New to forum... Wood stove questions:

[Davvver]

Hi everyone, I am new to the forum and I have a few questions I would like to ask.

I have live in Northern Ontario and have a cottage even further north from where I live (near Gogama Ontario).

The cottage has electricity and all the conveniences of a house but we choose to heat by wood because the savings and we actually enjoy chopping wood and having a real fire. Our cottage is about 600sq ft and its insulated fairly well but in the winter we are known to get days that get down to minus 30ºC. Right now we have a small steel wood stove with a glass window. Nothing fancy similar to the ones you would see at Home Depot. It is non-catalytic and i believe the pipe is 6 inches and goes straight up through the roof so there are no bends. This stove does a great job of keeping the cottage warm (sometimes to warm). But there are some downsides to it, so here are my questions:

1. We mostly have softwood (jackpine) that we burn. We dont get overnight burns with this stove. Do you think for the simplicity and small size of the cottage we should stay non-catalytic or convert?

2. Eventually I would like something that looks more picturesque. Perhaps something like a Vermont Castings Encore 2. Currently they have them at Costco for $1699.99. Is this a fair price and a good stove for my situation?

3. If you do have recommendations could you give me the brand name. I am not aware of the many brands out there and I would like to buy something that will last many years and be able to handle a constant high heat as we often keep the stove at max operating temperature for most of the day on those really cold January days.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Huntindog1]

Cat is the way to go to have small loads and burn long times so you can not over heat your self out of the cotttage.

Blaze Kings are expensive but the long burn times are what you are looking for with lower heat settings.

 

[corey21]

Welcome.

As huntindog1 suggested a cat stove i also would suggest it as well.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Alternatives to the cat stove are increasing thermal mass in order to spread the time the heat is emitted from the stove out. This means it will be slower to heat up, but take longer to cool off. This can be done with cast iron, masonry, or soapstone.

Matt

 

[rideau]

You could get a small Woodstock soapstone. They are quite small, so good for a small room, and are capable of puttting out a wide range of heat, from 10,000 BTU to approximately 50,000 BTUs. They are beautiful, have large thermal mass, are finely made - none better - and have excellent customer support --again, none better. Sell direct to the customer so look at their website. I had a Fireview for over 5 years on an over 650 sq foot living room with 150 feet of window facing North across the lake, 30 feet facing west, 64 foot SGD facing east, in Southern Ontario. 30 below was no problem on the first floor. The second and third floors got a bit cool on those bitter days. I think an even smaller Woodstock would be fine for you, but you can burn any of them slow and low, and aust for your needs. Won't freeze or heat yourself out of the home. Recently replaced with a bigger Woodstock because I am heating well over 3000 feet.

 

[eclecticcottage]

I'm not sure of prices in your area, they can vary so greatly from place to place and especially between the US and Canada.

We live in a cottage that is probably about the same size as yours. It was a summer cottage originally when built, we recently found there is no insulation in one wall at all. Otherwise it's ok insulation, but nothing like current construction would have. We heat with our Lopi stove exclusively, although we have a vent free as a backup to keep things warm if we can't get home for some reason to restoke the fire.

We burn smaller fires with softer woods like box elder and scotch pine this time of the year and it works fine for keeping it warm but not too warm. This is only our second year with the stove so I can't say what kind of burn times we'll see with pine in it, but we have a LOT of beetle kill that we'll be using this season so I guess we'll find out! (we scrounge all of our wood, so whatever we get free is what we'll burn, be it pine or locust).

Last year I didn't have a problem with overnight or day long burns with a well packed stove. We never really ran it hard, but then again, last year was somewhat mild. We don't get temps as cold as you, but we are right between the lake and open fields so we do get wholloped by the winds here.

What are you looking for in the way of appearance? What do you have for an existing hearth pad (different stoves will have different requirements in both size and R value) ? There are a LOT of options out there. We chose ours because of clearance ( 4 1/2" rear), and the simple looks that fit with the style at the Cottage.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Welcome to the forum Davvve.

600 sq ft can be a real challenge to heat. Either too much or too little. As you've found out, the small fire box is good because it can't hold a lot of fuel but the downside is the short burn times. Rideau suggested a Woodstock stove and I will second it but will add that you want one of the smaller ones. One of the nicest parts of heating with soapstone is that the heat is what we call a "soft" heat whereas near a steel and to a lesser extent, the cast stoves the heat can be strong. It is difficult to understand until you actually experience it but there is a big difference.

Another nice part is that it takes less wood to give the heat. Compared to the older stoves, we had an Ashley but when we installed our Fireview we now use only 50% of the wood we used to. And to put that into perspective, we used to close off rooms in the winter but we no longer do that and we stay a lot warmer.

If you are interested then you can call Woodstock at 800-866-4344 or go to their website at www.woodstove.com

btw, there is no problem burning those softer woods so long as you don't try to burn the wood until it has had time to dry. Cut this year what you'll burn next year.

Good luck.

 

[jeff_t]

The only negative to the Woodstock stoves is that the clearance requirements are kinda big. That can be tough to deal with in a small space.

 

[begreen]

as we often keep the stove at max operating temperature for most of the day on those really cold January days.

