What's the smallest insurance-approved stove you know of?

[williaty]

First of all, I don't actually know what it takes to be insurance approved. I'd assume UL listing, EPA certification, or something along those lines but I bet you guys can tell me what's necessary here.

Second, we installed a Woodstock Ideal Steel stove this year and we're finding that, in the temperature range that Ohio spends most of the winter in, it's very difficult to get the stove cold enough to not overheat the house. For instance, when it's 35-40F out, a stove top temp of 275F will send the whole house to 85F or more. It's pretty hard to get the stove to run with a lower STT than that. I'm sure it'll be awesome in the two weeks or so a year where we get temps in the single digits above or below zero. Granted, my wife loves it being 85F in the house right now, but I'm dying of heat stroke! We both really do like the heat from the wood (compared to our WaterFurnace) and the Ideal Steel is really nice so we don't regret the purchase

I'm not sure if we're joking or serious, but my wife and I have been talking about getting a second, VERY small stove for the temps between 35F and 50F. The furnace starts running at 60F and by 50F it's on frequently enough I'd like to be burning wood. Prior to the wood stove, we used kerosene space heaters. We could run a 10kBTU space heater once it got below 50F without overheating the house but the furnace would start coming on again once in a while around 42-43F. That gives me a pretty good guess about what BTU range we're looking for

That means we're probably looking from something with a maximum output in the 12kBTU to 16kBTU range for a tiny wood stove. Once the heating demand rises above that, we can handle it with the Ideal Steel running as cold as possible in no-flame-happy-cat mode.

I've seen the Cubic Mini woodstoves and they amuse the heck out of both of us, but they're not certified or tested by any 3rd party so I can't imagine our home insurance liking that. Does anyone know of something about that size that's more likely to make the insurance happy? We do not want a pellet stove. Real wood stoves only.

 

[begreen]

Morso makes some nice small stoves like the 1410 and 1440. How large an area is the current stove heating?

 

[EatenByLimestone]

My Century was rated at 22k BTU, if I remember correctly. It was small enough that it was dang near impossible to overheat. The downside is that every 4 hours or so you needed to reload it.

ImI'm a bit surprised at the furnace needing to fire often when it's 60, or even 50. You must be losing a lot of heat. Have you air sealed the house? A few tubes of caulk can make a huge difference.

 

[webby3650]

There are several little stoves out there, many used ones too. Keep in mind that these tiny stoves like you mentioned are very hard to get wood into. They aren't big enough to burn much other than kindlin.

I'd shop for a slightly bigger stove and build small fires. Jotul 602, Vermont Castings Intrepid, VC Aspen. Just a few that often pop up on the used market.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I always liked the look/style of the Aspen. It's the VC part that got me!

 

[webby3650]

I always liked the look/style of the Aspen. It's the VC part that got me!

There's nothing VC about it really. It has secondary burn tubes in top.

 

[Squirrel]

Another vote here for a Morso 1410. I have one and am very pleased with how controllable it is.

For the last three months it has been lit in the cold mornings and evenings to take the chill off the house, ten minutes from cold start and it is up to operating temp on the stove top. That's with it full of kindling, an hour later you decide whether to add real wood or let it go out, by that time the entire stove is hot.

It is a pain to deal with 10"wood and lots of kindling and the maximum burn time is about three hours but it is very easy to control my house temp down to -30C outside.

I have never understood the idea of a small fire in a big stove, don't all stoves have an efficient operating temp they must reach to burn clean?

 

[Ashful]

If you want to burn much lower and slower than your Woodstock, you only need two words: Blaze King.

Check out the Ashford 20. Damn small, and it will eek heat out of wood at a rate half that of your Ideal Steel.

The Morso 1410 is small, but it's a non-cat, which will never burn wood at a rate as low as your existing stove. You guys must be smoking more than wood, if you think that's a good solution.

 

[williaty]

How large an area is the current stove heating?

1400sqf on the two main floors plus an additional 800sqf unfinished basement that's a walk-out on one side.

ImI'm a bit surprised at the furnace needing to fire often when it's 60, or even 50. You must be losing a lot of heat. Have you air sealed the house? A few tubes of caulk can make a huge difference.

The house is moderately tight already, 3.5 ACH50. We do have some sealing improvements we want to do. Real issue is too much window and too little wall. Windows make really terrible walls.

