to get up in the middle of the evening to load. done some reserch and i am thinking hearthstone mansfield. i know there are a lot of you out there that are going to say to go with a woodstock but not big enough to do complete house. (and dont have enough cash to get two). i am also thinkign about the jotul 600 but are about the same btu’s but the soapstone seams to be better due to the even heat. would like to here from others that have these stoves or any input about the two stoves. thanks in advance for all your help. also what are people paying for the two diff stoves.

 

[wendell]

Might want to also consider the PE Alderlea T6.

 

[elfsmachone]

well here is the deal we went to a pe dealer and it seams that the mark up on those stoves seam really high i understand that dealers need to make a profit but seams as though i can go online and get the same stove 8-9 hundred less. i want to work with a local dealer as to get the best assistance poss. that is why i shyed away from that brand of stove.

 

[begreen]

Sorry to hear the local PE dealer is not working well with you. They are great stoves. The Mansfield should work well too and is a great soapstone stove.

 

[elfsmachone]

how much area are you heating with the t6?

 

[elfsmachone]

i have a 2000 square foot home somewhat insulated and was thinking about getting a soapstone but am leary that it wont heat the whole house and dont want to spend the money to find this out. i am looking to find a stove that can maintain the whole house, dealers in the area are very reluctant to tell me that they have a stove that will 100 percent do the job. any help would be nice.

 

[FLINT]

Hearthstone makes some big soapstone stoves that will more than heat 2000 sq. ft. off the top of my head they are I think the mansfield and the equinox - I think the equinox is really huge.

 

[Dakotas Dad]

i have a 2000 square foot home somewhat insulated and was thinking about getting a soapstone but am leary that it wont heat the whole house and dont want to spend the money to find this out. i am looking to find a stove that can maintain the whole house, dealers in the area are very reluctant to tell me that they have a stove that will 100 percent do the job. any help would be nice.

EDIT: Welcome to the board.. now on to the good stuff:

dealers will stay reluctant to give a definative answer, because there isn't one. There are way to many variables to say "yes this stove will heat your whole house"

What 1 person considers good heating is subjective..
What 1 person considers considers even heating is subjective..
What 1 person considers well/poorly insulated is subjective..
What 1 person considers feels is an open floor plan is subjective..
What 1 person considers thinks is living in a cold area is subjective..
What 1 person considers a good install is subjective..
What 1 person considers dry wood is apperently subjective..

all of these effect the outcome of maintaining the whole house with heat.. or not.

For instance, how much is "somewhat insulated" to you, I will bet money it's not the same to me. Whats your idea of "maintaining" the whole house, I know for sure my idea is different from yours, and even if it was, it's not the same as my wife's.. How much trouble are you willing to go through to heat a whole house 24/7?

We are heating 2100sqft of house, occupied near to 24/7 since I am retired and my wife mostly works from home. Our house is 12 years old, well built with a fairly open floor plan, two story over an uninsulated walkout basement sheltered in the woods. We live in an area that has "some" winter, depending on your point of view. We lit our stove in January, so far we have survived single digit nights and a 60 degree day. The house has been up to 80 and down to 66 or so. Depends on who is running the stove as to where it cruises..

I don't doubt for a minute that the bigger stoves, soapstone or otherwise, will heat most homes in most conditions, but there is no hard and fast rule for a dealer to fall back on. And then, if you get a stove to big, it will heat your house but you may not be able to stay in the room with it.

unfortunatly, it's up to YOU to research, then make as good a decision as you can based on what you have learned.

good luck. oh, and we love our stove. and wood heat.

 

[begreen]

how much area are you heating with the t6?

It's an old, 2000 sq ft farmhouse with an open floorplan, moderately good insulation, but too many windows. The T6 is somewhat centrally located on the first floor. It does a good job of heating the entire house. We like it, the heat is very much like that from a soapstone stove.

That said, in all honesty, you can get a different 3 cu ft stove for less than half the price and it will still heat the place. But this is in our living room and we like the look of a castiron stove. It also has very close installation clearances which work well for our home and stove location.

 

[begreen]

dealers will stay reluctant to give a definative answer, because there isn’t one. There are way to many variables to say “yes this stove will heat your whole house”

What 1 person considers good heating is subjective..
What 1 person considers considers even heating is subjective..
What 1 person considers well/poorly insulated is subjective..
What 1 person considers feels is an open floor plan is subjective..
What 1 person considers thinks is living in a cold area is subjective..
What 1 person considers a good install is subjective..
What 1 person considers dry wood is apperently subjective..

all of these effect the outcome of maintaining the whole house with heat.. or not.

For instance, how much is “somewhat insulated” to you, I will bet money it’s not the same to me. Whats your idea of “maintaining” the whole house, I know for sure my idea is different from yours, and even if it was, it’s not the same as my wife’s.. How much trouble are you willing to go through to heat a whole house 24/7?

Dakotas Dad has it right. We would need to know a lot about the house, the stove location, floorplan etc. in order to increase the confidence of it doing the job well.

What's the current stove make and model? How has that been doing?

