What Size Stove Do Y'all Think I Need?

[Simonkenton]

It is great to find a site with so many knowledgable people.

I live on top of a mountain in North Carolina. An average winter day is 15 degrees and windy! Sometimes, the wind will blow all night at 45 mph. It really howls.

This winter, it got down to 7 below.
I have a 1,200 sq. ft. custom built log cabin. This is a real snug, tight cabin with good insulation.
I am using a 43,000 BTU wood stove but it isn't drawing right and it usually runs at 350 to 450. Five hundred is really ripping for this stove.

This stove is too small for this house. At 7 below I had to run the gas heater quite a bit.

Next year I am going to build an addition. This will be a 20 x 24 foot log cabin, setting 12 feet away from the existing house. The addition will be connected by a 12 foot long framed structure.
The new log cabin will be designed for a big wood stove. There will be a 21 foot high cathedral ceiling. The new cabin will set 16 inches lower than the existing house, so that heat can travel into the existing house by convection. The little 12 foot hallway will have huge, high doors, 7 foot 2 high and 38 inches wide, to move the heat from the new cabin into the existing house.

So, the new house will be 1,800 square feet. I want a wood stove that will heat the entire house at 7 below.
I have been looking at the Jotul Oslo and the Isle Royale. Do y'all think these are big enough or should I go bigger?

 

[BrotherBart]

In the first place you have to be burning wet crap wood or have a major chimney problem if you can't get the stove hot. Fix that first. My stove is that temp the next morning after an overnight burn of 12 hours.

What stove, chimney etc?

 

[Simonkenton]

I am burning dry wood. Yes there is a chimney problem, like I said it does not draw right. I just learned today that the chimney isn't high enough.

If you say you are getting a 12 hour burn from a 43K BTU stove and still have stove temps of 375 I think you are smoking something more powerful than oak or locust.

 

[begreen]

Skip the cathedral ceiling in the addition. Go to church for that.

 

[Simonkenton]

I am Born Again Pagan. The Catholic Church has put restraining orders on me and I would be arrested if I tried to enter a cathedral.

 

[dafattkidd]

Skip the cathedral ceiling in the addition. Go to church for that.

Oh boy. Now look what you stared

 

[HotCoals]

You want to heat two diff cabins connected by a 12' hall with a bunch of doors with one stove?
While you're in that church you might want to pray.
Now if the height diff was 18" it might have worked.

 

[begreen]

Simply put, the stove is an area heater. The house with addition will have two distinct heating areas with different heating needs. One stove is unlikely to do the job well when separated by a 12' breezeway.

 

[Simonkenton]

The existing house will be 16 inches higher than the addition where the wood stove will be. At either end of the 12 foot hallway there will be doors. I am going to make huge doors, 7 foot 2 high and 3 foot 2 wide. A lot of heat is going to go through those big doors and into the existing house by convection.

If not enough heat travels down that hallway I am going to install a duct to force the air. This will be a huge 14 inch duct that goes from the floor of the existing house, down through the basement, and up into the floor of the addition. While standing in the house or the addition, you will see a grate in the floor that connects to the duct.
I will put a 14 inch round floor fan in that duct in the basement. The fan will be controlled with a wall switch in the hallway.

I know it will be tricky to try to move all that heat down that hallway. I wish I had built a bigger house to begin with, 18 years ago. But I have to work with what I have.
I hope that the heat will move down that hallway by convection but if it doesn't, I bet that big duct will move the heat to where I want it.

Do y'all think it is not possible to move all this heat down the hallway? I don't want to run two wood stoves in this house.

 

[begreen]

Log houses are not the best insulated, even when tightly sealed. The walls are about R=8 for a 6" softwood wall. Moving the air will help, but the duct is way oversized for the task. An 8" round duct with a ~200 cfm blower will suffice. That is an air change every 48 minutes. Suck the cooler air out of the existing house and blow into the stove room addition. And lower the ceiling . Otherwise the heat is going to want to stratify at the peak of the addition.

 

[firefighterjake]

Will be mighty tough to move much heat down a hall set up like this.