Wood Stove selection help - 1000sqft new construction

[metty]

Hi All,

New user here with some experience burning wood for heat in our hunting cabin.

We are building a new house in Alleghany Co, NC as a part time/vacation home. The main living area is about 1000sqft, mostly open with a separate master suite. The intent is to use a wood stove as the main source of heat in the winter. We have access to nearly unlimited firewood on the property (400 acres of mixed forest and christmas trees). The house will have spray foam insulation and will be generally very well insulated.

I need help choosing a stove, below are the major boundary conditions:

1. Budget not critical but would like to stay around $5k for the stove if possible but I am fine with buy once, cry once to get something high quality we will be happy with long term
2. I will be doing the install during constuction
3. We need to be able to control heat output enough that it wont cook us out of the house
4. Would like it to be able to burn/put out heat for 8 hours (dont want to reload in the middle of the night)
5. Wife really likes the enameled cast iron look as well as soapstone but doesnt have to be that
6. Needs to be 2020 EPA certified
7. Would be nice if we could occasionally cook on top of it but not a hard requirement

Here is the floor plan:

 

[EatenByLimestone]

The spray foam will make stove choice a little harder than most houses! Has your builder worked up a manual J calculation for the house? How many btu do they think you’ll need for the lows they expect you to see?

 

[stovelark]

Hard to factor in too, your climate is different that ours up North... love your drawings/pictures though. For a 6-8 hour burn, you'll need something in the 2.0cuft firebox size, but I'd still lean to a larger 2.5ish stove, especially if its the only heat source. I'm assuming the house has another heat source, that you're trying to have the stove primarily provide your heat? I think I might lean towards a BK cat stove, to have the capability of higher heat output if needed, but be within comfort with lower heat output if needed. I'd look at several stoves, to see what you might like too, Jotuls are always pleasing to look at, as are soapstone stoves. Its difficult to come up with just the perfect stove that will fit everyone's needs and desires... Good luck with your search.

 

[begreen]

Just a suggestion here. Consider a layout that overlays the staircases so that one is under the other. This may mean that the basement door is where the end table is in the living room. If possible, it will liberate a chunk of floor space.

 

[kborndale]

If your planning on cutting your own firewood get going because it needs to be split and stacked for a minimum of a year (some species like oak need 2-3) before you can burn it in a modern stove

 

[EbS-P]

BK Ashford only question for me is the 20 or 30 box.

 

[metty]

If your planning on cutting your own firewood get going because it needs to be split and stacked for a minimum of a year (some species like oak need 2-3) before you can burn it in a modern stove

we have a separate hunting cabin on the property which is also heated by a wood stove and there is a mountain of split firewood there seasoning

 

[stoveliker]

Plan for an outside air kit; with a modern, sealed (sprayfoamed) home, you might otherwise not have enough air leaking in to replenish what the stove uses and sends up the chimney.

Regarding stoves, Blaze Kings can turn down a lot - but the ashford doesn't allow for cooking on top, I think (the vents I see in the pic suggest a convection deck there, so the top may not be hot enough for cooking). I have a Chinook (with convection deck) and cooking won't happen there.

 

[John Lehet]

In a space that small and well insulated in North Carolina, it’s probably going to be really hard to get the stove hot enough to effectively cook on top of it without cooking yourselves out of there, unless it’s a tiny stove, like you could cook on a Jotul 602.

I had a 1400 sf house with a lot of foam in Vermont, and we didn’t need much heat. I wanted to heat with wood. My perfect solution was a masonry stove, a soapstone tulikivi, which could spread out the heat from load of wood over a 24 hour period. I probably could have used a small stove like a 602 and just made a small fire twice a day, letting the thermal flywheel of the house handle the bursts of heat.

I would think that any catalytic stove rolling along at its lowest setting might still be too much heat, but I don’t know how low a blaze king could really go. Running a catalytic stove, on the one hand will go lower than a non-cat. But on the other hand if 24/7 burning is going to be too much, and you’ll have to go through the whole getting-the-stove-hot-again deal a few times a day to run a cat stove, then that might be a bit more stove-minding than you might like.

In my small and well insulated house I used about 20-25 pounds of wood/24 hours. In Vermont.

My Progress Hybrid (now I’m living in a less well insulated house) would probably cook you out of your house, but the soapstone really does act as a flywheel. I used to think soapstone woodstoves were kind of a gimmick (compared to a big masonry stove) but at least my Progress Hybrid really does hold heat and spread it out over a long time. Maybe a smaller soapstone stove like a Woodstock Fireview or one of the smaller Hearthstones would be a nice two-fires-a-day solution and spread that heat out a bit.

