New house, new stove, need feedback

[wolfheat]

Hello,
We purchased a new home in southern CT. I have been patiently waiting to burn wood in my home for 15 years. (previous home wouldn't suit a stove) That being said, I am looking to install a freestanding wood stove in our great room. I would like it to heat the room plus the whole house. The great room is 21 feet by 21 feet with 17 feet cathedral ceilings on the first floor(475 sqft room). There is a large entry into the rest of the home that is a cape cod 2 story home (approx 1400 sqft).

I have been to a few local stove shops and have seen the following stoves that we like.

Jotul F500 v3
Lopi Cape Cod or Rockport
Vermont Castings Defiant or Encore
Hearthstone Mansfield or Heritage (both soap stone)
Hearthstone Manchester or Shelburne

I would love to hear any feedback on these brands or these particular stoves or recommendations on other stoves that I may be missing. We are looking to buy new, though don't fully understand the ramifications of the new EPA 2020 rules.

Also, most of those stoves are either the large or the medium. Any thoughts on which one would be best suited considering the size of our home described above?

Thank you so much for your time. I look forward to learning from this forum as we begin a new chapter of heating!

Eric

 

[kennyp2339]

Take a look at the larger PE stoves. https://www.pacificenergy.net/products/wood/
With the higher ceilings you'll want some type of air movement like a ceiling fan to help push the warmer air down / mix the air, also you will want to go on the bigger side of things since ceiling height will suck up some heat produced.
Educate yourself on the 3 types of stove material used, all have certain jobs for certain needs.
Steel stoves tend to be radiators, they offer the quickest heat ups, most btu's released per hour of burning, the draw back to some is that steel tends to be rather bland, also some people don't like the ticking sound the stove makes when its heating up or cooling down, some are very sensitive to noise., the price point of these stoves, is that they are the cheapest, again most steel stoves seem to be very utilitarian in nature, although there are a few very nice models.
Cast iron's benefit is that its usually used as a second jacket, meaning there fire box is steel but there a cast iron outside jacket with an air gap between the steel firebox, this offers a softer consistent heat output, its called convection and with the aid of a blower you can direct warm air better then a steel stove which heats objects and then the air, most cast iron stoves are beautiful, again they provide a softer more consistent heat (heats the air, rather then objects in the room) the draw back to them is that they are a little more expensive and slightly slower to heat up.
Soap stone is a nice product, most stoves will last +10years, if there is a crack that forms, simple stove cement can temporarily fix the crack, these are also radiant heaters, meaning that they heat objects, then the air. Soap stone's claim to fame is that the stove are sort of a battery in the sense that once the stones are hot, they will retain the heat better, yes technically it does, but it also takes the longest to get effective heat from them when starting from cold, the cons with this type of stove is price point, longer wait for optimum heat, appears to have a limit in amount of btu's per hour released from the stove at high burn.
House construction also plays a part with the type of stove you have, very tight houses with great insulation or houses with smaller square footage should consider a cat stove that has the ability of low output of heat, Houses that have large area spaces, or lots of uninsulated masonry would benefit more from a convective stove since the masonry will absorb a lot of the heat produced through radiant, so heating the air would feel better.
Hope that helps with your decision making.

 

[RSNovi]

We recently built our house in lower Michigan and installed the Jotul F500 V2. Our house is around 3000 sq ft with the first floor being 2200. The stove is located in a very open area and the upstairs is somewhat open to the room with the stove. Probably at least 1200 sq ft of the lower flow is directly open to the stove.

We don't use the stove as our primary heat source, but once I fire it up the furnace never comes on again. It has no problem heating the entire house. Most parts of the house are easily upper 70s without running the stove very hard. A couple of the rooms that are many walls removed from the stove get a little chilly, but not unreasonable.

I really like the stove. I had a V1 at our first house and bought a new one when we built. I lost my flow of wood seasoning when we moved so I have been running less than ideal wood. Not this winter, but next I will be on two year seasoned wood.