Woodstock Progress right for me

[coach9484]

Good afternoon, I have been a long time lurker around here reading many different threads. There are many good people that offer their experience that I hope will help me.

I live just south of Green Bay,WI in a 3200 sq ft. 2 story 100+ year old farm house. I have renovated the farm house with new windows, new insulation, and opened up the house floor plan considerably. The main floor is basically split into thirds. I was thinking of placing a Progress in the middle 1/3 of the bottom floor. In that large middle room the open stair case goes to the second floor, the right 1/3 has 3 large open doors that go to the kitchen/dining room and on the left 1/3 a hallway that leads to two room. On the second floor there is a large room at the top of the stairs. The bedroom are directly off this large area.

My question is will the WS Progress be enough to heat the house? I have my current primary heat with a forced air unit, but I would like to burn wood for the most part. I realize that when it gets below zero my forced air would kick in. I do have the ability to circulate the heat in the house by turning on the fan on the furnace.

What are your thought folks? I appreciate all the input in advance.

Thanks

 

[rideau]

How cold exactly is Green Bay? Zone 5? Zone 4?

My home is larger than that, three floors. PH does quite nicely in Zone 5. My home was built in the 1970s. Don't know how tight your home is. Can you figure out what your heat requirements are in BTUs from the amount of oil or gas you used in your furnace this year? Was the home as warm as you would like, or do you hope to keep it warmer with a wood stove?

If your home is not very tight and will require you to burn at a relatively high rate on the coldest days, then I think you'd be looking at three loads on those days. While the stove will hold 22 inch splits and, according to Woodstock, 60 pounds, let's count on 50 pounds per large load. At 20% moisture content in your wood, you'll get somewhere north of 6000 BTUs into your home per pound of actual solid wood in that 50 pounds of wood/water. Since that wood is about 83% wood and 17% water, you have 41 or 42 pounds of wood times x somewhere between 6000 and 6500 BTU per pound for the PH = 250,000 BTU per load or 750,000 BTU per day. This is conservative estimate, and does not allow for high end of possible BTU output, really dense wood in stove allowing for more weight of wood, full firebox with 22' splits allowing for more weight.

So, without pushing the PH, you should be able to comfortably put 750.000 BTU per day in the home. Working at loading fairly full, still with three loads, you can likely increase that output fairly easily by about 20% to 900,000 BTU per day.

If you think you are going to need more BTUs than that, then you may want to wait for the release of Woodstock's new stove in October or November of 2013. I'd certainly talk with them about the new stove if you think you'll need more than 900,000 BTU perday. While I expect you can push the PH, load 4 times a day, and get well over 1,000,000 BTU per day, if you need to do that you may want the new bigger stove and be able to load less frequently.

I think your floor plan will distribute the heat produced by the PH very well.

If you are OK with forced air kicking in when temps are well below zero F, I wouldn't hesitate with the PH in your two story open concept home. With the assistance of one or two small floor box fans you'll certainly get air flowing and into all your rooms.

If you want to try to avoid the furnace entirely, calculate your heat need and talk with Woodstock about the new stove if your heat demand exceeds the above numbers.

By the way, I love my PH. It keeps my home toasty, despite an excessive draft this past year that had me losing a lot of heat unnecessarily up the chimney. That is being fixed for next year.

My normal heating pattern is two loads a day, three or four large splits, 12 hour burns, with plenty of coals that ignite the next load while loading, before the door is even closed. Really cold days, three fires, maybe slightly more wood.

 

[Havendalefarm]

After reading all that I am thinking that I just may be able to retire the second stove when we get the PH installed and fired up.We are zone 5 also,25 miles south of Watertown, it is 30 degrees f outside and both stoves running low have it almost too warm. And I have had the window that is about a foot from one of the stoves open 4" all day. From a heat standpoint the PH is a big stove. Radiant heat is a whole different animal that forced air.We have found that too much circulation, differing fan combos, was actually a net loss. Yes it must have moved the heat around, but it always seemed colder. Just running the blower on the Dutchwest seems to have this effect also.

 

[ddddddden]

Radiant heat is a whole different animal than forced air. . .

+1 for radiant heat!
mmm. . .radiation.

a one. . .
and a two. . .

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. . .Den dances outside in boxers to grab a few splits. . .