Considering you are frequently running the stove all out, I'm not sure a cat stove is going to be worth it. Soapstone doesn't like to be pushed regularly to the temp limits that a cast iron or steel stove can be pushed. I would go oversized, in a strong cast iron jacketed stove. The Quadrafire Yosemite or Cumberland Gap, PE Alderlea T4 or T5 come to mind here, or maybe a Napoleon 1600c?

 

[BrowningBAR]

I like the idea of the T5.

In your case I wouldn't go with the encore as the cat system in that stove doesn't always allow you to run it slow and low. If you do go with a cat stove I would go with a Blaze King Princess or a Fireview or a Buck model 80. I am suggesting a larger cat stove so you are able to run it at lower temps to receive the long burn times while you can still keep the house warm.

 

[Woody Stover]

Considering you are frequently running the stove all out, I'm not sure a cat stove is going to be worth it. Soapstone doesn't like to be pushed regularly to the temp limits that a cast iron or steel stove can be pushed. I would go oversized, in a strong cast iron jacketed stove. The Quadrafire Yosemite or Cumberland Gap, PE Alderlea T4 or T5 come to mind here, or maybe a Napoleon 1600c?

If the OP is going to the cabin on weekends and needs to get the space up to temp as quickly as possible from a cold start, a steel stove will heat up faster. It'll also be more tolerant of hard firing, at start-up and when cruising. I'm not sure, but with a jacketed stove the difference in warm-up time between steel and soapstone may be negligible...

I like the idea of the T5.

In your case I wouldn't go with the encore as the cat system in that stove doesn't always allow you to run it slow and low. If you do go with a cat stove I would go with a Blaze King Princess or a Fireview or a Buck model 80. I am suggesting a larger cat stove so you are able to run it at lower temps to receive the long burn times while you can still keep the house warm.

Yeah, the cat might be the way to go. The temp spikes of a non-cat might be more of a factor in a small space like that. To narrow the selection down more would depend on his definition of a "more picturesque" stove..
OP is right..."many stoves out there."

 

[eclecticcottage]

Yeah, the cat might be the way to go. The temp spikes of a non-cat might be more of a factor in a small space like that. To narrow the selection down more would depend on his definition of a "more picturesque" stove..
OP is right..."many stoves out there."

Temps spikes aren't really THAT bad when you learn to control your stove. We have maybe 50-60 sq ft more than they do, and we don't have a big issue over heating here. Usually the times when it gets a bit too warm, it is because one of the two of us just "had" to put those few more splits on when it coals down and it's was just a little too much. Our stove isn't a cat stove.

Another thing to consider with the cat vs tube stove debate is the look of the fire, which I understand does vary (I've never had nor seen in person, a cat stove-this is purely from what I've read here).

 

[Woody Stover]

Temps spikes aren't really THAT bad when you learn to control your stove. We have maybe 50-60 sq ft more than they do, and we don't have a big issue over heating here. Usually the times when it gets a bit too warm, it is because one of the two of us just "had" to put those few more splits on when it coals down and it's was just a little too much. Our stove isn't a cat stove.

Another thing to consider with the cat vs tube stove debate is the look of the fire, which I understand does vary (I've never had nor seen in person, a cat stove-this is purely from what I've read here).

Good points. If it gets a little toasty, one can always crack a window. The low, even heat of the cat is nice here, where we heat 24/7 with a lot of moderate weather where we don't want too much heat and like to keep wood consumption low. For a weekend cabin that's probably not as important. Besides, they like to chop wood. As far as the look of the fire, I can have some flame in the box with my stove but on a low cat burn there's not much to see. Not as "picturesque" as a tube stove burn.

 

[rideau]

Good points. If it gets a little toasty, one can always crack a window. The low, even heat of the cat is nice here, where we heat 24/7 with a lot of moderate weather where we don't want too much heat and like to keep wood consumption low. For a weekend cabin that's probably not as important. Besides, they like to chop wood. As far as the look of the fire, I can have some flame in the box with my stove but on a low cat burn there's not much to see. Not as "picturesque" as a tube stove burn.

Believe me, in Northern Ontario in the winter, they are going to be burning even a cat stove open enough to get a nice flame show.

 

[Davvver]

Wow. Thanks so much for all the replies. I didn't expect this much response. I read all the posts and other articles and learned so much within the past week. On Friday I was looking at used ads online and found a Napoleon 1400pl in great shape for 300 bucks. So I picked that up and installed it that night. While I did have something else in mind I could refuse it and figured it wasn't much money to spend to give it a try.

It turns out there was a huuuuge difference between that and my old stove. Not only does it start up so much easier, but I can also turn it right down and watch some nice flames to. It is so much easier to control then my old stove. Even thought he weather is not that cold yet the cottage stays warmer much longer and it seems to use less wood. I think because it is steel and fairly large to it should heat up the cottage fast in the cold winter months.

I am going to stay involved and post more experiences.

My dad was very impressed as well. He has a much larger cottage with a heritage stove that has a cat. It works great but I think he really likes this Napoleon. But maybe it was the price. I think I spent more time watching the flame at night then I did watching whatever movie Watson TV...

Now I am going to continue my search for a wood stove for home.

 

[rideau]

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