Progress People: How big is your house?

[VermontHearth]

Hey Progress people: 1. How big is your house. 2. How big is your stove room. 3. Do you like the way it heats these spaces. 4. Do you love your stove!

I am considering a Progress for my small home. The fireview would stick out too far into the room, so that's a no go. We have a 2.5 story, 1,800 sqft house, 1,200 without the finished attic. 160sqft stove room. I'm hoping I can run the stove partially full at a low and slow level to avoid cooking us out of the room, but then also achieve higher heats when more is needed to fill the house. Obviously air circulation etc play a large role. Anyone running their stove low and slow with small fires?

 

[EatenByLimestone]

A2.8 cu ft firebox is too big for a 160 sq ft room. Woodstoves don’t turn off like a regular furnace does. They run until the fuel is gone.

You’ll hear people say you can always run a small fire in a big stove. It’s only true to a point.

You need a small stove in the 1 cu ft firebox range.

 

[begreen]

This is asking to turn the room into an oven. Not at all practical, perhaps not even for a small stove unless the heat can easily convect out of the room.

 

[John Lehet]

Have a Progress, love it. It’s in an 800 sq foot room with a lot of windows and a high ceiling. The stove also heats the room above, which also has a high ceiling. Also an semi-heated addition sucks heat away.

I find the Progress is not great at low and slow, but the soapstone is a huge heat buffer. Burn it hot and use the stove as a buffer. The Progress burns great with a load of wood over 15 to 18 pounds. 12 pounds of wood you can get the cat to fire and it burns clean, but you’ve got less time with secondaries. 8 pounds of wood is trickier. I can get the cat to fire, but it seems to maybe crash even with the stove top at 300. I do wish I had a cat probe.

So you can calculate how much heat 15 pounds of wood releases, and figure you’ve got something like a two hour fire and a few hours of coaling, and then the stove still releasing that heat in a for a few more hours, so maybe released over 8 hours. So that much heat (15 pounds of wood) divided by 8 gives you your btu per hour.

All that said, you’ll probably cook in a room that small.

 

[Highbeam]

160 sf, so like a small bedroom? Any other location options?

 

[Leeks]

As mentioned, the Progress is a great stove and about the right size for an 1500-2000 sq ft house. Our house is a 2000 sq ft 2 story farm house and the Progress does a great job heating it except on very windy, extremely cold days. Our Progress is in our living room which is about 340 sq ft and has a large opening into the next room and a stairway to the upstairs we keep open (it has a door). Our living room typically stays in the 80 degree range with the stove running, sometimes peaking near 90 with larger overnight loads of wood.

As it was pointed out, 160 sq ft is a really small room and unless you have a way to aggressively circulate the air throughout the rest of the house, the Progress will likely cook this room. Unless you are looking for a 24/7 winter sauna.