 

[rideau]

Darn. Typed a long note, then the dog came over and poof, the note is gone.

I'm 45 miles North North West of the Thousand Islands, probably about 90 or 100 miles N of you. Miss your lake effect snow! Though I have the ?pleasure? of driving through it a lot.

You are going to love the PH.

I meant to recommend that you have Woodstock send you a Condor flue probe. They are under $30, easy to install, and make deciding when engage the cat a breeze. Save you a few minutes, and a bit of wood, with each fire. Also lets you know for sure what is going on in your chimney. Woodstock can ship one with your stove order if you wish.

Also, I ordered several extra Fireview stovetop sospstone slabs years ago. Keep them on my PH now, where they absorb and radiate additional heat during the day. By night, I wrap them in beach towels and place them under the covers at the foot of each bed. They warm the sheets so you don't get in a cold bed, and keep the bed toasty warm all night. I have also used the slabs to start a car when it was 35 below out and noone else was moving. Just put the slabs on the car hood, wrapped in beach towels, and covered them with a blanket. Car started in about twenty minutes. My block heater didn't do the trick, but the soapstone did. Also use them regularly for gentle bottom heat to start my numerous seedlings for my very large vegetable garden. If you want to get some, you could add them to the order and get them shipped with the stove. I'm sure they'd fit in the box the stovetop comes in.

I would not be at all surprised if you only need the one stove. Hope so! Make for a lot less work for you. Good luck, be well, enjoy.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Good afternoon, I have been a long time lurker around here reading many different threads. There are many good people that offer their experience that I hope will help me.

I live just south of Green Bay,WI in a 3200 sq ft. 2 story 100+ year old farm house. I have renovated the farm house with new windows, new insulation, and opened up the house floor plan considerably. The main floor is basically split into thirds. I was thinking of placing a Progress in the middle 1/3 of the bottom floor. In that large middle room the open stair case goes to the second floor, the right 1/3 has 3 large open doors that go to the kitchen/dining room and on the left 1/3 a hallway that leads to two room. On the second floor there is a large room at the top of the stairs. The bedroom are directly off this large area.

My question is will the WS Progress be enough to heat the house? I have my current primary heat with a forced air unit, but I would like to burn wood for the most part. I realize that when it gets below zero my forced air would kick in. I do have the ability to circulate the heat in the house by turning on the fan on the furnace.

What are your thought folks? I appreciate all the input in advance.

Thanks

Welcome to the forum coach.

Your home is large but we know of others who are heating that size with the Progress. It sounds like you have done a good job with insulating and I like the more open floor plan also. That will make a big difference in heating your home.

For sure one of the biggest keys is the type of wood you burn. If you have the time to let oak dry (3 years after split) then that is difficult to beat and your fires will last a lot longer. On the other hand if you burn some of the softer woods, you will still get good heat but you'll find yourself putting wood in a bit more often.

Rideau's method of attempting to calculate the btu's is great. However, you must still remember there is a terrific difference between heating with forced air vs radiant heat. The biggest difference is that the heat is more constant with wood while with forced air, you are warm when the fan is running then uncomfortable when it shuts off. Also because of that difference, keeping a house at, say, 72 degrees will feel much warmer with radiant heat vs forced air. As for using the furnace along with the wood, that may or man not be necessary.

In addition, if you do plan on buying a Progress, this week is the right time to do it! Don't worry about the six month guarantee as they will still cover you. We bought our Fireview around March 1 and extending the guarantee was no problem. And if you want to be friendly, Woodstock has made a generous offer that we Woodstock stove owners can pass along that big price break that is good until March 29. I highly doubt you'll see that stove sell for that low price much longer if at all.

And for what it's worth, we are Packer fans! Good luck to you.

 

[Pallet Pete]

Welcome to the forums !

In a house that size you will most likely need to run the furnace and stove in the coldest days of winter. I have been to and spent time in Green Bay IT GETS COLD lol. The Progress is one of the better stoves for your climate however in your case I think an EPA wood furnace would be the best route to take. It will tie in next to the furnace into the ducts and provide a little steadier heat for you. this works better when you have walls blocking air flow and the like. I am very pro Woodstock however that seems like a lot of space. I never felt the cold like I did standing in the wind in Green Bay.....

Pete