So I figure it's about time I step out of lurker mode and go guns full blazing for my first post...
My wife and I (and our 4 month old daughter) are building a house - we're going to be breaking ground in a couple weeks. We're in Vermont - so it can get plenty cold up here. All the plans are finalized and we're getting close to ready to roll. Total square footage is a hair over 2000, with about 1100 on the first floor, 750 on the 2nd and an office another half flight up for the remaining buck fifty. The first floor is completely open (no interior walls) with the living room sunk about 3 steps and with a high ceiling (14' at the highest). The kitchen and dining have normal 8' ceilings - these three rooms basically form a triangle. The wood stove is going to be our main heat, and it is in the center of the house in the living room. Just behind it - also in the center of the house between the kitchen and dining room, is the staircase - it's not boxed in at all, it's a floating staircase. This goes up a flight to the 2nd floor with two bedrooms, and continues up another 1/2 flight to the office.
The layout itself seems ideal for heating with the stove - there should be plenty of air going up to the 2nd floor through that open staircase, and there are also 2 small windows at the top of the living room ceiling and the ceiling slops up to those windows following the roof line - one goes to our bedroom and one to the bathroom. So hot air is going to be following the ceiling up those channels and directly into our bedroom and the bathroom. I'm almost worried it's too easy for air to get upstairs, but I figure with a ceiling fan in the living room we should be ok...
So - wood stoves. I've been doing a lot of looking in person, researching online, and reading these forums. In my previous house I had an old Defiant that I was using as supplemental heat only (burned it most evenings in the winter), so this will be the first time I'm intending to heat mainly with a stove - I can't wait.
Obviously there's a variety of things that go into the decision as to what stove to get: heating capacity, efficiency, quality of construction, cost, aesthetics, size of box, etc. There's a lot of different stoves out there, and it seems like quite a few good ones. After taking all these things into consideration I think I've arrived at the Quadrafire 4300 - if I had to buy one tomorrow that's the one I'd get. It seems like a great price for what you get - most other stoves of that size and quality seem to be higher priced. I've read some good reviews online, and the salesman where they sell Quadrafire in this area (a true Vermonter) thought it was the best stove they sell (it's not the most expensive, that's for sure).
So I thought I would throw my situation out there and see if anyone has any advice. All things being equal there aren't a ton of stoves I really like the look of - I like the simplicity of this Quadrafire, but others like it (the Avalon, the Lopi) for some reason look ugly to me even though they're very similar - and I'm definitely not a fan of the step top look. I like the look of the new Defiants (I liked my old one), but both stores I've been in that sell Vermont Castings say they're the most prone to failure (I know they're not made in VT any more, but it's funny that Vermonters would say to stay away from Vermont Castings). BTUs on the Defiant are also much lower than other similarly sizes stoves which is strange - the specs claim it will heat up to 2400 sq ft on 60k BTUs, where most other stoves are rated 70+ that claim to heat that much volume.
Steel and cast iron seems like a matter of personal preference - steel heats and cools faster but cast iron can crack (witness the Defiant in my old house). Same with front/side/top loading. Top loading seems insane to me, but I guess it works or they wouldn't offer it. On that old Defiant I could never side-load without smoking out my house, so I front loaded it even though I could side-load. So I don't have any preference really there...
So I'm curious what people think. The specs say the 4300 should be more than enough for my house, but reading here it seems to be pretty much a given that the specs are overstated (kind of like MPG for cars). It's new construction so the envelope is going to be good, but there is a lot of glass in the living room which makes me a bit nervous for those few nights when it hits -20 or lower.
One thing the Quadrafire doesn't have is an ash pan of any kind. I've never used one so probably wouldn't know what I'm missing, but is that something people really like and find useful?
