Stove size for superinsulated home

[wtrecrafts]

Hey folks, first time poster here (This site is excellent!) looking for some advice on sizing a stove for a unique/unusual situation that seems to be resulting in a lot of conflicting advice from dealers/reps.

My wife and I are doing the owner-builder thing and building a new barn-home for ourselves in southern Vermont. The structure will house our living space as well as a large workshop (I'm self employed). We are both fairly new to wood burning (She's brand new to it and I've only ever had a crappy fireplace) Our new location has 10+ acres of woods and excellent eastern and southern exposure with glazing designed to take advantage of it. We are hoping to use wood as our primary heat source with electric backup (No natural gas here.)

Where we are running into trouble is the following:

-We are building the home in the style of a monitor barn with a 40x60 main level (2,400 sq. ft.) and a 16x60 loft (960 sq. ft.). Its all post and beam construction with enormously high cathedral ceilings due to the barn/workshop thing. Our eave walls start at 10' tall and go up from there with the roof pitches to 16' tall. Our central bay underneath the loft is 12' from slab surface to the bottom of the loft floor. Our total volume is a cavernous ~40,000 cubic feet. Yes I know, we made it too tall.... figured that one out a bit too late.

- On the other hand, we have a super-insulated wrap and strap design that is extremely air-tight (HRV ventilation) with 6" and 8" of polyiso foam on the walls and roof, giving us R-39/R-52, plus a heavily insulated slab floor on the main level along with triple pane windows, home-made insulated doors, and nearly no thermal breaks or other combustion appliances competing for air.

-To our benefit is there will be very little in the way of interior partitions. Except for the bathrooms/mechanical room the loft is entirely open and the main level has one wall dividing the living space and workshop space.

- Our Chimney height is also a fairly lengthy 34' from stove to cap with one offset, enclosed almost entirely within the conditioned space. So yeah, draft.

- Our math gives us a heat loss at a -15 degree outside temperature of about 50kbtu/hr for the entire structure. Approx. 50% of that figure is heat loss due to air exchange/leakage (before factoring in what the HRV recovers). Our joke is that on a 50 degree day a hot shower might be able to heat the space for the day.

Our big fear is that any stove large enough to hold a burn overnight will have us running out into the snow in shorts trying to cool off. Complicating the situation is that the air in my workshop and our living space air shouldn't really be mixing. (I gave up trying to find a safe and practical way to share air and heat between them today. We either have two stoves or we will be sucking down fumes and dust at the dinner table). So we are inclined to air-seal the partition wall between those spaces and therefore are really trying to heat two zones, one being about 1440 sq. ft. in a big open space, the other being around 960 sq. ft. with a stairway heading up to another 960 sq. ft. in the loft. We have not built any interior partitions yet and can thus air-seal and insulate (or not) wherever necessary, including the loft floor.

We are leaning heavily towards soapstone stoves to try to mellow out heat from the stove and thus are looking at Hearthstone and Woodstock. I like how the soapstone will look with the acid stained concrete floor. My wife likes the traditional cast iron (Jotul castine/oslo were her favorites, with shelburne/manchester a close second).

The 2 local hearthstone/jotul dealers are suggesting smaller stoves like the castine, castleton, and heritage. We talked directly to a hearthstone rep who said ignore the BTU numbers and look at the volume of the space and is pushing us towards a manchester/mansfield. Woodstock stoves advised their new ideal steel stove for its control-ability but honestly the aesthetic is a deal-breaker for us. We both love the progress hybrid both in form and function but fear its too much stove for us. Unfortunately the other woodstock stoves have been vetoed on aesthetic grounds, at least for the living space. (She doesn't care whats in my shop, so the ideal steel is actually a possibility there, the excellent price point may help me get over its modern look in our rustic barn).

