PE Summit

[jb1951]

I appreciate all the help I've gotten from this board. We're still trying to decide on a wood stove. After reading about all the maintenance cast iron cat stoves require, we're a little leery about one and are considering plate steel instead. I've read alot of good things about PE's Summit on this board, but I'm wondering if it would be too big for us. Our woodburner (currently an older Earth Stove) is in our basement family room (13' x 15'). We have an open stairway where the heat comes upstairs to our main living area (approx 1100 sq ft). The intake for our furnace is directly across from the woodburner, so we run the furnace fan to circulate the warm air and also use a fan to blow the air upstairs when it's really cold. This set up has worked fairly well with our Earth Stove. We burn it 24/7 and only use our furnace during the time we've let the fire die down enough to take the ashes out of the woodburner. Our bedroom is directly over the family room and woodburner, so at night we shut it down to a low burn. Otherwise, the bedroom gets too warm.

I've read several posts on this board that say a bigger stove is better and that it can be shut down to a low burn. We don't spend much time in the family room where the woodburner is, so we keep it pretty warm in order to heat the upstairs. What I'm concerned about is that we might have a problem controlling the Summit and keeping it burning low enough for it to be safe in a 13' x 15' room. Is the Summit easily controlled?

Thanks,

Jan

 

[Gunner]

I appreciate all the help I've gotten from this board. We're still trying to decide on a wood stove. After reading about all the maintenance cast iron cat stoves require, we're a little leery about one and are considering plate steel instead. I've read alot of good things about PE's Summit on this board, but I'm wondering if it would be too big for us. Our woodburner (currently an older Earth Stove) is in our basement family room (13' x 15'). We have an open stairway where the heat comes upstairs to our main living area (approx 1100 sq ft). The intake for our furnace is directly across from the woodburner, so we run the furnace fan to circulate the warm air and also use a fan to blow the air upstairs when it's really cold. This set up has worked fairly well with our Earth Stove. We burn it 24/7 and only use our furnace during the time we've let the fire die down enough to take the ashes out of the woodburner. Our bedroom is directly over the family room and woodburner, so at night we shut it down to a low burn. Otherwise, the bedroom gets too warm.

I've read several posts on this board that say a bigger stove is better and that it can be shut down to a low burn. We don't spend much time in the family room where the woodburner is, so we keep it pretty warm in order to heat the upstairs. What I'm concerned about is that we might have a problem controlling the Summit and keeping it burning low enough for it to be safe in a 13' x 15' room. Is the Summit easily controlled?

Thanks,

Jan

Can you give us a little more information...Where is the house located? how well is it insulated? ceiling height/layout?

As I read your post this is a 1 story with a basement, main floor being 1100sqft, current heater in basement.

The Summit is a big stove that throws alot of heat. It is controlable but only to a certain extent like all other new stoves. With the right technique you can cleanly run at a stovetop temp 350-400...this is 3 splits straight in 2 on the bottom(an inch or so appart) 1 on the top at an angle across the bottom two. This will give you a clean 3-4 hr burn at roughly 375 stovetop and another 3-4 hrs before the stove does cold. This is what I do in the spring and fall, unsually one in the morning and one in the evening in mild weather.

The nice thing about the PE line is they are more a convection heater, but still I feel the Summit will be to big for your application. The small 13x15 stoveroom is what's killing the summit or any large stove from working for you. Heating 2200 sqft from a 200sqft room in the basement is going to be real hard. There is no way to avoid overheating that room....

How hot does the basement get with the current stove?

I think the D1 firebox (super 27/spectrum/spectrum classic) will be a better fit unless you have bad insulation, have wickedly cold winters or don't mind a hot basement.

 

[jb1951]

Thanks for the reply, Gunner. We're in southern Indiana and our winters are fairly mild. Our house has 8' ceilings and is insulated moderately well. Our woodburner sits in a corner of the room, but not at an angle. The wall behind it and the wall 27" to the left of it are 4-1/2" - 5" thick rock (what we call creek rock here). There is a bathroom and laundry room off the family room and the rest of the basement is off the laundry room. The woodburner keeps the bathroom and laundry area warm. We usually keep the door leading to the rest of the basement closed unless one of us working in the basement and needs a little heat.

