What's wrong with being too big?

[Yamaha_gurl]

I've read some posts on here saying that "my stove is too big". What exactly is wrong with that? I have a old Fisher Honey Bear in which we use to heat about 800 sqf (no point of heating rooms that aren't in use, we keep them closed) and what I do is make small fires throughout the day. Do most people run their stoves literally 24/7? Is there anything wrong with doing small hot fires?

 

[lawandorder]

Nothing Ive never really had any complaints

 

[WILDSOURDOUGH]

Lots of people do run their stoves almost 24/7.
I run my OWB 24/7 (during heating season) for my radiant floor heat hot water- but really only use my Lopi for ambiance and the occasional
power outage, like the ice storm we had in December...and in the spring and fall when it takes too long to heat the floor w/ the OWB.

There is nothing wrong with small- hot fires in a big stove.
To me- it's wise to have 'extra' capacity.

 

[cmonSTART]

Some larger stoves don't do the "small fire" thing to well. My 30 burns pretty dirty compared to a big one when I try it.

 

[Valhalla]

I've read some posts on here saying that "my stove is too big". What exactly is wrong with that? I have a old Fisher Honey Bear in which we use to heat about 800 sqf (no point of heating rooms that aren't in use, we keep them closed) and what I do is make small fires throughout the day. Do most people run their stoves literally 24/7? Is there anything wrong with doing small hot fires?

Small hot fires are usually of short duration. Then many subsequent restarts are needed. Also the flue temperature suffers from many wide swings.

Choosing stove BTU capacity is like deciding how many CCs for your bike/car/truck motor. As the man said "do you want a car like this, or do you NEED a car like this."

I prefer to always run a smaller stove (or motor), hotter (or faster). Unless you want the capacity for extreme weather like this.

Keep warm.

 

[Corey]

Not too big of a deal with non-epa stoves, you can always burn a smaller fire - but the epa burners need to be at a certain temp to light off the secondary or catalyst and provide maximum efficiency. To get (and keep) a big stove up at this temp, you need to feed it a certain amount of wood and will get out a certain amount of heat. The bigger the stove, the more heat you get. So if you have a big stove and a small space (or super insulated house) it can easily overheat the house - or you have to cut back on the wood and loose the secondary/cat combustion and efficiency.

 

[jotul8e2]

In addition to efficiency, if your fire is not hot enough to engage the secondary then your are depositing creosote in your chimney. Some stoves do allow you to operate them with the front door(s) open, making them effectively a fireplace. This is one option to consider if you need a really large stove but don't always need that much heat.

Mark

 

[wolfkiller]

I wish my Blaze king had a 7 cu ft fire box. I dont think I could have too big of stove. But I do live in North Pole Alaska.

 

[bokehman]

Is there anything wrong with doing small hot fires?

Where I am it is pretty warm all the time and it is very rare for the daytime high to be below 40F. Most days it's mid 50's, dropping to about 40 overnight. Most days I only light the fire once a day. I find two things important for efficiency if only putting in a small amount. 1) Breaking the wood down so it has a similar surface area to a big fire, and 2) Keeping at least 3 inches of ash in the stove so the coals stay alight. This way you get a quick burst of efficient heat and the thing is still warm up to 24 hours later.

 

[SlyFerret]

Most of the time, my stove is too big. I find that I can't run it 24/7 or the house will be 90+ degrees all the time. I end up doing cold starts twice a day. The stove isn't completely cold, it's still probably about 100 degrees, but there aren't really sufficient coals left to relight.

I pack it full at about 6:00am, and use a quarter of one of those super cedar fire starters stuck in between a couple of the splits down low. I do the same at about 6:00pm when we get home from work. Those fire starters have made it possible to burn in this manner instead of playing the whole kindling fire game.

Lately, as cold as it's been, I could run the stove 24/7 and keep the house nice and comfy toasty. Last night we were down to -20 according to the nearest airport reading and the furnace didn't kick on at all.

A big stove has its benefits once you get the hang of how your exact setup operates, and what your heating needs are.

-SF

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Ah! One of the nice things about a cat. stove is that you can do those small fires with no harm. We, like Yamahaurl do burn small fires and only burn the bigger fires when needed. We still get virtually no creosote and the stove operates very normally.

 

[jadm]

My insert is technically too big for the area we heat. (1900 sq.ft. house but heat doesn't get to 1/2 of that due to halls and doorways - they are bedrooms and bathrooms and don't need the heat anyway.)

I had a smaller insert and it did not provide enough heat on days below 40*. Lots of coal build up and had to be fed more frequently so, after finding this forum and reading a lot, I decided on going big.

I have not looked back.

