Old Stoves and Small Cabins: "quick to heat" vs burn-time...

Planned to upgrade an OLD potbelly to a Woodstock Soapstone "Keystone", but it seems that the price of the steady heat and long burn times (and efficiency) is being comparatively slow to heat. I get to a small, <600 sq ft tight and well-insulated cabin (high ceiling, tho) after work and can get it from 15 degrees to 60 degrees in an hour, then slow it down for the rest of the stay. That's great when you're arriving late. However, even burning gnarly old hedge at night it needs to be refilled about every three hours to still have good coals in the morning. The intended upgrade was to have a visible fire and a better cooking surface and burn through the night. Hearing a lot of general comments about soapstone stoves taking a long time to initially heat up, so it sounds like I may just have to live with the old potbelly, which is inefficient but very flexible and does what it is told. Fortunately, good firewood is plentiful and handy. And it's not hard to get back to sleep in the winter! Would appreciate any experience with Woodstock Soapstone "Keystone"/"Palladian "or "Fireview" in small, tight cabins only used for a few days at a time.

 

Welcome Old Cabin Guy! While I dont have enough experience to answer your question I'm sure someone will be along very soon to do so. You're gonna like it here

 

Welcome Old Cabin Guy.. No personal knowledge of small ones. But many here do.. Nice to meet ya.

 

Hey Old Cabin Guy, welcome aboard.

 

Sounds like the Navajo might be a real good option. I thought they were available already?
I heat a 750 sq ft house that is well sealed but poorly insulated with a Blaze King Sirocco 20. Great small stove that can generate big heat when needed or low and mild output when desired. 12-20 hr burn times are really nice also. Just another option to research.

 

I can’t figure out if this is a place that you return to daily after work or if it is a getaway that you only go to once in a while. If you are there daily and wood supply isn’t a factor, a more efficient longer burning stove will allow you to load it before going to work and still have coals (and heat) when you return. So you are not cooling off all the way down to 15 degrees. If it is a place that you only go to on occasion, you could supplement the heat with electric or propane just to accelerate the warmup and when the wood stove catches up, shut off the supplemental heat source. Either of these options would allow for a newer more efficient stove.

Welcome to the forums. Eager to hear what you decide to do.

 

Just to add to the above, if you’re a purist, and only want to heat with wood, consider the following.

600 soft * 10 feet in height = 6000 cuft. It is 0.24 BTU to warm 1 pound of air one degree F and there is 0.08 pounds of air per cuft of air.

Quick calculation is you would need 6000 * .24 * .08 * 45 degrees = 5184 BTU’s to get the cabin air from 15 degrees to 60 degrees.

Propane is about 92000 BTUs per gallon and electricity is about 3400 BTU per Kw. So you’re talking maybe $0.25 to $0.40 to warm the air in the room up to 60 degrees fairly quickly. The issue you will have is that the contents of the room also will need to warm up to temp. Much like the soapstone, they will have a sort of heat inertia due to specific heat and mass.

Long story short, if it was me, I would probably get the stove that I want to run and use supplemental heat to get up temp for the times I need the heat right away. I think the ability to do efficient long burns would outweigh the minor inconvenience if possible increased time to get the stove up to temp.

 

stuckinthemuck , is renowned for logic and thought processes. So read his post twice!!

What I don't understand is how you guys use cabins.. Family has camp. 2 hours away. Just a slab on grade 2 car garage, with bunk beds and woodstove.

When getting to camp in winter, step one is LITE stove!
2. Unload clothes and groceries
3. Look around to see what's changed

This takes at least 45 min to hour. You keep feeding stove. By time your inside its already 50 degrees over OAT.

 

Welcome to the club, Old Cabin Guy !
Great to have you!

I ran a Fireview in my poorly insulated cape cod style house for three years. Let me say, it is a great stove. I only heated the first floor and about 1/4 of the basement where the stove is. Generally speaking, I easily heated about 1000 sq.ft. to 67-69* when it was down into the high teens or twenties. (Heating from the basement can be a little difficult.)
In your one story well-insulated cabin, you will no doubt be able to heat up things quickly and if you're getting home late, that fire should last you into the next day. I'm thinking you could easily overheat that cabin with the Fireview.
The extra 20 or so minutes it takes for the heat to start soaking through that soapstone should certainly not be a deal breaker. And the extended heat output at the end of the burn cycle should really work great for your well-insulated building.

I run an Ideal Steel now (last 2 years), and it may be a little faster at pumping out the heat, but I really did like the soapstone better. Had my Fireview been on the main level, I certainly would still be using it.

