Woodstove in Kitchen? or Stove location preferences

[Yooper]

I'm planning a remodel of an old farmhouse and am pondering stove location options. I'm attaching a JPG of the floor plan I threw together.

Short question: Is it dumb to put a big woodstove in the kitchen?

Long question: The masonry/ceramic lined chimney is located on the far side of an L-shaped floor plan and currently has a WonderWood circulating wood stove hooked up to it, located in the very back room measuring about 11x15. Needless to say this room gets hot, my digital thermometer blanked out around 125 the other day.

We push and pull the air though the next room, the kitchen, and over into the adjoining room, the living room where a scary old propane wall furnace occasionally roars to life. The stove heats the house, and in some cases overheats it. The upstairs has three bedrooms and a half-bath and matches the downstairs floor plan, for a total of about 1,700 sq ft.

What I'm proposing in the remodel is to install a new stove like a VC encore or Lopi Leyden, Quadrafire Isle Royale, etc. onto a hearth in the kitchen. My rationale is that it is more centrally located, can use the existing chimney, is visually pleasing as it can be seen from the living room (where a smaller gas cast iron stove will replace the wall furnace).

My concern is that the kitchen will now be the room that is 120 degrees, which is unnacceptable, as we do a lot of cooking, baking, canning, preserving, etc.

All feedback is welcome, especially ways to pay for the projects!

FYI--we live in northern Michigan, lots of winter (though dissapointingly mild this year); we plan to always heat primarily with wood as the house has no central heating system and would be hard to convert since it's part log and has a very limited crawl space beneath; we have 40 acres with a decent wood lot, plus are in the middle of national forest full of beech and hard maple.

 

[Yooper]

Couple more things, and an updated floorplan that might explain things better.

The upstairs rooms, which currently have no direct heat, will most likely get electric baseboards that should never run except maybe in the kids' rooms when they're little (haven't actually had them yet), or if everything else goes to hell, or when we're away from home for awhile.

Also, the floor plan shows a planned addition of a mudroom, bathroom, etc that will add another 300-400 sq ft for a total of 2,000-2,100 sq ft.

Thanks again

 

[babalu87]

My thoughts

When you are using the dining room chances are there is residual heat from the cooking process.
A woodstove in the kitchen and it could literally be too hot in the kitchen for ya.
Picture you are cooking a turkey, have three pots on the stove AND the woodstove going.
The kitchen could be 90 degrees with all that going on.

Can you remove any of the wall on the first floor during the building of the addition?

Most say to put the woodstove in the place you are spending the most time, that would be the living room.
The heat can then easily go up the stairs and heat the bedrooms.
EDIT then you can move the propane heater to the dining room and use as needed.

Laundry rooms, and mud rooms dont need to be nearly as warm as a living room.

 

[Roospike]

Boy Yooper , your floor plain is real close to my floor plan , Our house is 100+ years old , 2 story 1800 sf.

I took you floor plan and moved a few things around and now have my exact floor plain,

Our stairs are between the kitchen and the front room with a wall on the kitchen side open on the front room side.

X marks the spot of our wood stove and works great. We heat 100% with wood and the up stairs is normally just with in a few ° of the first floor...........no extra heaters needed.

Yooper , is the bottom of your stairs facing the front door or facing the back of the house ?

 

[Yooper]

The stairs face the front door. Ours is 90-100 years old too, the front half is dovetailed hand-hewn cedar logs, all the way to the gables. it's all plastered over but we plan on exposing it on the inside, but leaving it sided on the outside for that farmhouse look out, and rustic in.

Thanks for the feedback

 

[suematteva]

Hello Yuper,

You're in beautiful country!

Just a suggestion,, if you don't like it throw off the middle of the Mackinaw Bridge...

Esse makes a woodburning cookstove that is non cat-secondary burn system..

(broken link removed)

With the weather you guys get up there, size of the house, and if you enjoy cooking, you may want to think about 2 stoves.

Realize that cash could be an issue.

 

[Marty]

...

Esse makes a woodburning cookstove that is non cat-secondary burn system..

(broken link removed)
...
Realize that cash could be an issue.

I keep seing that beautiful thing pop up in these threads... anybody ever get a price on one?
Multi-fuel, heating, and cooking... that thing is a dream.

 

[colsmith]

If you would get a soapstone stove, that moderates the heat fairly well compared to a cast iron one. Or so I've read, anyway we have a Hearthstone soapstone wood stove, and it doesn't cook us out of our living room. Ours is a soapstone/cast iron hybrid actually, so you get some fast heat and some slow heat. I would recommend it. We would have stuck the stove in our kitchen/dining room area, but there was already too much stuff there, and we didn't want it by the frig, or the plant table, or the computer, etc. so went with the living room.

 

[wg_bent]

I agree with putting the stove in the living room. Our stove is quite far from the stove, and the kitchen still gets pretty warm, plus generates it's own heat. You'd do better heating the bedrooms also.

 

[Baroness]

Well, ours is in the kitchen & it's a big stove. It's the quad isle royale. Also we live in an old (1778) farmhouse. The kitchen is just the best place for us in order to heat the whole house. Sure, it gets in the upper 90's when the oven's on, but it's OK with me. Especially when it's COLD outside. Plus it makes the rooms further away wamer too. Good luck in deciding where to put one!

 

[Yooper]

The room the stove is in is only 11x15, so yes it gets hot. That's what the thermometer read, nothing but XXX and then when it cooled down it came back at 124. I'd say medium sized fire of hardwood. There are cabinets in that room and my wife had some candles stored in there, and chocolate bars. Whoops, nothing but puddles now.