 

[stoveliker]

A BK can dial down to the equivalent of three and a half 1.5 kW electric plug in heaters,.if installed according to instructions.

I second the masonry stove idea. Though they are expensive and one should build the home around them rather than the other way around.

 

[John Lehet]

That is really low! Wow. I guess that’s why they are famous for that.

 

[stoveliker]

I may even have been wrong. In the brochure the 30 models list at 10640 BTU per hr on low. That's 3.1 kW, so slightly more than two 1.5 kW (standard size) plug in heaters...

Of course that's all not relevant if your house needs more BTUs.

 

[begreen]

The Woodstock Fireview will go even lower. 7,606 btus/hr according to EPA tests. It's a good choice for smaller spaces that want low burns.

 

[stoveliker]

But for (much) shorter times at those outputs.

 

[begreen]

Indeed it's a smaller firebox. There's always a compromise. Many people can live with 12-16 hrs between reloads in a small space.

 

[stoveliker]

Correct. Yet current EV capacity is good for many too but still the push is to make it bigger as that is more attractive to many.

Yet the point I'm making is that the compromise you allude to doesn't need to be made.

A larger firebox (long reload intervals) AND the possibility for a low heat output (as well as normal-high), AND a very even output, all in one package does exist.

I'm not saying that a stove like that is good for every situation. Some need more BTUs per hour. Some want an intense radiative feel. Some have a strong dislike for cats. Some want to cook on top.
All good. There are other options.

Yet whenever an aspect is mentioned regarding this particular brand (that you appear to not have experienced yourself) you respond by pointing to a stove with *a* similar characteristic.

So here I put the combo in and posit that that combo of (desired by "many") characteristics does exist, and afaik does not exist elsewhere to the same extent.

That is all.

Back to the poster: I do not think there is a BK on which there is no convection deck. So the fireview may be a better fit if stove top cooking is a need to have.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

My BK Sirocco has the convection deck only in the back beside the pipe, so one could cook on the stove top. I have never done it, though I have boiled away a pot of water once just to see. The Sirocco, Chinook, and Ashford all have the same firebox but with different aesthetics. The Sirocco is the plain Jane of the group.

 

[stoveliker]

Okay. The image in the brochure shows a slit at the top of the side of the stove suggesting that that top plate has room air under it. If not, then my next stove will be a sirocco

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I just looked at the brochure to see what slit you mean. It's the top of the side panels. The sides are shielded to allow for close clearances, but the top of the stove has no room air under it except the small convection deck at that back where the blowers can circulate the air.

 

[EbS-P]

I second the masonry stove idea. Though they are expensive and one should build the home around them rather than the other way around.

It’s just not cold enough to warrant the cost IMO. I’d love one! Two story! It’s going to go down as the coldest end of January beginning of February in long time here on the NC coast. Still the stoves have only been running 24/7 for maybe a week. My heath app just told there has been a change in number of stairs I’ve been climbing. Basement stove has been going for 6 days!

New construction-spray foam I’m guessing heatpump. If efficiency was a priority it could have really low heating load.

Morso or 602 might even do the job but not get burn time because it’s really not needed.

We need a manual J.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

It’s just not cold enough to warrant the cost IMO. I’d love one! Two story! It’s going to go down as the coldest end of January beginning of February in long time here on the NC coast. Still the stoves have only been running 24/7 for maybe a week. My heath app just told there has been a change in number of stairs I’ve been climbing. Basement stove has been going for 6 days!

New construction-spray foam I’m guessing heatpump. If efficiency was a priority it could have really low heating load.

Morso or 602 might even do the job but not get burn time because it’s really not needed.

We need a manual J.

I do think a manual J is a good idea for a smaller, spray-foam insulated home, and I also think it would be easier and more cost effective to opt for a stove over a masonry heater. I did a climate comparison just now between the mountains of North Carolina and the coast, and its averages ten degrees colder in Sparta than in Wilmington.

Compare the Climate and Weather in Sparta and Wilmington - Weather Spark

weatherspark.com

Sparta's weather is similar to what we see in our area but a touch colder in the winter and more pleasant in the summer, it seems. I sounds like a beautiful place. @metty , I do realize that you might not be building near Sparta, but I had to choose something for my climate comparison, and that seemed easy as the county seat.

We live in the foothills of the Blue Ridge in Virginia in a 2700 square foot home that is new construction with some spray foam and some rockwool insulation. As I mentioned earlier, we use a BK Sirocco 30.2, and it's placed on our main floor that is larger but similar in design to yours. Our stove is more centrally located at the corner of the open living room, kitchen, and dining room. We also have a master bedroom on that floor, but there's a bit more space with a home office for my husband and a sunroom that we use for plants and guests. Our heat also goes up the stairs to an upper floor with bedrooms and bathrooms for my four kids.

