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You have to really like a Progress, to "bring it with you". They don't move easily.

 

Hearthstone is not the direction to go according to all your input. Thanks! Now I'm looking at a Woodstock Absolute Steel. My wife likes the tall version in all charcoal finish. Hey Oldhippie, how does yours work for you? Burn time, heat output, etc, considering our small house and 400 sq. ft. (really more like 500 considering the hall way.) BTW did you pick up your handle from that old Bellamy Brothers single?

 

Hi bushpilot. We considered putting the stove in the corner. We decided for the spot in the middle of the southern wall for a number of reasons. 1. The position of the front door and what we want to do with furniture arrangement doesn't work as well.
2. Neither of us want to see a 6 foot chimney out our roof. 3. My sister's house has a very similar kitchen/livingroom arrangement with south facing short wall, windows, and sliders. We like it. Our indoor wood storage we plan to have on the long wall left of the front door. We'll line the wall with that rough stone wall tile. I'll make a wood rack out of 1.5 inch pipe. Should be able to have at least a weeks worth of wood there. We know it's a ways from there to the stove. My Karen likes cleaning.

 

RE: The OldHippie handle question. - Pretty much, I bought the album, and never really ever became a big country fan. But I was totally lost when rock turned into Disco and I didn't know what to do! So I fell in love with Jazz.

The AS is a great stove, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it for your 500sq ft area. You can run it half loaded and still go through from a 10:00PM load to a 8:00AM restart. No problem. On an almost full load I'll do once every 16 hours during shoulder season, where I need good heat in the AM, then not until late night refill, then noon the next day. Being retired I have that flexibility. But that's such a small space the AS may overheat you a good deal, where the Fireview is slightly smaller capacity, but more importantly the soapstone spreads out the heat in a more "over the course of the burn" fashion. It can warm you nicely on the coldest day, but not drive you out of the room. My second thoughts on this, is that I have never tried heating 500 sq feet of a new construction home with my AS. It might work perfectly, I would just hate to see you put in the wrong stove. BUT the beauty of buying Woodstock, is if it isn't the right stove, just tell them, they'll take it back from you and give you full purchase credit for the right one. So it really is risk free.

I'd even suggest the smaller Keystone or Palladian. You guys would really do well to visit Woodstock it's not that far away. I think going there will give you a better feel for each stove in their lineup. Even the Fireview maybe a little oversized, but its soapstone makes it a more gentle heat. Plus, it's very pretty.

 

Thanks for the advice on the AS. I took a long look at the Woodstock's catalytic stoves. We are trying to stay in our budget of $2500 for a stove. I know another $600 doesn't sound like so much considering the total cost when done BUT we are buying lots of big number items for our new house and have a budget for every one of them. $600 here and $600 there and pretty soon you're talking about real money.....to borrow a quote. West Lebanon isn't that far from Dover but it's a ways from Carmel NY. I'll reach out to their customer service from here for more advice. I really like what I see about Woodstock Stove co.

 

the fuse since this is a retirement home a few things I would strongly suggest as we just went through this with my grandparents.

1) Make sure front door is flush entry (no steps)

2) Master bedroom and bathroom needs to be handicap accessible (walker and wheelchair) I can virtue guarantee you or your wife one will need either a walker or wheelchair at some point in your senior years. A few thousand spent now will prevent renovations or worse moving later on.
3) If the sliders are sliding glass doors your dining room/kitchen is going to be VERY cramped unless the door is blocked or you have a 2 person table. Consider a U shaped kitchen and have a bar instead of a table.
4) I personally would not put a full guest bathroom in, take that entire space and make a really nice handicap bathroom with laundry area in it. Probably could shave 1-2 feet off and make kitchen or bedroom bigger. Have the door across the hall from master bedroom so it functions for master and guest!
5) Cold will affect you more the older you get, consider a chair lift in the stairway so you can park in basement if a garage on grade is not possible.

