Hi Forum
I have been lurking around here for a while and am so impressed by the amount of knowledge available. I thought I would humbly ask for your collective advice to help us make our big decision. Here are the details.
We are in northern New York, just south of the Canadian border. We have a few nights every winter in the neg 20 range, below zero is normal for part of the year.
For the last 12 years our wood stove has been our only source of heat, and we have *no backup heating system*. We are running it 24/7 during the cold part of winter and also using it part time in the spring and fall.
Our house is a 1904 two-story farm house, about 2000 sq', with good insulation considering its age (blown in walls plus batting/blue board between basement and first floor, insulated attic) and mostly new double pane windows. The wood stove is centrally located on the 1st floor and we have a floor vent above the stove to move heat upstairs to the bedrooms.
We cut and split our own wood -- a combination of ash, oak, birch, sugar maple, and other assorted hardwood. We try to get two years ahead on our wood pile but occasionally we do get caught without enough and have been known to burn less than perfectly dry wood.
We have been using a good old VC Vigilant from the '80s, which our neighbor gave us about five years ago to replace something even older and less efficient. We are thrifty farmers and up to this point the vigilant has done well enough for us. However, we had a pretty good year, and it is finally time to think about upgrading. Our goals are to save on wood, keep the temps a bit more even in the house, reduce wasted energy and pollution, and increase the burn time.
After reading here I am pretty sure we want a cat or hybrid. To us it seems the benefits in efficiency and low emission outweigh the simplicity of a non-cat model.
We are not scared to spend some money, considering this is our only heat source and we intend to use it for decades, but we don't want to *waste* money. Like I said, we are thrifty farmers. Waste, to me, would be: fancy for fancy's sake, high-cost brand name for no benefit in quality, etc.
That said, I do have limits, aesthetically. The Ideal Steel meets so many of our desires but it hurts my eyes when I look at it. With apologies to those of you who have and love it, and respect to Woodstock for designing such an awesome stove, I just can't do it in its current incarnation. It would probably be my husband's first choice.
I've been toggling back and forth between the Woodstock Progress Hybrid and the Blaze King King.
Anyone care to shout out an opinion, or tell me what else I should be considering? I would most appreciate it.
I have been lurking around here for a while and am so impressed by the amount of knowledge available. I thought I would humbly ask for your collective advice to help us make our big decision. Here are the details.
We are in northern New York, just south of the Canadian border. We have a few nights every winter in the neg 20 range, below zero is normal for part of the year.
For the last 12 years our wood stove has been our only source of heat, and we have *no backup heating system*. We are running it 24/7 during the cold part of winter and also using it part time in the spring and fall.
Our house is a 1904 two-story farm house, about 2000 sq', with good insulation considering its age (blown in walls plus batting/blue board between basement and first floor, insulated attic) and mostly new double pane windows. The wood stove is centrally located on the 1st floor and we have a floor vent above the stove to move heat upstairs to the bedrooms.
We cut and split our own wood -- a combination of ash, oak, birch, sugar maple, and other assorted hardwood. We try to get two years ahead on our wood pile but occasionally we do get caught without enough and have been known to burn less than perfectly dry wood.
We have been using a good old VC Vigilant from the '80s, which our neighbor gave us about five years ago to replace something even older and less efficient. We are thrifty farmers and up to this point the vigilant has done well enough for us. However, we had a pretty good year, and it is finally time to think about upgrading. Our goals are to save on wood, keep the temps a bit more even in the house, reduce wasted energy and pollution, and increase the burn time.
After reading here I am pretty sure we want a cat or hybrid. To us it seems the benefits in efficiency and low emission outweigh the simplicity of a non-cat model.
We are not scared to spend some money, considering this is our only heat source and we intend to use it for decades, but we don't want to *waste* money. Like I said, we are thrifty farmers. Waste, to me, would be: fancy for fancy's sake, high-cost brand name for no benefit in quality, etc.
That said, I do have limits, aesthetically. The Ideal Steel meets so many of our desires but it hurts my eyes when I look at it. With apologies to those of you who have and love it, and respect to Woodstock for designing such an awesome stove, I just can't do it in its current incarnation. It would probably be my husband's first choice.
I've been toggling back and forth between the Woodstock Progress Hybrid and the Blaze King King.
Anyone care to shout out an opinion, or tell me what else I should be considering? I would most appreciate it.
) they also had a Vigilant when I was a kid... put in I think around the time they bought the house in early 80's and just swapped it out a few years back.
