Struggling On A New Stove Decision

[Jway87]

So some background.. I purchased an old Firelight 12, without doing proper research, and fell in love with the beautiful design and had big plans to restore it as a primary heat source for our home in central Oklahoma. I made a hearth to accommodate this stove and will have roughly 14-15ft of chimney and black double wall stove pipe combined to vent it. The hearth is located near the return air intakes for our 1800 sqft single story home with a crawl space.

All that said, my project to restore this stove has gone quite badly. Bolts holding flue collar broke, with a piece of cast iron that broke off with it. Bolt for combustor cover/plate broke off with no success of extracting. Took the top off to remove the back plate to get easier access to extract the combustor plate bolt and one of the two top bolts broke with with no success of extraction yet. So, not good. My wife, and myself, decided this was not a project worth continuing, and after researching on this forum, I was reassured that this was the right decision. I have since spent many hours researching trying to come up with the right new stove to replace and I'm at a loss. We want cast iron, my wife much prefers the look, and our budget isn't great since this was not planned. I believe I've narrowed it down to the PE T5, the Jotul F45, and the Drolet Cape Town 1800.

The Drolet is what I want to work because it fits our non planned expense the best with it being $2000k shipped to my house. Apparently it is being liquidated, hence the good price. I have struggled to find any real good reviews or feedback on this stove, and the fact that it's being clearanced out doesn't give me the warm fuzzies, but I've read good things about their support and stoves overall. It seems both the Jotul and PE are well liked on this forum and I can get the F45 shipped to my house from a dealer in PA for $2900 total. Haven't got great quotes on the PE yet, but I'm wondering if it's out of our price range from what I've gathered from a local dealer.

I'm looking for a low maintenance, long lasting stove. I do currently have a propane furnace that I will use as needed for backup, but would like to use it very little as propane has gotten quite expensive and I have access to lots of oak and ash wood. Looking for any direction and advice on this. Thank you in advance.

 

[begreen]

The Drolet is not common. It didn't seem to sell well, possibly due to the price. It sold for about $1000 more than their regular 1.5 cu ft stove.

1.5 cu ft is a bit tiny for 1800 sq ft in Oklahoma unless the stove room is somewhat closed off from the rest of the house. Actual load volume will be more like 1.2 cu ft due to E/W loading. The F45 may be a better choice. A sketch of the floorplan would help us see how well heat will circulate.

 

[stoveliker]

With any of these new stoves, you need dry wood. Dry dry.
As in below 20 percent moisture content.

You won't like how the stove burns otherwise.

If you don't have wood split and stacked (top covered and off the ground) already it won't be dry enough this winter. Oak generally needs two years to dry, ash might be done in one year. But the best days of this year are already behind us ..

So get your wood split and stacked now and maybe you can burn it the winter of 25-26. For this winter,. maybe pine still gets dry enough. Or buy a pallet of sawdust logs.

 

[Jway87]

The red box is the hearth/stove area and blue boxes are the main air returns for my house.

 

[begreen]

The far rooms will not get much heat. Nor will a room that is closed off by a doorway. Note: Mechanical code says that the returns must be at least 10 ft from the stove.

 

[Jway87]

Yeah. The master is at the top of that picture and it stays pretty cool as is. We have to supplement with space heater occasionally. 3 exterior walls, 3 windows, and a door don't help that room. The stove should be 10 ft from the returns. I definitely didn't draw to scale.

 

[Jway87]

At this juncture, the F45 seems like the best bet I guess? Any reason to jump to the F55?