The second half of the problem is that the things we call "geothermal" furnaces in the US are just stupid. They're not geothermal in any way. They're just ground sourced heat pumps. To maintain high efficiency, they have tiiiiiiiiny Delta-Ts and then run frequently for very long periods of time. The downside is that, since the output air is always ~20 degrees below body temperature, it always feels cold which is compounded by the fact that they start running sooner than other furnace types do. It's a terrible technology that isn't worth the money.

There are several little stoves out there, many used ones too. Keep in mind that these tiny stoves like you mentioned are very hard to get wood into. They aren't big enough to burn much other than kindlin.

That's fine, small is what I want. I'm NOT looking for a stove I can shove a big amount of wood into and run for 12 hours. I've got that already.

I'm looking for a tiny stove that I can get a tiny amount of heat out of with fairly short fires so I don't overheat the house.

 

[webby3650]

1400sqf on the two main floors plus an additional 800sqf unfinished basement that's a walk-out on one side.


The house is moderately tight already, 3.5 ACH50. We do have some sealing improvements we want to do. Real issue is too much window and too little wall. Windows make really terrible walls.

The second half of the problem is that the things we call "geothermal" furnaces in the US are just stupid. They're not geothermal in any way. They're just ground sourced heat pumps. To maintain high efficiency, they have tiiiiiiiiny Delta-Ts and then run frequently for very long periods of time. The downside is that, since the output air is always ~20 degrees below body temperature, it always feels cold which is compounded by the fact that they start running sooner than other furnace types do. It's a terrible technology that isn't worth the money.



That's fine, small is what I want. I'm NOT looking for a stove I can shove a big amount of wood into and run for 12 hours. I've got that already.

I'm looking for a tiny stove that I can get a tiny amount of heat out of with fairly short fires so I don't overheat the house.

These stoves I mentioned are tiny, just not unusable tiny like the micro stove you mentioned. Sometimes tiny heat isn't what's gonna come from a woodstove. That's electric space heater territory.

 

[Ashful]

Check out the Ashford 20. Damn small, and it will eek heat out of wood at a rate half that of your Ideal Steel.

Just got home, and both Ashford 30's are still in active-region burn. One was loaded at 6pm Sunday and set to medium-low burn, the other at 6am today and set for medium-high burn. Turned them both full open a half hour ago, to burn down the coals for a reload tonight. Extrapolating firebox size, I'd bet I could get 24 hour max burns at the lowest heat setting on an Ashford 20, as I can easily do 36 hour burns on the Ashford 30 in milder weather.

 

[webby3650]

Sounds like the best thing to do is sell your Less than Ideal Steel and get a Blaze King. I too can run very very low stove tops for a ridiculous amount of time. It's really a small stove inside a big heater if needed. The best of both worlds.

 

[Rickb]

I would way one of the BK 20 series as well, but isnt the ideal steal a cat stove that can burn low and slow?

 

[begreen]

Sounds like the house is holding the heat pretty well. Have you tried burning just a few splits in the IS and let them burn out on a low air setting? The mass of the stove will continue to heat for a few hours afterward.

 

[williaty]

Sounds like the house is holding the heat pretty well. Have you tried burning just a few splits in the IS and let them burn out on a low air setting? The mass of the stove will continue to heat for a few hours afterward.

I'm obviously still in the learning phase with the stove but people who have had the IS since it came out say that it's not really fond of doing that. From their description, it sounds almost like there's some minimum amount of energy you have to put into the thing to actually get it to run and idle without stalling. From my experience, once you get below about a 35-40% full firebox and try to run it, it behaves pretty weirdly (but that could be my noobness). We've had a little success using about a 40% full firebox and running it with the draft open the whole time. That tends to push the STT up into the 340-360F range but not for very long so it doesn't overheat the house as badly before it dies off. The disadvantage to that is that, to maintain it, you'd have 3-4 full cold starts a day.

 

[webby3650]

I'm obviously still in the learning phase with the stove but people who have had the IS since it came out say that it's not really fond of doing that. From their description, it sounds almost like there's some minimum amount of energy you have to put into the thing to actually get it to run and idle without stalling. From my experience, once you get below about a 35-40% full firebox and try to run it, it behaves pretty weirdly (but that could be my noobness). We've had a little success using about a 40% full firebox and running it with the draft open the whole time. That tends to push the STT up into the 340-360F range but not for very long so it doesn't overheat the house as badly before it dies off. The disadvantage to that is that, to maintain it, you'd have 3-4 full cold starts a day.

