First fire in EPA rated Hearthstone Green Mountain 60

Well, let’s see how this ultra efficient stove thing goes… it’s a Hearthstone Green Mountain 60 that uses a “Tru-Hybrid” secondary burn plus catalytic. It sure is pretty!

 

Thanks for the welcome. I’ve learned a lot from this forum and hope to give back however I can.

Now, someone talk me out of adding a Stihl ms 400 to my Dolmar 5100S for taking down my wood…

 

Hahaha....me thinks you're looking for some enablers.... Well you've come to the right place! Your setup looks like it's a pic from a catalog! Welcome to fhc!

 

I’ve got 6 cords on hand. All 1-3 years seasoned oak and starting to pile of some more. We’re in northern WI but do head south for a few months so I’m only heating Oct-Dec and then again in March or April-May.

 

Built a swell looking little woodshed for the 3 cords I figure I want handy each year. I’ll stain it to match the house after it’s dried out. Each run inside is 10’x4’x5.5’.

 

This is the wrong place for that with this crew. They'll talk you into buying 2, just in case.

Welcome to the forum!

 

I’ve seen some crazy prices on saws from YouTubers across the country. Thankfully, our local Stihl dealer hasn’t gone nuts and they’re MSRP. I’d get another Dolmar if I wasn’t worried about getting parts…I ordered one of nearly every replacement part for my 5100S just in case.

Update on the Hearthstone GM60. She’s a keeper! I definitely need to play around a bit with starting cold fires, reloading, and controlling burn rate but overall, I’m happy. It is a small stove, and so is my space at 1000 sq ft, but I do wonder if I should’ve gone with the GM80 to have more options for loading wood considering how shallow the GM60 is. It only affords East/West loading and barely fits two splits from front to back.

 

.... are you sure you're new here??

 

I'm another small hybrid stove owner and every so often the same thought crosses my mind, but the other day I was at a buddy's house who has one of those big great rooms with the ceiling open to the upstairs with a loft, 2 sets of sliding glass windows (to explain the room) and running a Jotul f500 and he said he wishes he had my stove to heat the room better- so some of it is make do with what you've got. Some of it is it's in the eye of the beholder. And the rest might be learn what the stove can do for different situations.
If any of that doesn't sound good to you, you can always buy a different stove. I don't know of too many people here who would talk you out of going bigger. I think I'm on year 3 with my small stove. How pleased am I with it? Well, my wife and I just had a mini split heat pump system added to the house mostly for cooling in the summers, but it allows for heating and we're removing our furnace. (I'll slap something together when that project is done and start a thread to not hijack this one you've got going.)

I for one would love some more updates as you get more experience with this stove and what your observations are.

 

This space also has a 3 head mini-split with heat but I didn't get the extreme low temp kit (Northern WI here...) and instead installed this woodstove to avoid the high electrical bill in early winter AND to be able to heat when the mini-split won't run.

As for this stove, I THOUGHT I had already upsized when moving up from the GM40 to the GM60 but really think the GM80 might have been the best bet. Interesting sidenote on the GM40 vs GM60. While the GM40 is smaller, its clearances are LARGER. So in fact, the GM60 can actually fit in same or smaller space. No idea why they even make the GM40. Who would want a smaller firebox in the same amount of space?!

I will keep the updates coming. Lots of "mistakes" so far leading to a bunch of smoke in the space. Wife not too keen on that as I promised woood smoke smell would be minimal...

 

Does your HO insurance company count the mini split count as "central heat"? If not, then careful pulling that furnace out...most will cancel you if they find out there is no "automatic" heat

 

It does satisfy the requirement. That's a good heads up though, thank you.
Technically it is an air source heat pump sized to service the whole house. We have existing ductwork throughout the main floor. Without getting in over my head, we're removing the old ductwork and replacing it with sealed / insulated ducting and the upstairs bedroom/office is the only part of the house getting situated with mini splits because the previous owners did a hack job installing the registers, they didn't install returns.
We could heat the house with the new system exclusively.... but what fun would that be?

 

Thanks for the welcome, Backwoods! SE. We head to SC/FL but rentals this year...ooof...might be only gone a short bit so likely going to burn through more wood than I had planned this winter...

On topic of burning wood. NEED SOME ADVICE!!!

Last night it got down to about 0F outside and this morning it was 56F inside... The structure is detached from our house so stoking in the middle of the night isn't really an option. Besides refueling as LATE AS POSSIBLE each night, any tips on longer burn? I know, I know...shoulda got a bigger stove!

 

The location of the stove is detached from the house?

 

The building it is in is. Ancillary structure housing my office that I am in all day long. Renovated garage.

 

gaberelli can set us straight on it, but I'm reading it as the woodshed is detached from the house.... I hope?

Update: I'm wrong. My apologies.

0*F is cold for sure --> with the hybrid stoves, a suggestion I have is for an overnight burn to take regular sized splits and split them down when possible to the size of say the handle on a baseball bat. Bigger than kindling but smaller than what you'd call a split to throw in the fire. You can get a bit more wood in on a reload and that can help take you through the night. That's what I do. The combination of the secondary burn and the catalyst will keep it burning nicely.
I don't know the math on it, but by splitting the wood a bit thinner I'm able to get what amounts to 1 or 2 more logs in than if I had left them the size they were.
Just a thought.