Are there other stoves I should be giving a second shot? There's something about this stove that's really given me a good feel - a gut instinct. It just looks like it's a serious stove
Oh - I should mention also that my wife and I have a small business that we run out of our house - so there's going to be someone in this house most any hour of the day. Any stove we get is going to get a real workout.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts
My wife and I (and our 4 month old daughter) are building a house - we're going to be breaking ground in a couple weeks. We're in Vermont - so it can get plenty cold up here. All the plans are finalized and we're getting close to ready to roll. Total square footage is a hair over 2000, with about 1100 on the first floor, 750 on the 2nd and an office another half flight up for the remaining buck fifty. The first floor is completely open (no interior walls) with the living room sunk about 3 steps and with a high ceiling (14' at the highest). The kitchen and dining have normal 8' ceilings - these three rooms basically form a triangle. The wood stove is going to be our main heat, and it is in the center of the house in the living room. Just behind it - also in the center of the house between the kitchen and dining room, is the staircase - it's not boxed in at all, it's a floating staircase. This goes up a flight to the 2nd floor with two bedrooms, and continues up another 1/2 flight to the office.
The layout itself seems ideal for heating with the stove - there should be plenty of air going up to the 2nd floor through that open staircase, and there are also 2 small windows at the top of the living room ceiling and the ceiling slops up to those windows following the roof line - one goes to our bedroom and one to the bathroom. So hot air is going to be following the ceiling up those channels and directly into our bedroom and the bathroom. I'm almost worried it's too easy for air to get upstairs, but I figure with a ceiling fan in the living room we should be ok...
So - wood stoves. I've been doing a lot of looking in person, researching online, and reading these forums. In my previous house I had an old Defiant that I was using as supplemental heat only (burned it most evenings in the winter), so this will be the first time I'm intending to heat mainly with a stove - I can't wait.
Obviously there's a variety of things that go into the decision as to what stove to get: heating capacity, efficiency, quality of construction, cost, aesthetics, size of box, etc. There's a lot of different stoves out there, and it seems like quite a few good ones. After taking all these things into consideration I think I've arrived at the Quadrafire 4300 - if I had to buy one tomorrow that's the one I'd get. It seems like a great price for what you get - most other stoves of that size and quality seem to be higher priced. I've read some good reviews online, and the salesman where they sell Quadrafire in this area (a true Vermonter) thought it was the best stove they sell (it's not the most expensive, that's for sure).
So I thought I would throw my situation out there and see if anyone has any advice. All things being equal there aren't a ton of stoves I really like the look of - I like the simplicity of this Quadrafire, but others like it (the Avalon, the Lopi) for some reason look ugly to me even though they're very similar - and I'm definitely not a fan of the step top look. I like the look of the new Defiants (I liked my old one), but both stores I've been in that sell Vermont Castings say they're the most prone to failure (I know they're not made in VT any more, but it's funny that Vermonters would say to stay away from Vermont Castings). BTUs on the Defiant are also much lower than other similarly sizes stoves which is strange - the specs claim it will heat up to 2400 sq ft on 60k BTUs, where most other stoves are rated 70+ that claim to heat that much volume.
Steel and cast iron seems like a matter of personal preference - steel heats and cools faster but cast iron can crack (witness the Defiant in my old house). Same with front/side/top loading. Top loading seems insane to me, but I guess it works or they wouldn't offer it. On that old Defiant I could never side-load without smoking out my house, so I front loaded it even though I could side-load. So I don't have any preference really there...
So I'm curious what people think. The specs say the 4300 should be more than enough for my house, but reading here it seems to be pretty much a given that the specs are overstated (kind of like MPG for cars). It's new construction so the envelope is going to be good, but there is a lot of glass in the living room which makes me a bit nervous for those few nights when it hits -20 or lower.
One thing the Quadrafire doesn't have is an ash pan of any kind. I've never used one so probably wouldn't know what I'm missing, but is that something people really like and find useful?
Are there other stoves I should be giving a second shot? There's something about this stove that's really given me a good feel - a gut instinct. It just looks like it's a serious stove
Oh - I should mention also that my wife and I have a small business that we run out of our house - so there's going to be someone in this house most any hour of the day. Any stove we get is going to get a real workout.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts
