Hi everyone! New member & long time wood burner. Looking to replace my early 80s alaska kodiak woodstove with a new bk princess. My concern is I'm heating from the basement and the new stoves seem much smaller. With my current setup I can keep my upstairs in the mid 70s in zero degree weather and not sure I'll be able to do that with a smaller stove. What do you guys think? The dealer says I'll be ok but I'm having doubts. I'll be heating 500 sq ft in basement & 1500 above, insulation is average & all new windows & doors
Welcome to FHC woodheat . Great question and my answer is simple, and it goes along with what your already thinking. You need a stove that will heat 2K sq ft. An EPA stove with a cat will get you that heat and get you some long burn times with it, as well with no smoke from your stack as you may be getting with your older stove. BK makes great stove with a catalyst. I can't vouch for the BK stove sizes, but I'd say a firebox of 3.0 cu ft would be the minimum for 2,ooo sq ft of living space.
I would also ponder on (from my research anyway) stove design/productivity has moved on so very much in 35 years anyway. What was once too small will now be be sufficient. Your dealer has (I guess?) more info about your house layout, but worth getting a second opinion to see if it backs him up?
That two doored Kodiak is a rather large stove, do you run it pretty hard to keep those temps at zero or lower longer burns ? Oh, and welcome to FHC
..Waiting for the BK owners to pop in. Welcome to the FHC woodheat. By most accounts, the princess is a great stove. swags has one in an 1800's house with not so great insulation and he likes his. There are others too. Hang tight, they'll be along.
Yes when it's around zero I have to run the stove top temp around 550 to keep the house warm. It's a nice stove and in good shape but I'm trying to cut my wood consumption.
Why not get the bigger KING? Oh, and PS, you should re-post or ask the MODS to move this to the STOVE forum... you'll get more eyeballs on it.
I was really gonna go for the king but that requires 8" flue and I'm already set up with 6". Also not enough room in chimney to upgrade.
I went through the same debate, I had a 6" flue and wanted as big a stove as I could get. I am very pleased with my BK princess. Does a very good job of heating and has the amazing ability to stretch out burn times. I got a great 19 hour burn with a full load of locust. That was a burn over 300 stove top the whole time. A cat stove is a learning curve and cats do need replaced, I jusy upgraded mine to stainless and it made a big difference. Like mentioned above my house is large. Its 2500 sq st and built in 1880 with very little insulation. Also the floors have big gaps into the basement because their is no subfloor, only 1 layer of hardwood. But the stove still does good, heats much better than my previous stove. You wont be disappointed, may need to have drier wood though. I should add my stove is on one end of my house and I have a corn stove in the kitchen on the opposite ends that I run to keep the kitchen warm when its below 30.
That stove will cut your usage for sure, and you can run them up pretty hot and still gett longer burn times than an older pre EPA stove. bogydave ran an older stove and switched to a BK King, made a big difference for him. Backwoods Savage also switched from an older stove to a Woodstock stove. Both are great stoves and would achieve what you want. But of course since I own a Blaze King I am going to say that is the stove for you!
OK, 550 stove top temp is well with in operating temps for new steel stoves, I would say the Princess would do the job since 6" flue is what you are limited to. Like all new epa stoves the harder you run them the more wood they use, where the BK's really shine is when the temps outside are a little warmer and that higher heat output is not so much in demand they will do the 24 hr burn times plus or minus a few hrs. This is where the wood consumption is most beneficial. From what I have read it is not uncommon to see 200-250 deg. flue temps on lower burns with BK's so a insulated flue greatly helps aiding with the draft along with well seasoned wood (a must) to get the long burns. In other words dry enough to smolder burn to feed the cat with out going out due to to much moisture content and not enough draft from cooler non insulated chimney flue. Swag's info is pretty much spot on from what I have researched. Some others should chine in also. I want the Sirocco 30 for my own basement Long CLEAN burns
Running a stove at 550 stovetop temperature is not hot. There is one that does say 600 maximum for their stove but even with that, if the stove is large enough, then that would be enough heat for many homes. Our stove is rated up to 700 and we typically run it 600+ when it gets cold outdoors. Most other times we run from 500-550 or maybe 500-600. That is not considered hot by most people's standards. Now what about wood useage? We used to have a steel stove and kept that thing hot and yes, we had it red hot a few times. Yet, when we got the smaller stove, the Woodstock Fireview, we were happily surprised to find that not only did we cut our wood useage but we found we could heat the whole house without closing off a few rooms. In addition, we used to be cold in winter and I hate being cold in our own home. Now, we typically keep the temperature around 80 degrees all winter. So I would not try to get a stove that you could run at less than 550 degrees to heat a home. I think you would be sadly disappointed. One can find out the btu required to heat the home and compare it to the btu output of a stove. Of course there are other factors and the big one is the fuel. What kind and how dry.
I always assumed running it at 550 was about max temp. I really don't need it hotter though because that keeps the house comfortable and any hotter it pretty much goes through wood in no time. I always season my wood for at least 2 yrs and it typically consists of 85% oak and remainder is locust & cherry.
That is good. Some run their stoves around 500 and say it is warm enough. Naturally it depends upon the overall size of the stove. Larger firebox will give much more heat.
Before I got my EPA stove, I thought I needed 500-600 all day in really bad temps. I'm finding that once the house gets to temp, I can hold it there with less, say.....400-500. Sometimes less than that. I'd be happy with a stove that could run at about 450 for more than 6 hours. I think. Your best hedge against the cold will be anything you can do to improve insulation and stop air leaks....in and out.
550 is just getting started on a steel stove. I run mine 650 - 700 when it gets cold...heating 3400 sq ft from the basement. A princess sounds like a good fit. An Englander NC 30 might be too....which should be going on sale at Home Depot soon.
Would there be a way to compare btu output of current stove to the bk? I can't seem to find any info on my current stove.
Measure the firebox. Your old stove is probably around 65% efficient and a BK princess is about 82%. Multiply the firebox size by efficiency for each and that should give you a decent gauge to measure the two against each other....not perfect. ..but decent.
Just for fun I will say I miss the punch my old Nashua had, I wish I would have bought a new stove with the same size firebox as the old one.
