Upgrade Insert, Blaze King or ? Small Chopped Up Home.

[jlinder]

We are considering upgrading our existing Avalon Rainier fireplace insert. I actually purchased this stove for another home but we purchased our existing home before it was installed. We had tons of projects to complete on the new home and our budget didn't allow another stove purchase so we installed this one. It works pretty well but the two things I don't like are the small firebox which doesn't allow for standard length splits (16") to be loaded N-S; also the stove burn times are shorter than I would like. We burn mostly douglas fir, hemlock and some alder.

The Avalon has a fan which if we run it does push some heat to the far end of the house but makes the living room warmer than I would like.

We don't have any HVAC ducting in the house. Part of what I need help with is figuring out if there's a way to get the heat from the insert to the far end of the house and more even overall heat distribution. We do have a ductless heat pump system install that does a decent job heating the house but the wood heat feels better and I prefer it in our damp NW climate.

So, what would you recommend for a new insert that can burn low and slow? Blaze King seems to be the answer, but will a princess cook us out of the living room? I think an insert that can put out decent heat for 6-8 hours and the fan on low would do a decent job, but also looking for ideas to help get the heat to the far end of the house. The far end of the house is about 24" lower than the main part and on a slab so ducting would have to run in the attic.

 

[begreen]

A Blaze King should work ok. It will provide longer burntimes in mild weather.

Delivering heat to the opposite side of the house is a separate issue and a challenge, especially with the lower floor level. What is under the main section of the house? Crawl space, slab or basement?

 

[begreen]

Before removing the Rainier try this simple test. Take a 12" table or box fan. Place it on the diningroom floor, pointing toward the stove room so that it blows the cooler room air into the fireplace room. Run it on low speed and see if that helps to even up the heat.

 

[jlinder]

A Blaze King should work ok. It will provide longer burntimes in mild weather.

Delivering heat to the opposite side of the house is a separate issue and a challenge, especially with the lower floor level. What is under the main section of the house? Crawl space, slab or basement?

Very short crawlspace.

 

[begreen]

Try the fan test I mentioned above for a week or two when you start burning regularly. If you have a couple good thermometers, set them one in the living room and one at the far end of the dining room near the kitchen. Record area temps before turning on the fan. The record again at 30 and 60 minutes after the fan has been running.

 

[jlinder]

Try the fan test I mentioned above for a week or two when you start burning regularly. If you have a couple good thermometers, set them one in the living room and one at the far end of the dining room near the kitchen. Record area temps before turning on the fan. The record again at 30 and 60 minutes after the fan has been running.

Thanks for the tip, I'll try it and report back.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I definitely agree with Begreen about using fans to help distribute air. If you're really obsessed, you can walk around with some tissue and hold it at various heights in door frames and hallways to see what kind of convective loop you can establish.

We used to heat a raised ranch from the basement with a Lopi Revere insert. If we didn't use the blowers, we could heat the large basement room just fine, and that was actually our original purpose in buying the stove. We should have just left it at that. The problem was that we discovered that we could actually pretty much heat the whole house if we did use the blowers. There was definitely a temperature differential between downstairs and up, and when we really wanted to push heat we used little doorway fans to push cold air out of the back bedrooms. (My mother has heated with wood for 40 years, and she was pretty astounded when I brought one of my fans to her house to help heat up a cold room). When we burned a full load and put the blowers on high, we did overheat the basement. This led us eventually to the conclusion that we wanted to switch out our beloved Revere for a Blaze King Princess. Several members here really helped answer my many, many questions, and one idea I took away is that running a Blaze King on a lower setting than is achieveable with a non-cat stove allows you to to maintain more even heat, and then you can use the blower more to distribute heat to farther reaches. Your layout is certainly broken up and not ideal for wood heat, and your stove room would always be the warmest place, but I think a Princess is worth considering in your situation, especially as you don't seem to prefer the firebox size and configuration on your current unit.

I say all of this but should add that I never actually got to test out the difference between the two inserts as we had to relocate unexpectedly over the summer.

I do remember that member Patapsco Mike had a review of his Princess Insert which replace an Avalon. You might try searching the forums for that to see if it helps.

 

[jetsam]

I can tell you for a fact that a BK Princess insert can burn extremely low- I burn it into the 60s. That's the good news.

The bad news is that you have a challenging floor plan for a space heater.

If you are up for opening up some doorways, that could really help.



Have fun telling your wife that she's getting better heat instead of more kitchen wall to hang cabinets on though.

 

[BKVP]

http://www.rewci.com/ultra-register...MIhO39z6CK1wIVybfACh1_YwgsEAQYBiABEgJdVPD_BwE

These work pretty good at move heating room to room. They use the 16" spacing between interior wall studs as defacto ductwork. Check them out. A friend uses 6 in his two story and says they work quite well.