Sizing worries

[bfitz3]

The more I look at models to install, the harder the choice gets...

I will be installing a stove in a 13x21 room which is considerably open to the kitchen and a staircase to the upstairs bedrooms. My goal in buying the stove is to provide substantial, but not primary heat to the house and save us should there be a lengthy power outage. The whole house is about 1800 feet, but 700 of that can be kept cool. I am very concerned about making the main room prohibitively hot.

Based on what's available locally and aesthetic requirements by my better half, I'm down to three models. ...hoping some folks can chime in with some helpful opinions.

Hearthstone Manchester, 78k btu, long burn time w/2.9 cu ft firebox,
Jotul f500 Oslo, 70k btu, 2.5 cu ft
Hearthstone Shelburne, 60k btu, 2 cu ft

I have an infinite supply of hard maple and beech, will have a 21ft chimney, and live in a very cold climate, exposed to heavy wind (tonight we have -30 windchill with single digit temps.) the house is 20 yrs old and is reasonably tight and insulated (6 inch walls and attic space recently insulated to R60+) The house is nice and toasty with a 100k btu furnace.

I like the soapstone mass with the Hearthstones and suspect the shelburne would be sufficient. The dealer suggested the larger furnaces could be fired lower to prevent being blasted out of the room. This seems like a recipe for creosote build up to me.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[TheRambler]

I think you would probably be ok with the shelburne considering all of the information you provided. If there is any doubt to your insulation or air tightness, or if you ever want to heat that other 700sqft you may want a slightly larger stove such as the f500 or manchester. I have a 1.7cft stove heating about 1800sqft and it struggles big time in colder weather so i am upgrading to a progress hybrid/2.8cft stove.

I would strongly consider going bigger than 2cft. You dont want too go to big, but i think something between 2-3 will give you the firepower you need when you need it but could be burned cooler when needed. You might want to entertain the idea of a cat stove around the same size to be able to get a longer low heat burn.

 

[Woody Stover]

Yeah, what's the other 700, bedrooms? How long a burn time do you need, gone all day?

 

[blades]

Go big- can always run small burn in big stove. Small stove never can push it enough to get where you want to be. The other thing that you need to think about is the cold air rushing down the stair case from upstairs. traveling across floor to stove room- can be dang uncomfortable. so ya need to be able to close off stairs. I realize that in most newer places this not possible ( now you no the reason that in years past the stairs to the upper level were in cased with a door at the top or bottom- older generation of designers not so dumb, hey?)

 

[bfitz3]

The upstairs has here bedrooms, bath, and laundry (love upstairs laundry!) I'd love to close off the upstairs, but yes, it really isn't a possibility.

 

[bfitz3]

With respect to burn time... My wife works from home and can feed the fire, assuming she gets cold enough to feel a reminder. My guess is that she'll get accustomed to 70's and she'll be on it! At night, we've set the thermostat to 58 from 68 and the upstairs temp will still be in the low 60's upstairs when we get up. ...the point is that a cool upstairs isn't an issue for is.

Can folks comment about doing a small burn? In hunting for answers here, I got the impression that this could result in creosote buildup. Small hot fire will be okay, but a large cool fire is the issue?

Thanks!

(We went below zero last night. Must. Get. Stove!)

 

[prezes13]

Go with the biggest you can afford. Did you consider a true cat stove? Like an ashford from blaze king?

 

[TheRambler]

If that other 700sqft is the bedrooms upstairs that you cant really seal off then i definitely recommend going bigger

 

[jrems]

I have a shelburne and it heats my 1200sqft house fine, but given the choice again I would go with a bigger stove. My house is old and not insulated well. If you have good insulation the shelburne should do the job.

 

[Stubborn Dutchman]

This summer I moved my F600 from our 3500 sq. ft. farmhouse up to my 900 sq. ft. cabin. I was concerned that the >3.0 cube firebox might be a problem but it's working out fine. I just had to adjust my reloading style to take more advantage of the final coaling stage. Reloading only three times a day with less splits instead of four per day.

My point is, there is a lot of latitude in how these stoves can be run. It's easy to reduce a load in a larger stove than to push a smaller one. Plus loading larger splits for good overnight burns isn't a problem.