We could easily heat ourself out of the house with our stove. We are willing to use the heat pump during shoulder season, and we also don't always load the stove full. We have the larger firebox of the BK Ashford/Chinook/Sirocco series, and it's nice for having an abundance of space and not having to cut our wood so short. It could be an awful lot for a smaller, well-sealed home, though. Even though it turns down low, it is a good idea to burn it high at the beginning of each load and periodically during the season.

You mention that your home is a vacation or part-time home, so one consideration would be how often you would be using the stove to heat the place up. If you'd be coming to a fairly cold home during the winter, a lot of heat quickly would be a nice thing, and then being able to turn it down to low would help. We run the fans on our stove to help circulate heat, but we also like having the ability to cut them off and lower the heat output even more.

I don't know anything about the Woodstock Fireview from personal experience. It may be a really good fit, and I hope we hear from someone who burns one in this thread. @Todd , can you comment on the low output of the Fireview as well as burn times in the cold? As @EbS-P suggested earlier, a BK Ashford is what came to my mind when I first read your list, but it couldn't be used for cooking. The enamel cladding is beautiful. The Sirocco could be used for cooking, and had we lost power during the winter storm we got recently, I would have been heating pots of soup on it, but we didn't lose power, and I wouldn't choose to cook most foods on it. I'd sooner use the gas grill outside or fire up the generator and use an induction burner.

This post has been a bit all over the place with thoughts, but I hope it's given some insight. It sounds like you're going to have a lovely get-away spot in the future. It sounds beautiful in the midst of all the woodland. Enjoy.

 

[begreen]

Masonry heaters in milder climates can work well at times, but at other times they can be a real pita. I have a friend with a Tulikivi that regrets spending a ton on it. There are too many times when he gets the mass warmed up and then the sun comes out and the house overheats. And he hates that when they want to go out at night, it means they need to be back in time to start the night time fire. This is in a very well insulated, modern house. They are a perfect candidate for a low and slow burner, but with a lot less mass so that a smaller fire can be made when the long burn is not important.

 

[John Lehet]

With my Tulikivi I definitely had to pay extreme attention to the current and future weather. That said, I never regretted making a fire or the wrong fire. I also only needed one fire a day, and there was a fair amount of leeway on that because of the house having a lot of thermal mass itself. It was on an insulted slab. The house also had fair bit of south glass, so I paid attention to expectation of solar gain. By mid February I could start to skip fires on sunny days.

I also got it for super cheap (promotional import, one of the first ones), and there was nothing like a modern low burning catalytic stove to offer a similar low output.

I could absolutely see it as not optimum if the fit was inappropriate or it wasn’t used carefully.

 

[qwee]

It would be nice if you could move your stove to the inner wall where the couch is - a central location. If it was my cabin (I'm in a colder area) I might try the ductless mini split-small wood stove-connected to a micro processor/sensors route. The exact details are still a little sketchy but it can be done.

The idea is for the micro processor (the brains) to do a few things, 1) turn the mini split on/off for heating and cooling, 2) tell you when the mini split isn't enough and a fire is needed, 3) manipulate the burning fire to maximize the burn, 4) control outside air entering the house, 5) move air/heat inside the house via fans/ducts, and 6) control Temp when no one is there to keep things from freezing.

But in your location, (NC ) you might just be able to get by with a good ductless mini split, unless you are in the mountains. A small wood stove centrally located would work, too. Maybe a ductless min split and a Rumford fireplace for ambiance (on that outer wall). These fireplaces give a little heat. Many options for a small place in a mild climate.

 

[Todd]

I don't know anything about the Woodstock Fireview from personal experience. It may be a really good fit, and I hope we hear from someone who burns one in this thread. @Todd , can you comment on the low output of the Fireview as well as burn times in the cold?

You have to remember that low 7000 BTU low output is an average over a 16 hour EPA cordwood test burn so starting out it’s much higher then drops off. The soapstone mass does even that heat feel out some but it won’t be a continuous 7000 BTU over 16 hours.

Colder weather calls for hotter burns and shorter burn times. When I need the heat I can get the stove top up to 500 in about 40 min if I do it right. It will pump out the radiant heat when needed and it won’t be an uncomfortable searing heat like a metal stove.

Maybe the Woodstock Absolute Steel may be a better fit for cooking. I don’t do a lot of cooking on my Fireview except warming up leftovers or soups. Soapstone scratches easily and I’d rather not risk spilling or splashing something on it.