As others have stated I build fires according to the need. Sometimes fire burns all day. Other days one hot one in the morning and one in mid afternoon does it.

I am continually learning how to do things with this insert so I experiment a lot.

Usually clean chimney 2x a season. Sweep came out for mid-season clean last week and checked flue and told me it didn't need to be cleaned until season is over.

I guess what I am learning on how to burn a bigger stove is paying off.

So, it is my opinion that too big is not a problem for me.



:coolsmile: :coolsmile:

 

[LLigetfa]

Size does matter but an old Fischer probably wouldn't suffer from EPA imposed limits on air control settings. Many EPA stoves cannot be choked down enough or they have such a narrow "sweet spot" that they don't burn well with small loads.

My RSF is one of those. The 3.1 cubic foot firebox isn't quite large enough for when it's below -40 and the notched out air control doesn't let me ckoke it down in mild weather. In mild weather I end up having to spoon feed it small splits, putting up with dirty glass from small slow burns and I have to let the fire go out overnight since it throws too much heat if stoked. In mild weather I also leave a window near the stove open to let in cold air but won't do that overnight.

 

[Yamaha_gurl]

thats the way ure sposed to do it but if u added firebrix inside the box so to accomodate the smaller fire,it would burn more efficiently,i thinx. whats a soapstone about?

I do have firebrick on the inside, and even a baffle :D

 

[struggle]

Going large is one advantage of having a soapstone stove. You can just load it once or twice a day if need be to keep temps low and it will burn efficiently. and you still can have enough coals the next day to restart without matches.

 

[annette]

Big stove + small house = true love forever! It works really well for me. Mine is a 2.3 cubic foot stove, EPA, the manufacturer states it's for heating 1000-1800 square feet. Like you I heat 800 square feet--some rooms are closed off. In normal weather (20-40 degrees) I do 2 or 3 fires a day, a cold start with kindling and paper.

My first winter, I went up and checked the chimney a few times to make sure my small fires (and especially attempts at overnight small fires) weren't causing too much creosote. I didn't need to do a mid-winter cleaning. We cleaned the chimney after 1 full year of burning whenever home (the furnace kicks on before I get up, but only once the house is down to 58 degrees, plus I'm away for the weekend sometimes). One year of burning (maybe 2 cords?): 80 grams of creosote, less than a cup.

The small fires in my EPA stove were previously with well-seasoned wood. Kindling plus 3 or 4 small to medium splits, or a big piece in the back for coals in the morning. This might seem a big fire in a smaller firebox, but I could fit twice that in my stove, so that's small, right? I have visible smoke during startup, I can't say for how long, then it's nice and clear. With properly seasoned wood, the stove is up to 400 and the air closed off in 30 to 40 minutes, usually. I don't have much chimney, and I suspect my draft could be better since I have to leave the door cracked at startup. But last night in -15 degrees, the draft was way too strong, so maybe I want to keep it the way it is!

This year a lot of my wood is less seasoned, and when I make a bad mix of wet and dry I have a sullen fire and plenty of visible smoke, so I will check my chimney for creosote once the foot of snow melts off the roof. I've also been "experimenting" with adding one log at a time when the stove temp goes down to 300. I know that below 250 I'll need kindling again to get a fire going, but the house is still warm and doesn't need a full load. I keep meaning to go outside to look for smoke when I do this, but then the cold and dark make me "forget." Another reason to go check out the chimney.

I didn't shop only for an oversized stove, I was shopping floor models. I had a choice between the big one or a very small one, for the same price. I wanted at least the hope of an overnight burn, and went with the big one. After reading so many accounts of stoves being too small to heat a house, (and almost no mention of one being too big, just warnings against it) I'm glad I chose what I did. I do think that there is a point where the firebox can be so big that the fire size to keep your living space comfortable is too small for a clean burn, but 2.3 cubic feet for 800 square feet (in my climate, house and installation) isn't it.

 

[wolfkiller]

I would of thought 2.3 cu ft would be a small stove.

 

[annette]

2.3 cubic feet is big for my space, according to what most manufacturers claim their stoves will heat. Luckily I'd read a lot of gripes about those manufacturer's claims and was more willing to go oversized than undersized. Small stoves like the Jotul f100 are rated for the space I need to heat--and its firebox is maybe 1.2 cubic feet? That was my other stove choice, and while it was beautiful, I don't think it would have handled really cold weather very well.

Maybe we need to define "big" or "oversized." Maybe if one's square footage isn't even close to the lower end of what the stove is suppose to heat? But, Osburns for example keep the low number the same--500 to 1000 square feet, 500 to 1500 square feet, etc. Maybe my stove isn't oversized, it's just "husky" or "big-boned"