Building a house, need stove recs

One other thing.Do you have a basement?If so how will you keep the pipes from freezing ?Since I have a basement I have a stove in the basement and on the first floor.

 

There is plenty of times when having something with a thermostat is the difference between breaking pipes and being able to get away from the house for more than a day or two.

Let's be honest... unless you are going to be in the house at very regular intervals you are going to want a second heat source. It's worth a few extra dollars to have that piece of mind. Also makes adding AC a lot easier to say nothing about the resale potential.

 

I think an effective, automatic, thermostatic, conventional heating system is even more important than a wood system. Even if you never use it.

It doesn’t need to be elaborate or expensive. Wall mounted electric heaters, baseboard heaters are cheap to install and effective with zero maintenance and zero electric use if you don’t use them.

People get sick, go on vacation, run out of fuel, have wood stove/chimney failures, local burning bans, or even get put in jail! You want your family and home safe until you can get back on your feet.

 

True, very true.
I put in a new wood furnace last year, and for various reasons ran out of time to get the fossil fuel furnace hooked up too (and can't do it while running the wood furnace) So my only choice was to run things as is last winter, and just hope everything worked out OK...and it was fine until I got the flu mid winter...and it was the "can barely get out of bed" type too! But I had to drag my butt downstairs and get 40-50# of wood loaded into the furnace twice a day even though it felt like it was gonna kill me to do so...fortunately I did have a rack of wood in the garage and did not have to go outside to get wood!
Then and there I made a vow that the first order of business this summer was to get that oil burner hooked up...and with that said, I need to go down and get to work...I'm about halfway through the project now. I was planning on working on it all day today, but I got called into work last night and ended up there all night...so I just drug my butt outta bed a little while ago...need to go get to work now...see ya!

 

This may seem way off-topic but it is actually on topic. You mention that you are having a house built...you can massively cut down your utility bills and wood usage by having 3 inches of closed-cell spray foam shot in the attic instead of silly fiberglass batts. It will cost about $1.50 per board-foot (12"x 12" x1" deep) but it will quickly pay for itself. As for a stove, well, the Ideal Steel has proven to be the best wood burner I have had. Prior stoves included a few iterations of EPA tube stoves.

 

To expand on what golf66 said.. If I were building a custom house with 2 by 6 walls.. I would spray foam the walls with 2in and then put 4 inches of insulation over that it's a great Air Sealer.. and more cost-effective..

 

Agreed. Spend a few extra bucks on the insulation