Both local hearthstone/jotul dealers gave us an excellent impression, but visiting the woodstock factory really has me hoping we can make a progress hybrid work. We want to hand our money to stove geeks rather than marketing departments and the woodstock stoves didn't have hearthstone's crappy hardware or jotul's lack of soapstone. The amount of extra thought and engineering/design in them was obvious. We want a woodstock-built stove that looks like a hearthstone/jotul, ideally. That means a progress hybrid. Does that mean keeping windows open all winter to avoid cooking ourselves?


Help?

Attached is our floor plan with possible stove locations. South is up. Stoves have to be within the central corridor (between the two rows of posts) otherwise chimneys will run on the exterior and look really stupid towering up above the loft like bunny ears. Anything within the central bay can be routed through the loft with varying difficulty or ease.

 

[begreen]

Welcome. You folks are doing your homework well. Based on what you have for heat loss calcs and the desire to heat 24/7 I would consider a catalytic stove first. For about 90% of your heating, a Woodstock Fireview would do the job. If you want the extra capacity for those -15 nights plus the ability to run during 50F weather I would look at a Blaze King stove. The nice thing with the BK stove is that additional size = longer burn time and not more heat unless you want it. Aesthetically I would consider the BK Ashford 30. The cast iron jacket on this stove will soften, buffer and store the heat similarly to how soapstone works.

Also, you will need to dramatically increase the opening between the right and left areas of this home in order to get decent heat transfer. If that is not possible then you will need to treat them as different zones with possibly separate stoves. A Woodstock Keystone in the workspace might be good.

You can also consider increasing the loft size so that the downstairs area is easier to heat. For certain multiple ceiling fans will be needed. Otherwise most of the heat is going to be sitting at the peak, 16ft above the living space floor.

 

[DougA]

Wow, a lot of information. My house/office is sort of similar but without the loft. Super insulated, air tight and built on slab. I have an old 2.3 cu ft. Vermont Castings stove since the beginning and it supplemented our electric heating. I have 11 acres but had to buy wood 30 yrs. ago but now have way more than I can burn. We're just switching to a Hearthstone Equinox - the big monster - and wanting to use that as primary heat since hydro costs have gone completely nuts in our province - and about to get worse!

I understand Hearthstone has modified some of the hardware issues. I broke the bolt that holds the side door during moving. My fault but it was obviously softer metal. A day ago the replacement came in and it appears to be a much stronger steel. Last winter proved to us that we needed more stove and even though the Equinox might be a bit too large, it is far easier opening a window in the winter and allowing some fresh air to come in than struggle with a home that is always too cool. As I get older, I am not liking cool houses. There is nothing more refreshing than opening a window in Jan when the sun heats up our great room and blowing all the stale air out.

I almost bought a Ideal Steel until I found it was not certified for Canada so I know both lines of stoves. Either will serve you well and I agree with Hearthstone to forget BTU and consider the entire design and placement. I spent too many hours comparing BTUs and finally found that most are approximations only. For me, cu ft of stove capacity and efficiency are the key comparisons. I think you are right to aim for the soapstone but my advice is that your floor will mellow out your heat just as much as the soapstone. I would aim slightly larger than you think you will need.

Factor in a few things: You will need an OAK (outside air supply if you are air tight, and especially with a big draft. As your home ages, you will always get holes being poked all over and the insulation value will get lower over time. I'm amazed how many times I have had to put in a vent for a dryer or bathroom. Mice and squirrels will love your insulation and make tunnels through the walls in any rural area.

Even though your slab may be well insulated, cement or anything with high mass will always suck up the heat and you have to consider the floor and windows as a huge draw for your heat. My 2000' office is separated by a firewall and we cannot heat it with the same stove. Since it is a business expense, we keep the heating bills separate also.

I can't answer all your questions but hope I can provide some advice from my experiences. I'd be glad to offer more if there is anything specific.

 

[wtrecrafts]

Unfortunately the other, smaller woodstock stoves have been vetoed on aesthetic grounds, so its kinda the progress hybrid or another manufacturer.