That must suck.

 

[williaty]

That must suck.

Only for me, it seems.

For everyone else, loading the firebox up full, then closing the damper until it slows down to the lowest possible fully cat-only burn works great, gives them 12-24 hour burn cycles, and doesn't overheat the house. The problem is that my house appears to need so little heat during the shoulder season that even that idling output is too much for me.

 

[begreen]

That tends to push the STT up into the 340-360F range but not for very long so it doesn't overheat the house as badly before it dies off. The disadvantage to that is that, to maintain it, you'd have 3-4 full cold starts a day.

A non-cat is easier to run with just a couple sticks added at a time. That's not the cleanest way to burn, but it will produce a lower steady heat as long as someone is around to tend the stove. Can you run the IS with the bypass open burning just a 2-3 sticks at a time?
Have you contacted Woodstock to ask what they recommend?

 

[bfitz3]

I've wondered for some time bout the navigator "little cod" or even the smaller version "sardine."

http://www.marinestove.com/codinfo.htm

 

[jetsam]

That's fine, small is what I want. I'm NOT looking for a stove I can shove a big amount of wood into and run for 12 hours. I've got that already.

I'm looking for a tiny stove that I can get a tiny amount of heat out of with fairly short fires so I don't overheat the house.

It would likely be cheaper (and nicer) to replace the IS with a stove that can burn a full load low and slow than it would be to knock a hole in the house and install a second stove and hearth. I shan't name names to avoid partisan conflict, but google shall reveal to ye what stoves are the kings of the really wonderfully long, low, thermostatically-controlled burns. . (I was just posting the other day how nice it was to be able to keep the stove burning right through 55-60 degree days.)

The only way I would even consider a second stove in that scenario was if my floor plan meant the first stove didn't do a good job of heating the whole house, and I wanted the second stove on the other end to help out.

It's also possible that you could get the IS to burn lower with technique and/or additional restrictions to intake air; can't really advise you on that. I do think I remember seeing a thread about a guy who vaporized his plastic sheet magnet covering most of his air intake?

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Those stoves are the ultimate in coolness. I'm super curious on how long they'll burn on 1 load. They can't hold much fuel. If the century put out the same amount of heat on both low and high as the marine stove, I'm thinking you'll be reloading every half hour.

28000 btu means about 3.5 lbs of fuel an hour.

 

[jetsam]

Those stoves are the ultimate in coolness. I'm super curious on how long they'll burn on 1 load. They can't hold much fuel. If the century put out the same amount of heat on both low and high as the marine stove, I'm thinking you'll be reloading every half hour.

28000 btu means about 3.5 lbs of fuel an hour.

From reviews on the manufacturer's site:



It looks very cute, but if I want a 1.5h low burn, I can put a few handfuls of sticks from the yard in my big stove.

 

[Ashful]

isnt the ideal steal a cat stove that can burn low and slow?

It is a catalytic stove, but it cannot burn at very low rates. It is a large 3.2 cu.ft. stove with an advertised burn time of 10 - 14 hours, and folks here got all excited when one person claimed to have once done 25 hours.

By comparison, the smaller 2.75 cu.ft. BK Ashford 30 has an advertised burn time of 30 hours on western softwoods, and I have countless times done 36 hours of active cat burning on single loads of hardwood. That's 3x longer on a firebox that's 15% smaller, which is what enables us to run these stoves all day at a constant even temperature, without overheating the house in those less brutal shoulder seasons.

 

[dh1989]

Cat stoves are the way to go. Load it and let it run down to coals 12 hrs later. My design temp heat loss is around 15.000 BTU/hr on the coldest day of the year (I've done a lot of insulating). I load my BK Sirocco 20 about half full and let it burn out to not overheat the house. i actually weigh my wood load daily based on the outdoor temps and usually manage to keep the house 65-70F. I personally don't care to mess with reloads more than twice a day or cutting wood down to fit in a micro stove.

 

[revdocjim]

The VC Aspen was mentioned earlier. If you are interested in a "cigar-type" stove like that (burns the wood from front to back) other options include the Jotul F602 and the Morso 2B. These stove are similar in size and output to the Morso 1400 series, but the advantage is that you don't have to cut your wood so ridiculously short. I don't have any experience using these stoves but read somewhere here on this forum that at least one knowledgeable member felt the Morso was probably the best choice of these three.