First thing........ Unbelievable! My house has never been so warm. Last year, after a stove maintenance mishap, I needed a new stove...............in January. Well after getting some great ideas from a few of the old venerables on here, I settled on the Drolet Escape 2100. On the right. The biggest stove of the series. Wow! This stove does exactly what it should right out out the box. The only "modification" I have done is removed the side shields. It's 90F in my basement, as of this writing, 75 on the main floor, and 65 in my boys' rooms (with a modification to the furnace return plenum or absence of a return. The only drawback is that you cant switch quickly to propane as the warm air going into the return duct will overheat the furnace causing it to shut down on safeties.) Every room is warm. It makes my work mean more to me now. No longer am I getting so little in heat output from all the wood I burn. No longer is the propane furnace the primary and wood stove supplemental. Now it's the other way around. The furnace just circulates air throughout the house. Last year we burned about 3 chords of wood and about 600-700 gallons of propane. So far, this winter I think we are definitely on track to burn a bit more wood, but we've only burned about 50 gallons of propane and its almost December. Most of that was in early fall when I didnt want to start a fire but it was just a bit chilly in the house. Hopefully I can remember to post on here again what we actually used for heat when winter and early spring are done. I don't want it, but I do want to see what happens when it's -20 or lower.
The stove is going to pay for itself this year at that rate. I bet the rest of your family is loving the warmth too! I had a little laugh today. The propane truck backed all the way down our drive to the tank, checked the tank and left without filling it. No better feeling!