What is different about the BK stoves that allow them to burn a given weight/volume of wood over such a longer period of time (thus lowering btu/hr output)? Nearest BK dealer is an hour away. Not ideal, but do-able.

Believe me, I've tried to figure out how to share heat on the main level for a long while. I was even trying to figure out if I could put folding/sliding double doors between the living space and the shop to heat up the shop from the big stove in the living space overnight and then seal up when I start work in the morning but my wife keeps reminding me how miserable the rest of the house would smell in that case. Its a metalworking shop so you've got lots of grinding/sanding/polishing dust, welding fumes, forge fumes, kiln fumes, burnt oil, etc. It would make our heating so much easier, but the wife is right, it needs to be isolated from the living space for our safety and comfort. This is probably the thing that is making this the most difficult, the two zones divided oddly.

Also, the structure is built and sheathed with windows installed and we are currently insulating, so changing the dimensions of the loft might be a bit difficult

We're just really confused on whether to listen to the dealers who say to use 2ish CF fireboxes at the very largest to avoid overheating given our superinsulation or the manufacturers who say head towards 3 CF to handle the volume.

 

[aansorge]

The woodstock and Blaze king stoves will give you a lot of control over the burn so you won't heat yourself out of the place. The progress hybrid may be the exception in that lot...it has burn tubes in addition to the cat and may tend to run hotter. I'd think two keystones (or fireviews) or two blaze kings would do nicely. I'd lean towards the woodstock stoves since you live in that area.

 

[NE WOOD BURNER]

Why not try out an ideal steel hybrid from Wood stock? Good value right now. Some one here on the hearth was considering cancelling their order since he found a used fireview.

 

[aansorge]

I love the IS but I thin that if they want two separate stove to heat that place it would be too much. It may be ok for the shop area through.

 

[DougA]

What is different about the BK stoves that allow them to burn a given weight/volume of wood over such a longer period of time (thus lowering btu/hr output)?

An armful of wood will give you a given BTU. BK does not magically create more heat. Some stoves are better at keeping a medium fire going for a long time and many people are quite happy with a stove that outputs 325 all night. But 325 will NOT keep your home warm enough on a cold night. You have too much cu ft. of space. If you run the BK hot, the heat will last the same length of time as any other good stove with the same size and efficiency rating. Remember my answer above, "For me, cu ft of stove capacity and efficiency are the key comparisons"

I'm not saying not to look at a BK. The King was #2 on my list of stoves I wanted, even though I don't like the looks.

I have one large (commercial) ceiling fan in my great room. If your loft gets too warm, use a few fans on LOW to slowly circulate the air and you will have even heat. We rarely use our fan because the high ceilings will create it's own recirculation flow of air.

 

[jeff_t]

lWhat is different about the BK stoves that allow them to burn a given weight/volume of wood over such a longer period of time (thus lowering btu/hr output)? Nearest BK dealer is an hour away. Not ideal, but do-able.

Blaze King uses a bi-metallic coil-based thermostat with a catalytic combustor to give clean, controllable burns. They are just well-engineered stoves that work as advertised.

Doug is right, 325 might not keep you warm on a cold night, but it probably will most of the time. The beauty of the BKs lies in the versatility.

Too bad the aesthetics aspect is so restrictive. Takes a lot of great stoves out of the running.

 

[begreen]

Don't listen to too much sales chatter. You have a realistic number based on the heat loss calculation and don't forget that you will need much less heat than that for your average winter temps. Take a look at the BK Ashford 30 with your wife. It is a nice looking and well finished stove that will afford you the control you'll need for the primary living space. Perhaps consider large sliders or something similar to connect the workshop to the main house, or will this be a dirty or dusty area? If it needs to be separate then consider a second, small cat stove there.

 

[OhioBurner©]

Are pellet stoves out? Would give you much better control (even thermostat), and long overnight or even multi day burns without heating you out of the place. Though if you had the wood on site I'd be wanting to take advantage of that too.