 

Silly me, I was forgetting you're not there yet. I do get the budget stuff though. I am in the process of replacing our oil forced hot water system, mainly used for hot water, laundry etc, but also for some early morning heat. Plus, if I die first, I know my wife won't want anything to do with the woodstove effort. Decisions, decisions, the one I want is $3K more than the one I probably need given were both in out seventies now.

 

Thank you DNH. We are going to die in or near to that house. There is a reason we chose a one level ranch. We have already planned the driveway to be next to the front door actually there will be a covered porch there. That will require a step up from the driveway but flush with the door. The doors to our master and bathroom will be 3'. We won't really have a dining room table. I'm building a 3'x5' butcher block island that will serve as both huge cutting board and "table".....so plenty of room in and out of the sliders. This house is an "off the rack" modular. We can't make major changes without incurring major designer costs. I hear you about your grand parents. And we have anticipated much of what you bring up. Karen and I have also watched our own parents grow old and pass in their homes.....none of which were as "old folk" friendly as ours will be. My Mom and Dad climbed narrow, steep, 1850 federal building stairs through their 80's, to get their bedroom. It seemed to work for them....sort of. Not for us.
Thanks again for the advice.

 

Is actually agree with the one step up this is Vermont easy enough to add a ramp! doors at ground level suck in 30” of snow!!

 

Sounds just like our house! Front porch one step up from the drive, 3' doors and hallway, eat in kitchen butcher block island, we squeezed 3 beds and a craft room into 30x48 with two full baths, our "closet" is wire shelving in the master.

 

You should check the classifieds page here - might be a good deal on an AS.

 

I private messaged you on this...

 

That's a nice looking house Dave. We'll have a wrap around deck from the front door to the sliders off the kitchen as well. The covered part will be 20' on the front door side. Our property is 5 acres of mostly wooded with 1.5 acres flat and open off the road. Makes a nice place to park the modular halves during delivery. A river runs up the whole length of the east side of property. Our building lot is above the river as the land slopes up through the woods. No neighbors in sight. Not many out of sight either.
What stove are you running down there?

 

Sounds nice, esp the no neighbors part. We burn in an Englander NC30.

 

WAY to much stove for us. If we were both 40 years younger I wouldn't mind hanging out naked while cooking dinner.

 

They have a reputation for burning low n slow

 

You wont go wrong with a F45, I've been burning one since Dec and have been very pleased with it's performance. No problem with long burns, you can go 12 hours between reloads if needed, I usually just do 3 loads per day with a half to 3/4 load. The stove has the cast iron clad so it evens out the heat and is not an intense radiant blast. Never a problem with ash, it has a pretty deep belly and you can go 2 weeks+ before scooping. The N/S loading is great and it burns slowly front to back.

I also looked at the VC Dauntless and it is a gorgeous stove but I passed since I just can't trust the down draft technology, seems like it could just be too finicky and too many possible future maintenance nightmares. The F45 seems bullet proof with the welded steel fire box.

 

Thanks Todd. The F45 is on the possibilities list.

 

I got to thinking about the low and slow thing, and my concern that an AS might be too much stove for your space. I'm a guy who gets in a habit, what works for me and do it over and over. So I'm thinking I never really did try to do a small fire and should try a small fire. See how that works out. So today, was a 24'F day, I built up a slightly less that half loaded stove. It started easily as could be, as more space to breath between the logs. Got up to 250 STT quickly, I engaged the cat and the stack at the time was 400'F. 15 mins later, the stack was 200'F and the STT was 425'F. Nice warmth without being overwhelming even when I was doing a Zoom meeting less than 4 feet away. At the same time the entire space, (unheated otherwise) 24X24 ft was nicely warm, but not overheated, maybe 72'F but not measured. The other side of this was I started that burn at 4:30PM it's not 10PM and just checking there is easily a couple hours of low (250'F) slow burn.

It's definitely possible, but really tough to tell as nothing but I similar size about sq ft to get apples to apples.

I'm not sure if this helps but my AS will burn low and slow with a smaller load.

It's a beautiful area, I'll be riding through on a frequent basis, on Rt 9 west heading to MoK for lunch.

 

Sweet ride!