 

[shoot-straight]

having just upsized from a smaller modern non-cat to a larger cat stove with a similar sized home here are my opinions. its much easier to control heat with the cat. even though the stove was smaller, the non cat would get too hot at times because i didnt have nearly as much control. smaller loads do help though.

i would switch gears and go with a large cat stove like an ashford or princess from BK or woodstock PH.

 

[jeff_t]

Given the size of the room, I would look at a stove that is more convective instead of radiant. I'm not sure about the Hearthstones, but the F500 is a pretty strong radiant heater. For a Jotul, I'd look more at the F50 or F55, which are steel fireboxes with cast iron exteriors. The PE Alderlea and Blaze King Ashford stoves are built similarly.

I know local availability is a concern. I don't think there is a PE dealer north of Bay City. I'm pretty sure you can buy a BK in Lewiston. Where are you located?

 

[firefighterjake]

Random thoughts . . .

I think we have a few things in common. My Oslo actually is in a room that is about the same size of your 13 x 21 room . . . my wife would remember the exact measurements. I also live in a home that is 1,800 square feet. Finally, our climates are pretty similar -- last night was in the negative numbers . . . before factoring in the windchill.

The room with the stove . . . any woodstove . . . will be warmer than the other rooms in the home. It's the nature of the beast. I don't care what stove you end up with -- you have a fire raging inside that steel, cast iron or soapstone box and the area it's in will be warmer than the temp a few rooms over. That said, you get used to the heat. Our living room with the stove is typically in the mid- to high-70s.

Can you get the room too warm? Definitely. Very occasionally I'll retreat to my den or even the master bedroom to cool down. Oftentimes it can get overheated if I've been a little too zealous in how frequently I've been reloading the stove when I should have let it run a bit longer in the coaling stage.

You can also move the heat out of the room and heat quite a bit of a home by using a fan to push cool air at the floor towards the hot stove . .. hot air will move out of the room at the ceiling height until it cools and drops back to the floor . . . you will effectively set up an air current in your home. This can help move the heat out.

One thing that is different is our home's construction. I have a late 1970s two story Cape with 2 x 4 walls and moderate insulation . . . and while I have tightened things up, added insulation and sealed up things, I still find air leaks in the home.

Overheating the room most often happens when I reload the stove too frequently . . . but it can also occur when I load the stove to the gjlls with my primo wood on a day that doesn't really call for a lot of heat (think Spring, Fall or a mild winter day with the temps in the high 20s or low 30s). I have also overheated the place when I built a fire and then had a lot of friends over . . . forgetting that people generate quite a bit of heat when they're all in one place. I think most often I make the overheated mistake in the early Fall or Spring when I build a fire . . . and then find out that the temps are relatively warm later.

You can most certainly build a small, hot fire in a large stove and burn cleanly. I always figured it is easier to build a smaller fire in a larger woodstove than it is to build a larger fire in a smaller woodstove. Sometimes you may only want a small fire to heat up the place . . . and a larger woodstove will be fine. However, having a small woodstove and needing more heat may result in a lot of misery . . . or at least more reloading, potential over firing, etc.

That said . . . I do believe you can go overboard as well and get too large a stove . . . a stove where you are always having to run smaller fires. Some of the best advice I received here when I first signed up was to size the stove to the home and then go one stove size up. Generally, this advice has worked out well for me. 95% of the time my stove has been perfect. That other 5% is when it's ridiculously cold out or on the very border of whether I need to light a fire or not.

Maple and beech . . . some of my favorite wood.

With the right set up you may find yourself burning more wood and using the stove for more than just the occasional fire. It is very possible to heat an entire home with a woodstove. I started out thinking my woodstove would provide back up heat during power outages and I could help cut down on the cost of heating oil by burning nights and weekends. I half expected that the thermostat would not call for any heat in my living room zone, but that the other zones would kick on . . . and they do . . . but only very occasionally since I have my thermostats set to 60 degrees F. The majority of my home's heat is wood heat.

 

[Wood Duck]

If I were selecting a wood stove again, I'd look at burn time as one of the most important factors. I work from home and enjoy loading the stove, but still I wish many times that my stove would burn longer I think a cat stove, which is supposed to allow longer, less intense burns, would be nice next time.

If your stove room is too hot, a fan blowing cool air into the room and displacing the hot air to other parts of the house would be a good option.