advice on a new woodstove

OK after reading several threads I guess I am ruling out BK because king needs an 8 inch flues and I have a 6. Looking at a hearthstone Mansfield second a friend has one and its pretty plus she is going through 3 cord a year. I been averaging 8 to 9 in a nc-13.

 

Yeah, I know currently 8 degree and dropping a good wind coming across 15 miles of frozen lake. I see you have an englander do you find ash pan usable? I got 2.5 cord left on deck 2 more dry outback wood not fit on deck but buried in waist deep snow.. praying for spring or at least a warmup to high 20 at least in daytime..

 

That's a real good thought! Hybrid is real good for you, gives you the cat for the long steady lower burn, and secondary combustion for higher heat for your climate mid winter needs. Also has a big box front loader capacity.

It's hard to picture your house/heating needs completely... pics would help. But a Woodstock IS sure sounds like the ticket.

 

I just ran the IS through a major hot burn cycle. When you need heat this thing will run you out of the room! All of that soapstone gives it back after the fire. It took my upstairs thermostat from 65 to 71 in about 3 hours. It's extremely cold here too and I'm heating from the basement. I'm heading into the negatives tonight with wind. I just fired up the smoke dragon and it's hungry already!!

Tonight is all about staying warm Haha.

 

Magog or Champlain? Either way it is beautiful county.

 

I am next to Champlain, west side of state, the North East kingdom is beautiful but very few jobs up there. I got to learn this whole forum thing how to add pics. tablet is new. Even with pics this house is different, I built 10 before market changed and ya could not build them right and sell them. I like different, thank god so does my wife...

 

OK, I am normally against putting stuff on net but I asked for help so here it goes realize this is my first forum and bear with me. If you look at house the living room where stove is, the front half 20 x 20 master bedroom above it. back half is 20 x 40. I realize, now after reading forums I probably should put a stove in basement I call floor 1 and utilize brick chimney goes right next to center stairway. But 1 upgrade at a time. Living room has and basement have 8 foot ceilings. Floor 3 ceilings are half 8 foot half 16 floors 4 and 5 ceilings are 5.5 on 1 side 16+ on other. H house is not huge I know that sounds weird when talking about 5 floors but 2nd floor is 1 room. Living and 4th floor a 12 x 20 bedroom the center stairway acts like a cold air return. Just so you know house was built in 80 faces southwest every room has a south window tons of natural light and solar gain if the sun ever shines. The reason for short to tall ceilings is town only taxes you on half of square footage in any room where 1 wall is less than 6 feet regardless of how tall other wall is. There you now know more than you ever wanted too about my house. My view on life is fake it til you make it. If you ain't the lead dog the views the same (uncle had sled dog team) and learn from others mistakes cause I won't live long enough to make them all myself. Which is why I asked for advice. Thanks again

 

Quite the modular home, very popular in the 80's for sure. Floor plan is anything but open??
As you said the stairway acts like the cold air return, connecting all the airways together.
I like the idea on the tall windows and the solar gain coming in from the SW.
Do you have any serious cold spots in any of the rooms? By the looks of things and the way the
home is designed, it looks like heated air from a woodstove would be more difficult to move freely
in this home. I'm just basing this off the the pics and knowing a little about construction and heating
with wood.

 

Going by your other posts, you have a lot of volume to heat and you live in a very cold area- I personally would get a big stove, probably the biggest thing I could get my hands on. An Ideal Steel is a large stove and I think it would work well for you, and I personally own one but in this particular case, I think you should go even larger: the two stoves with the biggest useful size fireboxes that I know of are Blaze King (King model) and the Regency F5100. Both are around 4.4 cu. ft. firebox. The Blaze King is a pure cat stove while the Regency is a hybrid. Between those two, I personally would go with the Regency for several reasons but you mention your have a 6" flue. The Blaze King King will work with a 6" flue I believe- check with Blaze King. Both of those stoves recommend an 8" flue, and have 8" flue collars but only the Regency requires a full 8" flue.

You could call Regency and ask about special dispensation, or of course simply install it. Not sure if it could ever be an insurance issue or not though in the event anything ever happened.

After those two stoves, you basically have a bunch of 3 to 3 1/2 cubic. foot stoves to look at. The Ideal Steel is quite popular on this forum (other forums seem to have their own favorites) and as I said, I personally own one and like it very well in the first year but I believe it is worth your time to do some research before buying anything. Beyond the mfg.'s claims, numbers and ratings, think of how you actually use a wood stove and what would be benificial as well as detrimetal on a new model. One of the major points for me was the sealed ash pan on the I.S. so that ashes can be removed anytime without shoveling them out. Double pane glass which does a fantastic job of keeping the glass clean (all mfgs claim to keep the glass clean with the airwash but most do a lousy job IMO).

Best of luck with whichever one you end up with.

Brian

 

OK thanks for the good advice, to answer the questions, the living room was the coldest in house only 16 feet of hot water baseboard. Why stove went in that room. Upgraded 3 big windows in front. (FYI those are pella 1 inch thick triple pane 36 x 80 got for free when a buddy of mine worked for them. They were other half of broken sliders score!) Few others are on the list for replacement this year. I got a lot of cubic feet! The floor plan is open with exception of bed and baths. So this is what I am thinking now. Since I like woodstock customer service and less than 2 hours away. The IS price is good and wife likes the art. That can go in living room for fall year. Then after seeing how it goes and saving money
consider a BK or other in basement chimney that's a 2 flue cinderblock chimney that's faced with brick and is center of house I read that type of chimney is ideal. My only concern with this plan would be wood usage I just don't know how much more than 10 cord I can c/s/S and scrounge. Is there anything wrong with my logic? Worse case I get a 6 month return on IS.

 

It's hard to tell from the picture, but did the wheel come off the Kubota or did the hub break? I'm a Kubota mechanic I've done lots of hub repairs.

 

Wheel came off rim blowing this morning. All fixed now it's a good wood gatherer/dragged nothing new tire and a few hours can't fix. I'll mark your a Kubota mech for future reference though lol

 

OK thanks for the tip the chimney is not lined had 1 side is furnace other was for wood. Well a squares clay liner. It's a walk out basement on other side with concrete pad 12 foot wide 4 foot walls so you can get stuff in and out easy. an upgrade I finished wife would say it took 3 years but it's finished! Can't get to take a photo of that side of house and wood deck. snows waist deep.

 

I don't think you will need a 4 c.f. stove, that is just nuts. I bet you can install any CAT stove and you will cut your wood usage in half, and the house will be warmer, period. You just get sooooo much more heat out of the CAT stoves, and they use sooooo much less wood, and most of them have a nice overnight burn from what I see reported, you just can't go wrong.

Pick a Progress Hybrid, An Ideal Steal, the BK (that uses the 6" flue), and you'll be a much happier camper. Good luck!