Opinions on best wood cook stove for large family

[Juniperland]

Hi all!
We are looking for a wood cookstove that has the lowest clearance to combustibles and that will heat roughly 2500+ sqft. I think I have it down to a Heco vs a kitchen queen.....any thoughts or opinions? How close can I get these to the wall in reality?
Thanks so much!

 

[bholler]

Hi all!
We are looking for a wood cookstove that has the lowest clearance to combustibles and that will heat roughly 2500+ sqft. I think I have it down to a Heco vs a kitchen queen.....any thoughts or opinions? How close can I get these to the wall in reality?
Thanks so much!

The stoves will have the clearance specs in the manual. Honestly heating 2500 sqft with a cookstove is asking allot.

 

[Isaac Carlson]

We have a kq 480. It heats like crazy and has no trouble baking us out of our drafty house.

You can get a heat shield for the rear and I think you can get the clearance down to 2" with non combustible wall material if I remember right. That's tighter than any stove I know of. There are some gripes I have with the kitchen queen, but it heats the house and cooks really good food. We have had ours for many years so maybe they have raised the quality some. The burn times are not as long as they say unless you fill it and turn it way down. Expect to add wood every few hours if using regular splits. We have used large rounds up to 14" and it will burn MUCH longer with those.

Ours is a foot from the brick facade and does not have a rear shield and the bricks reach 150-180 surface temp right behind the collar. The stove removes a ton of heat from the flue gasses, so expect to see lower stack temps compared to other stoves. We can run the stovetop at 800*+ and the stovepipe surface is 280-340 during the burn. We don't have a probe. It will quickly redline when the bypass is open, but the stove will stay relatively cool. If you want to know more or talk about the stove, just let me know.

 

[Juniperland]

We have a kq 480. It heats like crazy and has no trouble baking us out of our drafty house.

You can get a heat shield for the rear and I think you can get the clearance down to 2" with non combustible wall material if I remember right. That's tighter than any stove I know of. There are some gripes I have with the kitchen queen, but it heats the house and cooks really good food. We have had ours for many years so maybe they have raised the quality some. The burn times are not as long as they say unless you fill it and turn it way down. Expect to add wood every few hours if using regular splits. We have used large rounds up to 14" and it will burn MUCH longer with those.

Ours is a foot from the brick facade and does not have a rear shield and the bricks reach 150-180 surface temp right behind the collar. The stove removes a ton of heat from the flue gasses, so expect to see lower stack temps compared to other stoves. We can run the stovetop at 800*+ and the stovepipe surface is 280-340 during the burn. We don't have a probe. It will quickly redline when the bypass is open, but the stove will stay relatively cool. If you want to know more or talk about the stove, just let me know.

Thank you so much for your response. We lived in Wisconsin a few years back so you're master level in those winters in my books!
We've been looking at the newest 750 KQ and I think you're thoughts just solidified that. We have pine wood walls (log style house) but we will definitely install some heat shield.
Thank you again for all the information. It makes my decision easier.