Propane made me obsessed with a Godin

[numbcoffee]

Hello all,

New to the forum, hope you're all well. I'm Daniel recently moved from a more urban location out to two acres surrounded by open farm land in a cute 1,400 sq ft farm house built in 1880, In rural Michigan.

It has been totally redone, especially all of the things you want to have redone, septic, well, furnace and base board heating upstairs, so nothing really scary. That is until when Amerigas first turned up to look at the tank, one of their drivers asked if we had ever had propane before, no we said, he replied with "well, it sucks!"

That's when I started getting a bit scared. So here's our setup, we have a nice high efficiency furnace on propane that serves heating the not so huge downstairs and all three bedrooms upstairs are base board, no registers.

My goal is two fold, I want to limit propane as much as I can but aren't too fussed in the winter if the downstairs is a little nippy at night, worst case the furnace uses a bit, during the day though I want us to heat it with wood. Any bonus that goes upstairs would be great but we're realistic, we bought an old farmhouse, we're not getting 70 degrees in winter up there.

The second goal is the stove has to have something special about it. The other half once I informed her of the clearances involved in these things, wasn't too keen on a typical glass front one, so by luck on Facebook marketplace I found a Godin.

Now I have done some research, know that they're really for coal etc. But we don't have a massive living space and they are gorgeous. I found one and plan to restore it this year, but with no chimney hookup, there is one behind a wall I want to utilize, I really want to plan the install perfectly. Any suggestions really? Feel free to ask me anything.

Picture of it as of now (picking it up on Thursday) and our house.
Cheers all.

 

[bholler]

Hello all,

New to the forum, hope you're all well. I'm Daniel recently moved from a more urban location out to two acres surrounded by open farm land in a cute 1,400 sq ft farm house built in 1880, In rural Michigan.

It has been totally redone, especially all of the things you want to have redone, septic, well, furnace and base board heating upstairs, so nothing really scary. That is until when Amerigas first turned up to look at the tank, one of their drivers asked if we had ever had propane before, no we said, he replied with "well, it sucks!"

That's when I started getting a bit scared. So here's our setup, we have a nice high efficiency furnace on propane that serves heating the not so huge downstairs and all three bedrooms upstairs are base board, no registers.

My goal is two fold, I want to limit propane as much as I can but aren't too fussed in the winter if the downstairs is a little nippy at night, worst case the furnace uses a bit, during the day though I want us to heat it with wood. Any bonus that goes upstairs would be great but we're realistic, we bought an old farmhouse, we're not getting 70 degrees in winter up there.

The second goal is the stove has to have something special about it. The other half once I informed her of the clearances involved in these things, wasn't too keen on a typical glass front one, so by luck on Facebook marketplace I found a Godin.

Now I have done some research, know that they're really for coal etc. But we don't have a massive living space and they are gorgeous. I found one and plan to restore it this year, but with no chimney hookup, there is one behind a wall I want to utilize, I really want to plan the install perfectly. Any suggestions really? Feel free to ask me anything.

Picture of it as of now (picking it up on Thursday) and our house.
Cheers all.

My suggestion is buy a different stove. That stove will burn through massive amounts of wood and send most of the heat from that wood up the chimney. I am pretty sure That stove also needs 36" of clearance.

 

[Alpine1]

Welcome to the forum, and my compliments for your new beautiful house. Being European, I know that kind of stoves pretty well... my advice is: leave it where it is, if you are serious about heating your home with wood.
OTOH, if that stove is only for appearance (or very very very occasional use) restore it and put it in your sitting room. Remember those were built (and designed) to burn coal, not wood and their efficiency is near zero... but they will pollute like hell, to the point that are not allowed for use in towns today.
They are still made but with more modern standards:
http://www.godin.fr/produit/petit-godin-3121/
Aesthetically very similar but with (slightly) better performance.
Try to convince your better half (not an easy task, I know!) to look at something with better specs, but still nice looking.
Just my 0.02€

 

[EatenByLimestone]

While you figure out what course of action to take, you should put your wood up. Dry wood isnt easy to come by, and gets harder to find as winter gets closer.