Reading about these super insulated homes has really got me writing down ideas for my next home. I can't wait to build something new, insulated well, and actually designed for efficiency and even heating. This drafty old house drives me nuts burning a crazy amount of wood with 2 stoves and still half my house is 62F.

 

[begreen]

Not a bad suggestion. I was thinking a high-efficiency mini-split heat pump with a small stove for backup.

 

[wtrecrafts]

We acknowledge our aesthetic tastes knock a lot of well-performing stoves out of the running, but we didn't spend the extra time, energy and money constructing a post and beam structure vs. conventional stick building to plop a very large and expensive hunk of metal in the middle of that isn't as good looking as the rest of the building. I really really wanted to like the woodstock ideal steel hybrid on functional grounds, but its just too much of a mismatch with our preferred aesthetic style.

- The BK ashford got the aesthetic approval from the wife, so we're going to take a look at it asap. I don't *need* a 20 hour burn time, but if I can load up 40 lbs of wood in the thing and it can be adjusted to take twice as long to burn that 40 lbs of wood than another similarly sized stove, that will halve the BTU/hr output which will be a very good thing in our case. Because yeah, in the shoulder seasons our btu/hr needs to keep the space heated are miniscule.

- Pellet stoves aren't in consideration because we will be selectively harvesting 10 acres of woods on the property, so aside from my time and energy to log it and split it, its free fuel.

- Air source heat-pumps are in our future, hopefully in a few years we will be able to install them along with a PV array. Our initial plan was to do 3 mini-splits (shop, 1st floor living, loft) with one small stove in the "great room" for a cold winter boost and the pleasure of a wood fire, but the cost to install 2 larger stoves and chimneys is less than the 3 heat pumps and I don't have to pay money out of pocket to feed the stoves (at least as long as I'm relatively young with a good back that is) so we've decided to see if we can make wood as the primary heat work, with a small heat-pump down the line to provide some summer A/C and handle the 40-50 degree days before its cold enough to fire up the stove(s). The stoves will pay for themselves in saved electricity fairly quickly, even at mini-split efficiencies.

So, obviously a novice question here. It sounds like the BK stoves are "tuned", so to speak, to be able to have a very slow burning fire compared to other brands. If we were to purchase a large stove, for example the woodstock progress hybrid that we like so much. If for the sake of math we load 60 lbs of wood in there with chimneysweep's 6200 btu/s per pound average for firewood, over a 10 hour burn cycle that would give us an average of 37kbtu/hr. If we load 30 lbs of wood into that same large firebox, are we looking at a significantly reduced burn duration? For example if 30 lbs of wood would only give us a 6 hour burn instead of the 10 hours above, that would still be pumping out 31kbtu/hr, still likely more than enough to overheat us. However, if that partial load of wood can still be stretched to 8-10 hours, that gives us much more promising ~18-23kbtu/hr.

I guess the question is, does building a small fire in a big box just reduce the burn duration, giving more or less level heat with a full load on an hourly basis or does it stretch a smaller amount of heat energy in the wood over a similar duration, thus reducing the hourly heat output?

If so, then what I'm hearing is that the BK ashford by having a wider range of possible burn times would provide an even wider range of average hourly btu outputs, perhaps mitigating the need to be stingy on the amount of wood loaded to avoid overheating?

 

[NE WOOD BURNER]

If you have not seen an ideal steel Hybrid in person yet. I would suggest a visit to Woodstock and take a look. I had a chance to see one in Hanover at a show. We did not find it to be as unpleasant as we thought originally. It is tough to compare looks to the PH though.
the Steel stove can be painted any color of your choice, but I liked the traditional black with soapstone on the side. If the ideal Steel was a side loader I would lean toward that one.
I did not see MSRP on the Blaze kings.

