Looking for a stove

Is that 30F above zero or 30 below? Northern Minnesota is COLD.

 

IMHO Secondary burn EPA stoves are simple and most do well at keeping glass clean. Over the years I've come to the conclusion that bigger is better than too small and jamming full of wood. Bigger fire box and big well seasoned splits work well for longer burns and flue temps will stay within safe range. It will sure reduce the amount of LP you require in a big way.

 

Quite a few on here use nothing but a woodstove to keep our homes warm. In climates similar to yours.
It only went down to about 30 last night, but I woke up after a 9 hour stove cycle, and the house was still 70.
Less than a full stove, but not by much.

 

I was in your shoes almost exactly a year ago. Now is a great time to get into putting up fast-drying cord wood and working out what stove, location and chimney, etc. you want. With fossil fuel pricing so low, you won't feel like you have to heat only with wood, so for the first year, you can just think of it as a supplement to your L.P., while you start stockpiling and drying wood. From the sound of it, size and layout of house and climate, I would definitely consider a ~ 3 cu. ft. firebox.

 

Lets say I have a 3 cu ft. PE stove and a 3cu.ft. Blazeking stove. Its 15 degrees outside you put the same amount of wood in each stove will there be a difference in burntime? From reading here it sounds like if it was 45 outside the blazeking would out perform the PE stove. Just wondering when its colder outside if there would be a difference?

 

When you are running the stove with a bit of air there will be less difference but as a rule, cat stoves will burn a bit longer on lower settings, and put out more even heat. Cats need a bit more maintenance, like dusting the face of the combustor. Combustor performance will slowly decrease over a period of years. Cats like to run low...how low you can run will depend how good the air-sealing and insulation is in your place, how well it retains heat. A jacketed stove like mike bayerl has, with more mass, will be more convective (heat and move air) and will even the output over the burn. Oh, yeah, and start stacking wood like crazy, and don't split real big. You've got a short drying season up there...

 

Part of the hickup in the analaogy is that with the extended BK burn times the stove should NEVER get cold. I cant speak to the PE since i dont have any experience with it but i heat my whole house and my garage in milder weather with the BK. BTW, when you open them up the CAT stoves do PUMP out heat, it just reduces the burn times. I only find myself running it hard a few days a year, with the Vortex being the exception....

 

To be honest we seldom light fires when its 45 degrees outside. We were able to burn our smaller EPA stove with small fires once or twice a day but with our cat stove/hybrid it takes a decent fire to get the cat to working temps and then we just start to melt and have to open windows to keep the house comfortable - so we just let the furnace cycle a bit during those type of days. Burn times are pretty good with all of the stoves sold today. An EPA stove with a large firebox can hold a fire overnight so don't feel defeated if you cannot run for 12 hours as it is no big deal to open the door and add a split when you get up in the morning and now and again later in the day. Stoves are like everything else - there are trade offs. New clean burning stoves that hold and throw off heat are amazing - all of them. It boils down to the design/look you like. Clean glass, adequate burn times, flames to watch when relaxing are all possible. Quality costs a bit more but the price will soon be forgotten if it does the job and has a bullet proof warranty if needed.

 

The difference will be a more peaked burn cycle in the PE vs. A very steady consistent output of the BK.

A tube burner will have a very hot part of the burn and then taper off. The bk has a thermostat which should keep the temperature fairly consistent. Both should give you the same amount of heat just with different dynamics.

 

Agree. There is no whitchcraft or free lunches involved in burning wood. Cat stoves burn even and extend burn times by maybe 30-40% in our experience. The trade off is less flame shows and dirtier glass on average. A larger EPA will allow for pretty even and consistent burning as it does not have to filled right up with wood and will burn fairly slowly with the draft air supply cut right down. So maybe it can be said that not all 'tube burners' as you refer to are super hot in the main part of the burn cycle but no question cat stoves can be held below open flame burns which extends burn times. It's kind of like 'which truck is best Q? ' and all the Ford-Chevy-GM-Ram fanboys come out of the woodwork until your head spins and begins to ache. Lot's of good stoves available today. Decide what is most important to you. I won't tell you what kind of truck I drive as do not want to start another war. lol

 

Some of us live in a perpetual polar vortex. Heat Rules!

 

On a blazeking stove if the glass is dirty and you have a hot fire in the stove will that clean up the glass some? For the blazeking owners out there how often do you clean the glass and the cat that is in the stove?

 

calling bobdog2o02

 

I think the CAT maintenance really depends on the wood your burning and how much draft you need. I burn mostly white and red oak on low, that said i mainly just take the cover off to look maybe once a month, i only see a very little amount of fly ash on the cat after burning pine and cottonwood..... But while on the topic of maintenance, i take my stove pipe off between my chimney and the stove after every sweeping, there is always a bunch of junk laying against the cat after sweeping that cant be gotten any other way. I also make a point of two sweeps per year. The first of the season is right around new years when i have time, and again after we are done burning for the year. The super low chimney temps on the BK leads to a good bit of build up at the top of the stack. I had to take the screen off of my cap it was alost a monthly affair this year of going up and knocking the creosote off of the screen.

As far as the glass a good hot fire does clean the class, most of it. There are still spots in the corners and along the sides that stay a little built up but its not a huge deal. I use a combo of a razor scraper and 0000 steel wool to take it off. I do this maybe once a month? More in the beginning and ending(shoulder) of the burning seasons. Here is a pic of my glass, the hazy areas are where it gets dirty. I've been burning down coals for about the last 8 hours though so the high heat right there has taken care of most of it.