 

[numbcoffee]

Thanks all, I will take the advice. As I said I want to do this right. Brilliant help cheers all. If I see more stoves I will be sure to pass them along for feedback.

 

[begreen]

Many modern stoves have quite close clearances, especially if the firebox is jacketed. The glass door in the door is not the issue, it's the rear and side shielding built into the stove.

 

[numbcoffee]

Hello all so I sort of moved away from the inside stoves and kind of sulked thinking that we will have to go with one of those outdoor boilers next year.

Then I saw a posting on Facebook Marketplace for an Upland 17 little cutie it is for $75 in great condition and very local. Seems much more modern than the Godin, any feedback on these?

 

[EatenByLimestone]

You're going to need one heck of a hearth and lots of clearance to combustibles.

Other than that, and maybe local ordinances that may exist, box stoves are cool.

 

[begreen]

The Upland is a US made copy of the Jotul 602. They were well made and at one point Hearth.com founder Craig (known here as @webbie) owned and ran the company. They are no longer made, but an updated version of the Godin still is. More info and a copy of the manual are here:

Upland Stove Company History

Upland Stove Company of Greene, NY was founded in 1977 by Fred and Frank Hanrahan. The company designed and produced cast iron stoves, most notably models 17, 27, 107 and 207. Between 1977 and 1984, the company manufactured approx. 80,000 stoves. Parts for the stoves were cast in various east...

www.hearth.com

 

[numbcoffee]

Thanks all, I am thinking that for the money it might be worth at least grabbing and looking at what I would need to get it going. Heck if it doesn't work I can sell it on for the same amount or hopefully more.

Sent from my moto g(6) forge using Tapatalk

 

[Alpine1]

If you like old looking box stoves (I do) take a look at the jotul 602 V2 it’s EPA 2020 compliant but looks exactly the same as the original one made in the ‘30s.
Well, except for the little glass door..

 

[SpaceBus]

If you have a small enough space to heat also look at the Morso 2b Standard and Classic before the 2020 regs push those models out of the US market.

 

[Ultralume]

I realize that I may be a little late replying .. but for whatever it’s worth I have a Petite Round Godin. It is a sharp looking stove that is great for occasional use. It’s greatest feature is also its drawback: it is small. It doesn’t hold much fuel. Granted that it isn’t an EPA certified wood stove, but it isn’t really that bad. 2 average logs fit inside and will burn for about 2-3 hours. It needs a pipe damper otherwise you will lose a lot of heat up the chimney. I also replaced the door gaskets for coal operation. I typically get the barrel at 600-700F with no more than 200F at the stove pipe past the damper. When warmed up there is no smoke. The logs will completely burn up and there is no soot on the firebricks and I have never had a creosote problem. It has a reasonable thermal mass and will stay warm for another 2 -3 hours after the fire goes out. With anthracite coal, I easily get 8-10 hours of burn time with the barrel at 700F. The stove pipe seems to run a bit cooler with coal, always under 200 F. I use nut Coal from either Tractor Supply or from a local distributor that’s in the Hudson Valley nearby. Again, it is a small stove and coal ash removal isn’t as convenient as with my Vermont Castings Vigilant II. After an 8 hour burn i have to use a small shovel to remove ashes and clinkers through the grate door, but have no issues keeping it burning for days/weeks. It also has no problem burning compressed hardwood sawdust “logs” like the Red Brick ones at Tractor Supply. One of those big 8 pound “pellets “ burns for 4 hours.
In summary it is a nice looking multi fuel stove. It has an air tube brings pre heated secondary air to the top of the stove for wood combustion. It a puts out more heat than you would expect from something small. It doesn’t hold much fuel making it require more frequent refueling. Coal ash removal isn’t the best. That’s my 2 cents worth...