 

[summit]

well here is the deal we went to a pe dealer and it seams that the mark up on those stoves seam really high i understand that dealers need to make a profit but seams as though i can go online and get the same stove 8-9 hundred less. i want to work with a local dealer as to get the best assistance poss. that is why i shyed away from that brand of stove.

where online are you going to buy a PE? I don't think they allow mass merchant online sales. Are you talking about a similar looking stove? In which case, which one, and I'll tell you why its 800-900 less...

 

[BrotherBart]

well here is the deal we went to a pe dealer and it seams that the mark up on those stoves seam really high i understand that dealers need to make a profit but seams as though i can go online and get the same stove 8-9 hundred less. i want to work with a local dealer as to get the best assistance poss. that is why i shyed away from that brand of stove.

where online are you going to buy a PE? I don't think they allow mass merchant online sales. Are you talking about a similar looking stove? In which case, which one, and I'll tell you why its 800-900 less...

http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/fswood.htm

Tom has been selling PE stoves since just after he invented wood.

 

[BrowningBAR]

how much area are you heating with the t6?

It's an old, 2000 sq ft farmhouse with an open floorplan, moderately good insulation, but too many windows. The T6 is somewhat centrally located on the first floor. It does a good job of heating the entire house. We like it, the heat is very much like that from a soapstone stove.

That said, in all honesty, you can get a different 3 cu ft stove for less than half the price and it will still heat the place. But this is in our living room and we like the look of a castiron stove. It also has very close installation clearances which work well for our home and stove location.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! How did you get your hands on an old farmhouse with an open floor plan?! Is it stone or siding/plank? Either way, I envy your good fortune in finding a farmhouse with an open floor plan.

 

[elfsmachone]

i currently have a centery fire stove it is a cheapy from chase-pitken before they went out. the stove was here when we moved in and we have come to realize that the stove is unable to heat the whole house and is lucky to heat just the down stairs. so we are looking to step up to the pump and get something better. we have also used a lot of wood in the stove this year about 12 face cord to just heat 1000 square feet. the stoves that i have been concidering are the mansfield, jotul 600, pe t6, tough choise but seam to keep coming back to the mansfield. it is just so damn good looking. the jotul has more charachter that the t6 but the t6 is a slightly bigger stove. from what i have been reading on this forum it is better to get something a touch bigger than to small.

 

[begreen]

how much area are you heating with the t6?

It's an old, 2000 sq ft farmhouse with an open floorplan, moderately good insulation, but too many windows. The T6 is somewhat centrally located on the first floor. It does a good job of heating the entire house. We like it, the heat is very much like that from a soapstone stove.

That said, in all honesty, you can get a different 3 cu ft stove for less than half the price and it will still heat the place. But this is in our living room and we like the look of a castiron stove. It also has very close installation clearances which work well for our home and stove location.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! How did you get your hands on an old farmhouse with an open floor plan?! Is it stone or siding/plank? Either way, I envy your good fortune in finding a farmhouse with an open floor plan.

Took almost a year of searching. We were about to give up when we looked at this one on a whim. It had been attacked by a yuppie remodel in 1984 that was completely out of character with the house and thus it sat on the market for awhile. The basic house was sound, though vermin infested and suffering from all the travesties of rural contracting. We've spent the last 15 years restoring details, tightening it up and preparing it for it's next century. Our previous, 1908 house in the city also had an open floor plan. We find it works better for smaller homes. That one took 8 months of searching and we dumb-lucked onto it as well.

 

[summit]

as per the online sale debate w/ PE, maybe Chim sweep online has something worked out, but here is their official policy

http://pacificenergy.net/online_sales.php

 

[thechimneysweep]

This issue came up on the forum a few years ago, but I can't find the thread. As it happens, I saved a copy of my response, so here you go:

PE’s online sales policy is a position several hearth product companies have taken in recent years. This decision seems to
revolve around four points:

1) Price Poaching. Local dealers who have lost sales to online discounters might become a little less enthusiastic about
recommending the product line in question to their showroom shoppers, or even decide not to carry it at all.

2) Consumers who purchase from online retailers might suffer from poor dealer support, both before and after the sale, which
inevitably reflects badly on the reputation of the manufacturer and the product itself.

3) Internet purchasers who have product, installation, maintenance or service questions might find their online dealer either
unable or unwilling to respond, and redirect their questions to the manufacturer, who doesn’t have the staff to handle a large
volume of consumer calls.

4) An internet purchaser with a warranty problem might turn to their local dealer to resolve the issue, putting the local
dealer in the position of spending the time, effort and money to troubleshoot the problem and acquire and install the
warranty part (often a no-profit situation), without having banked the profits from the original sale.

These points weren’t widely anticipated during the early years of the WWW, and it was pretty much “open season” for internet sales. I believe we were the very first PE internet retailer, and in those days (1996) PE actively encouraged our online efforts. We offered PE products at suggested retail plus freight and our sales were (and still are) mostly international, or to areas in the US which have no local dealer representation, so poaching has never been an issue. We have gathered a list of licensed installers and Chimney Sweeps across the country, so are able to arrange installation and warranty help wherever needed. Most importantly, we took care of our internet customers just like our local customers, and even to this day, have never had a single unresolved customer problem.

Other companies who subsequently entered the internet marketplace were evidently less diligent, which has resulted in PE’s present internet sales policy. We’re “Grandfathered in” at this point, but would anticipate hearing from PE should we ever stray into one of the four areas outlined above.