 

[DickRussell]

WTE, I can't help but respond to your OP, given the word "superinsulated" in the thread title. I want to question your calculation of 50K BTU/hr design heat loss at -15 F. I suspect you need to go over that calculation, particularly if you used a "quickie" load calculation from a piece of canned software. I found that for a really good load calculation for a superinsulated house you can't let a program make any assumptions at all, or you get an inflated number. You really have to model everything in detail, with sizes and U or R of all shell components given including windows. Just scaling things by size and design outside temperature, I suspect your load calculation could be off by as much as a factor of two.

For comparison, here in central NH, I have a superinsulated house with two levels (lower set into a hill, almost half walkout), about 2,000 sqft footprint, 9 ft ceilings up and 8.5 ft down, with R40 walls, R60 attic floor, R20 on all concrete, triple pane windows, very tight, HRV. So mine is not radically different in size or nature from yours. Mine is heated mainly by a two-ton ground source heat pump (GSHP), with second stage output of 25.4 KBTU/hr, per mfg tables. We do have a small woodstove (Quadrafire 2100 Millenium, tag output 11-28 KBTU/hr) on the lower level, which we typically use from supper time to perhaps midnight to throw a little heat into the lower level, where the TV is. My spreadsheet for the structure gave 22 KBTU/hr at -3 F (local design minimum). Last winter, in early January, we had a cold spell over a few days where the outside temperature swung a few degrees to either side of zero, so that the temperature profiles in the shell were as close to steady state as they are likely ever to be. During that time, the heat pump never had to go to second stage to maintain temperature, so from the hour meter I read each day and info from the mfg tables, and allowing for six hours of woodstove use, my best calculation of design heat loss is just 19 KBTU/hr. Adjusting for your slightly bigger size and lower design minimum outside temperature, I get (very crudely) a little over half your 50 KBTU/hr number. That's why I have to suspect your calculation; it just doesn't line up at all with expectations relative to my observed performance.

I should point out that during the winter 2010-11, when the construction crew finished the inside work, I kept the interior of the whole house in the mid 50s with just that little woodstove, burning typically from mid afternoon to burnout at perhaps midnight (less than half time). The heat pump wasn't in use until mid-March. While you may want a bigger stove than mine, I'd hold off selecting one for a 50 KBTU/hr load until you verify that number.

 

[begreen]

Good advice. My BIL has had a similar experience with their house in mid-state NY.

 

[Minnesota Marty]

I agree with Dick Russell. I completed my very well insulated house about 6 months ago. So, this is my first heating season. I am so glad I did my calculations "long hand" and did not rely on the software that makes some assumptions that simply are not realistic.
wtrecraft you are on the right track so persist.
Best of luck on your build.

 

[wtrecrafts]

Dick, perhaps the disparity between our outcomes may be due to air exchange?

We insulated with 6" (walls) and 8" (roof) of polyiso foam board @ R-6.5/inch directly over T&G sheathing that is also our interior finish which is held on by 1x and 2x strapping giving us .75" and 1.5" air gaps on the walls and roofs respectively. So the overall R value of the assembly is probably 1-4 points higher than the value of just the foam, but we've just been using the foam itself for our math. We figure it offsets the de-rating polyiso experiences in its outer inch or so in very cold weather.

Heres our math (Delta T of 80 deg for -15 outdoor to 65 indoor)

2,800 sq. ft of cathedral ceiling @ R-52 = 4304 btu/hr
3,200 sq. ft. of wall surface @ R-39 = 6564 btu/hr
307 sq. ft. of windows @ R-7 (European triple pane) = 3,508 btu/hr
207 sq. ft. of doors (incl. large barn carriage door) @ R-5 = 3312 btu/hr

Foundation perimeter loss math is a bit wonky, as we found multiple ways to calculate it, but if we just treat it like a wall surface we get:
300 sq. ft. (200 linear feet x 16-18" exposed) @ R-20 (4" XPS on exterior) = 1,200 btu/ hr
We are assuming given extensive sub-slab insulation and lack of thermal bridges that our heat loss downward through the slab is negligible.