We don't have a thermometer on our Earth Stove, but the room it is in usually stays around 85-90 degrees. We don't let it get hotter than that out of fear of a fire. We have three bedrooms, bathroom and open kitchen/dining/living room upstairs. The upstairs living room is at the opposite side of the house and the farthest from the woodburner, but it stays very comfortable (70's) unless it gets down to 10 or lower which doesn't happen often. We have a fireplace in the living room that we can use if we need a little extra heat, but haven't had to use it for the past five winters. The thermostat for our furnace is in the living room and we keep it set at about 65 in case the woodburner would go out during the night, but it rarely kicks on.

We rarely use the room where the woodburner is located, so it doesn't matter if it gets too hot to be comfortable. Our only concern is that the Summit would get the room so hot that we would be in danger of a fire. The Summit looks like an awesome stove, but I'm afraid it's too big for our set-up to be safe.

Thanks,

Jan

 

[begreen]

Jan, what size is the Earth Stove? The one's that I have seen are pretty big. What are the interior dimensions of the firebox on the old stove? That will better help us to compare its size to the Summit.

 

[jb1951]

Our Earth Stove is a #3340. The firebox is 24"w x 18" deep x 25" high.

Thanks,

Jan

 

[titan]

You could almost fit a Summit in that firebox!

 

[Gunner]

Have you given any thought to buying an insert for the fireplace on the main floor and leaving the earth stove in the basement, if it's still serviceable...just throwing an idea out there.

The added expense would be a liner for the insert but you'd have a much better setup and well worth the a few hundred dollars more.


There is no fire risk of having a big stove in your 13x15 stoveroom....just the risk of being uncomfortably hot. You may be used to your current setup but there is a better way, locate the stove (in your case an insert) on the main level where you spend most of your time. Enjoy the view of the fire, more heat where you need it, avoid overheating the basement, burn less wood by not having to oversize the stove, haul less wood downstairs etc, etc. Keep the earth stove as is and fire it when really cold or when your spending time downstairs.

 

[jb1951]

The Earth Stove still works great. Our main reason for wanting to replace it is to upgrade to a more efficient and probably safer model and most importantly, one that has an ash pan. I'm SO tired of the real fine dust that taking the ashes out creates. The furnace fan picks it up and blows it all over the house. I've tried to talk my husband into getting an insert for our upstairs fireplace, but he didn't like the idea. We have a walk-out basement, so with the set-up we have now, he doesn't have to haul wood downstairs since the basement is on the main level. If we use an insert in the upstairs fireplace, then he would have to haul the wood upstairs and he wasn't too keen on that idea. Also, we have a bathroom, laundry and our water pipes for the upstairs in the basement, so we have to keep constant heat down there. Since my husband is the one who hauls the wood in and the ashes out, I haven't pushed the idea of an insert (but I like the idea). Our Earth Stove was used when we installed it, so I don't have any spec's on it. Do you have any idea how many BTU's a firebox of its size would put out? If I knew how many BTU's we're already using, it would give me a better idea of what size stove we need to replace it.

Thanks,

Jan

 

[Gunner]

OK, walkout basement so bringing wood downstairs is a non issue.
I don't know anything about your earth stove but to give you an idea of firebox size the summit is 20"Lx20Wx16.5H (the top 2.5 inches is occupied by the baflle) It will recreate the 85-90 degree temps in your basement like the current stove if thats what you really want to do.

 

[Hogwildz]

Tell yer ol man to get off his arse, get the an insert and get more heat where its needed.
Carrying wood isn't that bad, and its a good workout.

 

[jqgs214]

Thats the ole caveman attitude!

 

[begreen]

Our Earth Stove is a #3340. The firebox is 24"w x 18" deep x 25" high.

Thanks,

Jan

That's what I thought. The Summit will have 1/2 that sized firebox. If you are comfortable with the Earth stove, the Summit will work and not overheat you. And you should see a nice reduction in wood consumption.