I do like the steel stove. It's not as pretty as the soapstone, but it is a heating machine. I get more heat and much longer burn times while using the same amount of firewood, even though the firebox is almost twice the cu.ft.

An Absolute Steel should be more than enough stove for that cabin also. I don't think there is a bad choice in the stoves you listed.

In my opinion, I think in your cabin, the more-even and longer-lasting heat from the soapstone would win over the faster heat of the steel.

 

Thanks for the great info! (Hope this is the way to "reply" - if not, apologies!). Cabin is R19 in the walls, R30 in the ceiling, R38 under the floor. Always keep a backroom window cracked to bring cool air across the bunk on the way to the stove - the built-in outside air on the Absolute Steel would have been great if I'd designed for it! Mike at Woodstock also recommended I consider the Absolute Steel - I rejected it prematurely for esthetics ( a quick glance during a phone call) but have now come back to taking a hard look at it in its "plainer" configurations. Does the soapstone firebox liner provide some of the "softer heat" you and others have mentioned?? Re heat output, the mfr rates Keystone for 800-1300 sq. ft., the Fireview for 900 - 1600, and the Absolute Steel for "up to 1800 sq. ft." Since they don't quote a lower limit, that seems to support your point that the Keystone or Fireview wouldn't throttle down to a small cabin as well as the Absolute Steel - if I've misinterpreted this, please let me know! The literature I can get my hands on doesn't mention cooking on top of it. No gourmet chef here - just like hot coffee and soup/stew/simple fare. A few of the Woodstock stoves clearly mention cook-tops; so when nothing is said I have to wonder. Bottom line of all this, tho, is that the Absolute Steel becomes a contender and you feel the Keystone may just be a bit much - great intel and appreciate you taking the time to help! I would probably look hard the "high style" just because my stove corner was sized for a 48" potbelly back 1o years ago.

 

Thank you! Good data (and a good manual) up on the Internet. Also believe there is one of these in a friend's house that I can go to school on. His is "childproof" to the point that you can't cook on it, tho.

 

Sorry about the vagueness. Cabin is in 100 acres of woods surrounded by the family farm (1841!!) - only a few miles from the office in a straight line, and the office is across the street from our tired old home... but still takes at least 30 minutes to get there. So it can be dark by the time you get to the cabin after work, whether it be to hunt the next day or just to goof off, and having the cabin warm up in about an hour is great. We rarely use the cabin itself more than 2-3 days at a time - as you say, "once in a while" - but it is also just a nice "place in the woods" to relax with a good book and watch the critters. The best deer stand is about 150 yards away. We are off the grid and rely on the quiet 2KW Honda unless we're using large tools out there - would be nice to have a stove with a window after the generator shuts down! You're certainly right about the propane backup - but we've kept things pretty simple (austere?) s0 far. Based on what I'm hearing now, my concerns about slow warm-up times may be more than compensated for by heat quality and burn times. Thanks for the info - and NICE C-130! My guess would be the E model... but I'm getting old. Thanks for the thoughts!

 

Yep, I'm coming around to the same view. However, I was working out there this afternoon and noticed the stacks and stacks of past-its-prime firewood that doesn't bother a potbelly a bit - will have to stick with the good stuff if I upgrade!

 

Read post twice - has to have been a Loadmaster! Yes, but the operative word is "family." Kids are usually far away, and better half is a hard-core city person. So "moving in" just means a bringing a bag with food/refreshments/book; starting the stove, starting the generator, bringing some wood inside for the night, and kicking back. A LITTLE more complicated during deer season, but not much. All I have to do when leaving is top off the generator and scoot.

 

Thanks for the thoughts. Fireview was an early candidate except for (probably) being too much heat - but I'm showing my ignorance here in not having used a stove even close to being modern. There is an emerging consensus for the Absolute Steel in this application. I appreciate you folks chipping in - this is most definitely my "last" stove, or I wouldn't be in this "paralysis by analysis" mode. We never really "designed" the cabin - just made it, and the potbelly was readily available. But... if we'd taken the time to design it properly, it would never have gotten built. So we're upgrading a bit belatedly. Thanks to all!!!!

 

I'd be looking seriously at that Navajo.

 

You are in a little bit of a unique situation. I have to think that if quick heat and overnight burns are the priority (it would be for me) then the Absolute Steel is perfect. You can run that HARD, and then throttle down. Plus it seriously has the best fire show ever. And that is coming from someone with an IS.