So our total loss for all surfaces is a mere 18,888 btu/hr.

Where our number gets inflated is when we try to take a guess at air infiltration. We've just been guesstimating a rough .5 air changes per hour for a worst case. With a 40,000 cubic foot structure that alone gives us around 30,000 btu/hr loss which brings us up to the ~50k btu/hr loss figure we've been using.

But, if we calculate that in an alternate manner via the HRV's, lets say we achieve balanced pressure and thus all or most air exchange is taking place through the HRV system. Our Ashrae 62.2 compared with other suggested formulas gives us a range of 54-100 CFM for the 1st floor (2,400 sq. ft.) and 30-50 CFM for the loft (960 sq. ft.) for a total of 84-150 CFM. 40,000 cubic feet divided by 84 and 150 cubic feet per minute exchange would give us a full air change every ~8 to 4.5 hours or .125 to ~.22 air changes per hour.

Looks like thats can be the issue right there. We are making a wild guess at a number for which the effects are greater than all our other factors combined.

If we had exhaust-only ventilation we'd be looking at a heat loss of 7,200 to 12,672 btu/hr.
With HRV's if we recover a conservative 60% of that energy thats 2,880 to 5,065 btu/hr.

Bringing our total heat loss to 21,768 to 23,953, which is much more in line with the numbers you are getting for your place, and given yours is actually built and heated and lived in, you have actually been able to confirm yours in the real-world whereas we have not!

So, if thats the case, then our heat loss is even tinier than we've been estimating (hooray?) but it makes utilizing a wood stove even more difficult! Ironically super-insulating may cost us more money in the long run as we'd need to use heat-pumps rather than the free fuel of a wood stove!

The shop space is 43% of the volume/square footage of the building so its wood stove would need to output a maximum of 10,300 btu/hr unless I was cranking up the ventilation.
The living space is 57% of the volume/square footage (assuming the heat goes upstairs to the loft reasonably well) so its stove would need to output a maximum of 13,653 btu/hr.

If its 25 degrees out rather than -15, thats 5,150btu/hr and 6,826 btu/hr respectively.

Dick, does that check out better with your math and experience?

 

[wtrecrafts]

So, to swing us back around, if my math in the previous reply is correct, now we are *really* stumped on what wood stove to get!

By the above math we'd be burning 1-2 pounds of wood per hour throughout the winter season at most and a catalytic stove seems like a very important thing to regulate that very low burn.

- So, we were looking at the hearthstone heritage with a 2.3 cu. ft. box, but with no cat that seems like it should be scratched.
- The woodstock progress hybrid remains our favorite but looking at these BTU numbers it seems insane to put such a large stove in there. Should we scratch this stove as being too large?
- The woodstock fireview is out due to aesthetics.
- I'm trying to warm up to the woodstock keystone's aesthetic, as is the wife. Might this be the stove we are after? Tiny 1.75 cu. ft. firebox, catalytic and soapstone to mellow things out? Can it manage an overnight burn or would someone need to wake up to refuel it to avoid re-starting the fire every morning?
- The blaze king ashford 20 is also a possibility, but the blaze king rep was very adamant about upsizing to the 30, which looking at these numbers doesn't make sense to me.

So, the $3,000 question is, can we take a large stove like the progress hybrid and only put 10-20 lbs of wood in it and still get an 8-10 hour burn? Or do we need to get a tiny stove to avoid overheating us no matter what?

P.S. We drove up to woodstock's factory to take a look at their stoves and I tried very hard to like the ideal steel, but my wife might divorce me if I brought it home on a pickup truck. I appreciate its engineering and design, but its not a looker. My wife likes the Vermont Castings/Jotul look.

 

[jeff_t]

This really sounds like a good application for a masonry heater. Fire it once a day and be done.

