Super vs Summit Insert

[willie440]

First time here, enjoyed browsing the site several times. My question mainly revolves around deciding between in a PE Super LE Insert or a PE Summit LE Insert. I've done some reading on the forums and like the simplicity of them, and I am very close to Hitzer that is a PE dealer and have had good experiences with them.

For reference, my home is 2800 sq ft total. The basement is 1200 and has a Hitzer 983 insert in it. The upstairs is 1600 and is currently just a masonry fireplace with no insert. My primary has been oil boiler but with oil prices this year I'm planning to burn more wood (maybe even try a little coal in the hitzer in the basement) but am strongly considering the investment to put a wood insert upstairs.

The house is built around the 3 flu chimney basically, however the upstairs is somewhat closed off with the upstairs fireplace pointing the wrong direction in the living room (away from kitchen and bedrooms). Im a little worried the summit may be too much in the living room to heat other parts of the house. The main reason Im leaning heavily that way is the bigger fire box to try my best to get as close to 10 hours as possible, since I work 10 hour days (I have never been able to run the Hitzer in the basement during the week days). Being able to load the box in the morning and have some coals in the evening would be a huge bonus. However I see some people reporting pretty good burn times out of the super as well.

Curious if anyone has similar experiences that can weigh in on my ramblings. Thanks

 

[begreen]

The Summit will run ok on a partial load during mild weather. Post a quick sketch of the floorplan so that we can see how well the heat will convect? Include the fireplace and the location of the stairwell if there is a second floor.

 

[willie440]

FP is fireplace. Not totally to scale. Its a single story home with a nearly full basement.

 

[begreen]

Super, that's helpful. The floorplan wasn't designed for wood heat. It looks like the best bet for more even heat in the house would be to put a table or box fan in the kitchen/dinig area, placed on the floor, pointing toward the living room. Run it on low speed. It will blow the cooler air down low, toward the woodstove. The denser cool air will be replaced with lighter warm air from the stove room. Running this way you should notice at least a 5F increase in the kitchen temp after about 30 minutes running. This will also help keep the LR from overheating.

 

[willie440]

Thanks, thats good to know. Is the Summit a decent fit in your opinion for what I'm looking for? I don't really know much about modern wood inserts/stoves beyond some research Ive been doing the last couple months. This was my grandparents house and the insert in the basement has been there my whole life, so I'm very familiar with it and this house but don't really have any other experience.

 

[begreen]

The Super would work, especially if the intent is to fire up the Hitzer in the very cold weather.