Hearthstone Heritage vs. WS Progress Hybrid.

I used a Heritage for 5 years before moving to the PH right when it first came out (3 years ago now). There is no comparison in ease of use or efficiency of heat delivered- it's PH hands down. We burn the same amount of wood (4 cord) in a 1700 square foot, old house in northern VT, and was shocked at how much better the PH heated the place on the same wood. The key is probably in the flue gas temps: the Heritage would sit at 650-800F for the first several hours of the burn, where the PH hardly ever exceeds 450F, and usually rolls along at 400F regardless of conditions.

The Heritage is nice for a pleasant living room fire, but it's not a good whole house heater.

 

The heritage has firebox that is in between the Fireview and the Keystone. It is NOT 2.3 cu ft. I ran a Heritage and an Encore at the same time and the Encore could fit a lot more wood. The firebox on the Heritage is clearly smaller than what it claims to be.

The Progress has nearly one cubic feet of additional space for its firebox.

 

Thanks a bunch for all the "real world" feedback. Makes life interesting for me. Thankfully, I've got 6+ mo. to decide.

 

The Heritage is a fine stove as long as it is used how it was intended.

 

The ph isn't big. It's a sub 3c.f. stove and reportedly controllable enough to make low output. I wouldn't worry about it being too much.

 

A post from sherwood on another thread, "I'm sure I can easily do this (24 hr burn) in the PH. I easily get 16 or more hours, with the firebox about 2/3 full"


That's low and slow if need be.

 

I think it's interesting how differently the PH performs in different setups. I consider myself lucky if I have enough coals left after 10 hours to restart the stove. I know there are a few different versions of the PH out there now. I don't think I've ever had my PH over 525 stovetop, and I've tried many times. My former Eng. NC13 used to regularly get to 800 if I wasn;t careful, a few times reading over 1000 stovetop with a slight pink glow. This was one reason we decided to buy the PH, for more control.

As far as firebox size, that's debatable too. I put the same amount of wood in my PH as I did on my Englander NC13 which had a 1.8 firebox. I used to cut all my wood with miter box to fill that NC13 tight. The PH is very hard to load full, so a 2/3'rds load is a full load in my PH.

Also I need alot of heat in my 250 year old uninsulated house, so when the temp. starts getting below 15-20* I'd say my "burns" are closer to 5 hours. Simmering the stove in those conditions just doesn't produce enough heat. So I guess burn times are relative to your situation. For comparison I am able to get 24 hour "burns" out of my ash bucket....

 

The way the industry is going, we will see a lot more efficient stoves soon. The Epa is cracking down. That being said, those more efficient stoves will heat houses so much better than these old out dated "tube" stoves. Stainless foil cat and hybrid stoves are what the future holds. You might want to invest in this technology now. You might be kicking yourself a few years from now when you see all these high efficient stoves roll out on the market. WS and BK are already there.

 

BK 20 lame duck stove? Why do you think that?

 

The epa cracking down doesn't mean more efficient stoves. They could care less about efficiency, cleaner burning yes. This will be an exciting time for us stove geeks but for the general user not so much. They've already proven their inability to maintain and burn a cat stove. I don't think it will be any different this time around.

 

The 20 has a higher minimum output than the 30 and since it is smaller has 10 hours less rated burntime than the 30. Almost the same footprint and hearth size. What is your reward for way less burn time and way smaller firebox? Why yes, a lower max output. The only time a 20 makes any sense at all is if you need the inch or two smaller footprint.

I get small stoves. Smaller houses need less heat. Trouble is, bk couldn't get this model to run as slow as the 30. They should have started over.

The 20 will certainly perform well. It is surely a high quality appliance. If deciding between the 20 and the 30, it is easy to toss the 20 into the wrong choice column.

 

Often, efficiency and low emissions happen at the same time like fuel injection instead of carburetors. Sometimes, as with diesel engines in the last decade, emissions reduction kills efficiency.