Looking for a stove

Read a fair amount about woodstoves and the a woodstove shop near me sells Blazeking and Pacific Energy. From what I read the Pacific Energy can burn a little hot once in a while? The Blazeking sounds like a nice stove but have read where if the glass gets dirty on the low burns and need a razor blade to clean the glass? Just looking for thought on theses two stoves. The more simple and less upkeep the better for me. Thinking I would use the stove when it gets below 30 outside. House is 2000sq. ft. Thanks

 

Both are highly reputable brands. BK=catalytic, PE=secondary burn/non-catalytic. Lots of people run these brands and are very satisfied.

 

BK stoves are 24/7 heaters, they can burn low and that's part of their magic. If you only plan to heat 30 and colder just about any modern stove in the 3 cubic foot range will do a decent job heating 2k.

Where are you located?

 

I live in Minnesota.

 

I see you have a PE stove does it ever run a little on the hot side? Can you get 8 hours of burn time out of your stove?

 

Sam, I'm not sure what you mean by, on the hot side. In MN you need a stove that runs on the hot side .
PE stoves are high quality stoves, they don't tend to over-fire and have a reputation for long burn times (for a secondary burn stove). Any secondary burn (tube) stove will have a heating curve, higher heat output after a reload, and the output will taper off until the next load (mostly during the last half of the burn). Cat stoves tend to have a steadier burn rate. Especially BK with their thermostat. Both are great stoves, you'd probably be very happy with either. But good for you asking questions to make the right decision for you.
How often would you like/be around to reload? 8hrs? 12hrs?24hrs? That is where the BKs shine- burn one 4 cuft load per day instead of a 2 cuft load in the morning and another at night. Also, during the shoulder season- burn a 4 cuft load for 40hrs instead of lighting four 1 cuft loads (1 cuft at a time so you don't overheat the house).
What are you burning now? How does it do?

 

Both of good stoves, I own one of them, but there are TONS MORE out there to consider. Maybe if you shared some details we could give you more suggestions, lots of details on this. If you buy a qualtiy stove like the ones you mentioned your going to spend a bunch of money and have it for a LONG time.

• House size?
• Insulation in your house?
• Layout of house?
• Will this be a primary heater or just something to knock down the heating costs?
• How about the chimney. This is as important, and sometimes more important, than the stove itself. This thread is worth reading on this topic, Keweenaw thought he had stove issues only to find this Stove pipe | Firewood Hoarders Club

 

I'm new to burning this year so I have only a few months experience with only one stove so I may not be the best resource. FWIW, I was very pleasantly surprised that we almost never run ourselves out of the living room with the stove. I was worried about this since we like to keep the house cooler that most people, around 60-63. One thing I've noticed with the Alderlea, is that the front glass of the stove will kick out some serious radiation, but, by coincidence, that is "aimed" down the main hall and not where we usually sit. Instead, the sides of the stove stay relatively cool because of the convective airspace between the steel firebox and the cast iron shell. This works for us. I'm not sure if this is the same on the all steel PE's.

As for burn times, we easily get 8 hours of heat overnight. On all but the coldest nights, we are getting 10+ hours. We've been burning cherry, red maple and tulip as our fast burners and black birch for highest BTU's.

 

Burn times. We have had a couple of long, cold nights where our stove could only go about 8 hrs and then the oil furnace had to kick in. A little larger firebox would have taken care of that or maybe a catalytic stove would have squeezed out that last little bit. No problem for us either way. I don't mind running the oil furnace every so often to make sure it's still working.

 

sam s , don't forget firewood.
You have a very short window of opportunity to get some firewood for net winter.
Try your darndest to get some dry wood now......right now. The longer you wait, the more disappointed you'll be when trying to burn, as the wood is not likely to be dry.
You may have some luck with burning Pine, Ash, and maybe soft Maple, possibly some others, if you get it now.
Personally, I'd get either a BK or Woodstock.

 

Tulip Poplar and Cherry also dried really nicely for me in 6-12 months. Split small and get wind and sun on it.

 

sam s yeah I will second start getting wood yesterday! Key difference between Woodstock and Blaze king King is the size of the chimney 6 versus 8 inch flue. is chimney already built or new install, That and the answers to bobdog2o02 questions will get the the answers you need to make a good choice

 

The only BK that takes an 8" chimney is the King, the princess and all "30" series stoves are 6"

 

Thanks for the help, I will try to answer most of the questions. I just read a couple of times where on PE stoves the flue temps will be on the high side for a stove. I'm not sure if that is even true. The reason I looked at these two stove is that they are sold close to me. I will check out the Woodstock stoves. I have read a few threads on here about them. I don't have a stove and really don't know a lot about them except what I mostly read on here. My house is 2000 sq.ft.,insulation is decent, layout is not good a lot of small rooms. Want it to take the edge off the lp bill which isn't bad this year. Basically will be starting from scratch on this project. As far as the wood I'm thinking I have 5 to 8 cords sitting out in the woods. Thinking any stove would work just want a simple to use and maintain.

 

Keep asking questions but your on the right track. Will you be doing the install yourself?

 

I have a friend that is handy so I think we can get it done.

 

Just to clarify, is this wood cut, split, and stacked already?

 

OK so your wood is in good shape if :stacke: and . is house 1 story or 2 do you have a full basement if your starting from scratch a base layout wood help.. but in general heat from bottom up keep heat closer to living room and kitchen or where you congregate and farther from sleeping areas..

Realize chimney can cost as much as stove and keep asking questions

 

X2 Sometimes more