I think 10+ hours out of the Keystone at low output is possible. Prolly would take a little practice.

BKs are different animals. The difference in low burn btus between the 20 vs 30 is negligible. At that point, the only difference is the size of the fuel tank. If you ever have to burn it at max, then you would utilize the advantage of the larger firebox with regards to output and burn time. But if you never need that, then I'm sure the 20 would be fine. At 1.8 cu ft, it really isn't tiny.

 

[DickRussell]

WTE, I too am scratching my heat over that assumption of 0.5 ACH worst case. That would be in the neighborhood of 9 ACH50 by blower door test, a terrible, awfully embarrassing failure to get the house tight. Even the new Energy Star requirement is no more than 3 (IIRC; it was 5 when my house was built). While the US Passive House Institute standard is a very tight 0.6 ACH50, builders of superinsulated houses these days routinely get 1 to 1.5 or better. I got 0.65 on the first blower door test, which slipped to a final 0.8 after the range hood and woodstove were installed.

As to stove size, bear in mind that a superinsulated class house loses heat very slowly, even in very cold weather. While we aren't heating ours exclusively with wood, we don't set back the thermostat at night. If we were to lower it from 70 to say 62, come morning we'd see that the temp had dropped just a few degrees, which is what I observed back when we were using just the woodstove for heat, and letting it burn out after the last wood load at around 10pm. Bringing it back up with a heat source sized well at little more than the worst case heat loss would be very slow indeed. Since savings is a matter of how much the temperature is lowered times the length of time spent lowered, a small fraction times a very low rate of heat loss in the first place doesn't give much incentive for setback.

Others have argued that you can put in a woodstove with capacity as much as double the heat loss of the house, and just not fire it as hard. You may not even have to worry about having it burn overnight, given how slowly the house will lose heat. I find that when we use ours downstairs in the evening, that space warms up nicely, but doesn't overheat, as the mass of the house absorbs that heat well. Sometimes, after the lower level has warmed up, we'll open the stairway door and let the excess heat wander up.

As to stove selection, there are enough choices of smaller stoves. Given the tightness of my house, plus the desire to have an outside air connection (OAK) feeding it not be open to the room all night after the stove burned out, I picked one that would have the duct directly connected. I looked both at the Quadrafire 2100 Milenium ((broken link removed to http://www.quadrafire.com/Products/2100-Millennium-Wood-Stove.aspx)) and the Jotul F100, both carried by the local stove shop. When the shop called the Jotul mfg to ask about the outside duct attachment, the reply was that it dumped air "into the vicinity of" the stove and was not directly attached in a sealed way. I don't know if that has changed since then, but it is something to consider. I do like having the OAK on my stove, to avoid the cold draft after burnout, and to help avoid backdrafting when the range hood or clothes dryer is in operation.

 

[begreen]

As mentioned early on, the Keystone or a BK Ashford would be the two I would consider. I would consider a second stove for the work area. The advantage of the Woodstock stove is that they will take it back within 6 months if you find you really need the Progress Hybrid, though I doubt that will be the case.

 

[laxin213]

What is your wood source species wise? You said 10 acres on site. The first few years will be buying / scrounging until you have a stockpile of seasoned woods as these stoves want <20% moisture.

My point is if you have a lot of Ash, soft maple on your land, etc (low BTU wood) perhaps a bit larger volume firebox stove could work. If you're loaded with Pinion Oak and Hickory, etc (higher BTU wood) and you get a borderline larger stove that could be a deciding factor in it throwing more heat than you desire?

make sense?

 

[begreen]

If they get a cat stove that is less of an issue. The fuel will be burned more or less equally at a more steady state.

 

[fox9988]

Can it manage an overnight burn or would someone need to wake up to refuel it to avoid re-starting the fire every morning?

Yes. Most of the winter I burn two loads per 24 hours. One 14 hour load during the day and a 10 hour load at night, always plenty of coals for a reload.