Small Cabin Stove

[teddy77]

Looking for recommendations for small stove to install in bacement of 500sq ft cabin

 

[mikey]

Morso and Jotul both make good small stoves, Jotul makes the 602 v2 I have one and love it, Morso makes a number of them the problem is the Morso’s only take short logs 10“or 12“ the Jotul takes 16”.

 

[Ashful]

Looking for recommendations for small stove to install in bacement of 500sq ft cabin

What are your goals? Ambience for the man cave, or 24/7 heating?

How often are you willing to reload?

What's the basement construction? If exposed masonry, then you're going to need a convective stove to achieve any reasonable efficiency / net heating.

The Jotul 602 is a great little heater, but might not make a good choice for 24/7 heating from an exposed concrete block basement, even if a small one.

 

[begreen]

If this is 1000 sq ft being heated (500 sq ft/floor) and the basement is uninsulated, then go large enough to compensate with at least a 2 cu ft stove. Recommendations would depend on the budget. There are good value stoves from Englander, Drolet, True North, and Century. For a bit better quality stoves from Regency, Osburn, Quadrafire, Pacific Energy, Blaze King, Lopi, etc. all have stoves that could work.

 

[teddy77]

Morso and Jotul both make good small stoves, Jotul makes the 602 v2 I have one and love it, Morso makes a number of them the problem is the Morso’s only take short logs 10“or 12“ the Jotul takes 16”.

Thanks , Ive been looking at the Jotul 602

 

[teddy77]

What are your goals? Ambience for the man cave, or 24/7 heating?

How often are you willing to reload?

What's the basement construction? If exposed masonry, then you're going to need a convective stove to achieve any reasonable efficiency / net heating.

The Jotul 602 is a great little heater, but might not make a good choice for 24/7 heating from an exposed concrete block basement, even if a small one.

The cabin has a full poured concrete bacement , the floor above (1st floor ) is not insulated ,the upstairs is heated with a propane stove , want to get a stove in bacement to heat the place to get away from using so much propane , will still keep propane as fill in at times , also think a plate steal stove would be good , this is for my daughters cabin , any help is appreciated

 

[Ashful]

If that's exposed concrete in the basement, this could be more challenging than you expect.

Traditional cemented cast iron stoves, as well as the simplest plate steel stoves, heat by radiation. It's a line-of-sight mechanism, that doesn't do much to heat the air, but rather heats any object placed in it's line of sight. Think of the effect you feel in moving from shadow to sun on a cold day, that's radiation.

Now, if the "object" in its line of sight is four concrete walls and a concrete floor, nearly all your hard effort is going to heat the earth around your house, an essentially-infinite heat sink from the perspective of our meager ability to feed wood into a stove. You will burn a crap ton of wood, and put very little heat into the house. I know this, because I tried it myself for three or four years.

So, what's the solution? There are several, but these would be the top three:

1. Move the stove upstairs to the first floor. Do you really need to heat the basement at all?
2. Insulate the basement. Anything is better than concrete buried in earth. Even 1" foam board on the walls would minimize radiation into the concrete from the stove.
3. Buy a convective stove. These rely on an inner firebox and outer jacket, between which air is heated and accelerated out into the room, either by natural convection or by blower fan. They put off relatively little heat by radiation, which would be wasted into the concrete anyway, but rather heat the air directly. Look at BK Ashford 30, PE Alderlea, or Jotul F45. These are all expensive stoves, there may be cheaper convective options, I just don't know them myself.

I'd go so far as to say these are in rough order of performance, with 1 being most effective, and 3 being the least. Combining 2 and 3 might give good results, though.

Collecting, splitting, stacking, moving, and even loading vast quantities of firewood gets tiring for even the most dedicated among us after a few years, so discount this advice at your own future peril!

 

[teddy77]

If that's exposed concrete in the basement, this could be more challenging than you expect.

Traditional cemented cast iron stoves, as well as the simplest plate steel stoves, heat by radiation. It's a line-of-sight mechanism, that doesn't do much to heat the air, but rather heats any object placed in it's line of sight. Think of the effect you feel in moving from shadow to sun on a cold day, that's radiation.

Now, if the "object" in its line of sight is four concrete walls and a concrete floor, nearly all your hard effort is going to heat the earth around your house, an essentially-infinite heat sink from the perspective of our meager ability to feed wood into a stove. You will burn a crap ton of wood, and put very little heat into the house. I know this, because I tried it myself for three or four years.

So, what's the solution? There are several, but these would be the top three:

1. Move the stove upstairs to the first floor. Do you really need to heat the basement at all?
2. Insulate the basement. Anything is better than concrete buried in earth. Even 1" foam board on the walls would minimize radiation into the concrete from the stove.
3. Buy a convective stove. These rely on an inner firebox and outer jacket, between which air is heated and accelerated out into the room, either by natural convection or by blower fan. They put off relatively little heat by radiation, which would be wasted into the concrete anyway, but rather heat the air directly. Look at BK Ashford 30, PE Alderlea, or Jotul F45. These are all expensive stoves, there may be cheaper convective options, I just don't know them myself.

I'd go so far as to say these are in rough order of performance, with 1 being most effective, and 3 being the least. Combining 2 and 3 might give good results, though.

Collecting, splitting, stacking, moving, and even loading vast quantities of firewood gets tiring for even the most dedicated among us after a few years, so discount this advice at your own future peril!

First , Thank you for taking the time to help me, I have a house up the road from my daughter and have a all-nighter in basement and heats my house fairly well, (alot of wood) afterthinking about what you said mabe look for a convection stove and do some insulating , problem is my daughter is tight on money so I will help the best I can , to do it right its going to take a lot of planning , it is such a small cabin ,was thinking of keeping the mess in basement , if all else fails we may have to install a mini split and use propane for the coldest months , not doing anything until I figure it out , thanks again

 

[Ashful]

I'm guessing @begreen could point you toward some budget convective stoves. The few I named are all very high dollar, not the best solution for someone starting out on a budget.

Also, anything you can put between the stove and the concrete could serve as a black body absorber. Hell, even old furniture, anything that breaks the line of sight between the stove and the concrete will help. The goal is to heat an object that will not immediately conduct said heat out to mother earth, but keep it within the building envelope. Of course, insulation and wall board would be the eventual goal, but MacGyver wouldn't wait for that.