Stove differences

Hello everyone, no on to the forum here. I'm currently in the market for a wood stove, and was wondering which one to get. Any advice would be appreciated! I'm looking to heat a 2 story 1500 foot house from the basement with a whole house fan on a thermostat to pull heat upstairs

 

As Eric said a good EPA /newer stove will do you much better as long as you have well seasoned wood. Many of us on here have had the older stoves and some still do. The newer stoves generally use less wood and give more heat. Not bashing the older stoves, I liked mine but like my newer cat stove even better.

 

Welcome Frank Duschek! You've come to the right place! You will get all kinds of solid advice here. Your situation sounds similar to mine and I know your climate is very similar. I have always used an Alaska Kodiak in my basement. It did the job but I was not doing things the proper way. Looking back I'm lucky I didn't burn the house down to be honest.
This year I bought a used Osburn 2200. I'm looking forward to seeing how it does as I've never used an EPA wood stove before. As others have said properly seasoned wood is the most important factor.

On a side note, it's great to see another PA member here. We're getting some pretty good representation here for our commonwealth. Welcome to the club!

 

It looks like everything on your list is pre-EPA.
I would definitely recommend stepping up at least a few years and getting an EPA rated stove.
You will use much less wood with an EPA stove.

 

Welcome aboard Frank Duschek


I can't comment on your stove choices as I'm unfamiliar with them.

I can agree with the others that the newer stoves give more heat while using less wood.

There are plenty of threads addressing airflow as well.

 

I am thinking about heating my very similar 2 story house (1100 square foot) house with a stove in the basement, but it has been suggested that it seldom works. This was said by a person in New York, but New York is not far from PA. In Maine, I am leery as well, but do have a super insulated basement...perhaps enough heat would go upstairs to the first floor and second floor???????

I have no recommendations on the stoves you list as I have my own stoves already.

Because your situation is almost identical to mine, I presented the thoughts presented to me on heating a home via basement alone. I might put in my big stove in the basement for really cold times, and use a small stove on the first floor as my primary stove.

 

My stove is in the basement/dungeon.
I had to section off and insulate the stove room which is also where the stairs are.
The stove room is about 16x18 now and is easy to heat up to 85+ degrees. I leave the door open at the top of the steps and have a couple fans strategically placed and my old air returns are open into the stove room giving me a good return of cold air.

My setup works pretty good till the wind blows and it's in the teens or less. I still have my older Fireview and i'm going to install it in the living room/main level , hopefully by the end of the year.
This little cape cod is hard to heat as the insulation is terrible...

 

2 stories from the basement - better off looking at a furnace type unit for better distribution. Having grown up with gravity type heating speaking from experience, 2nd floor never gets that warm. Heavy quilts and electric blankets are your friends.

 

Install your stove on the main level in the center of your house, placement is the key and put in a good chimney. You will struggle to heat the upstairs if you install in the basement.

 

I live in New Hampshire and heat from the basement with a Warner w-124. Similar to a fisher. The house is similar size to yours. The seccond level is generally cooler but I like that for sleeping the bedrooms are up there.

The biggest issue for me is that it takes a while to get heat up to the first floor, you can’t just light the stove after work and expect to get heat. The other is in the dead of winter the snow will be melted 8-12 inches from the cement lots of lost BTU’s.

 

Also as far as stove types go, if you go for a non-epa stove which is what I prefer, look at cabinet style stoves. The cabinet causes some serious convection with the heat blowing out the top even without a blower. The other pros to a stove like this is the ash pan is under the grate and you don't have to disturb the fire to empty the ashes, you can just run non-stop all winter if you want. The cabinet gets hot but not super hot since there is a 3" air gap around the firebox, so kids can't get burned easily. Another cool thing about these stoves is the bimetallic thermostat control that opens and closes the air damper. I can stuff my stove full of firewood at 6:30am and it's still burning and ready to reload at 6pm when I get home. They do use more firewood but they are also less finicky about moisture content or how you stack your wood inside the firebox. Cons are no flame is visible and the consumption is higher. I bought mine for $100, cleaned it out and replaced the firebricks for about $20 from Tractor Supply and have save thousands off my electric bill in the last 7 years of use.

 

Welcome Frank Duschek! What is your basement now, if concrete you will not find a wood stove that will heat it! Concrete has an R value of 1.
How are you getting the Heat from the basement to the next stories? A single stairwell, generally will not work, without fans
I have a multi-level home, with a raised ranch style double-wide stairway. I would assume my climate is colder than yours, being 300 some odd miles north of you. I heat 95% of my 2500 square foot home with a Woodstock ideal Steel.

 

12 hour burn time from a cabinet stove? What are you burning?

Edit I see now you are in NC

 

....not to be the word police.... it's "Fisher".

 

I have a small and well insulated place, so not much heating need. I went with a non-EPA stove, a Fisher Baby Bear. For me it has worked out better than I had anticipated. I got it used for a very good price and just had to do a light painting to make it more beautiful.

I am not a fan of cat stoves, but there are a lot of good non-cat EPA stoves that do a very good job. Like anything, some people love the cat stoves and other's hate them.

In my situation I wanted 'old school', reliable, built like a tank, no gaskets, two level cooking, and I want the stove to out live me...thus I got the Fisher. Another big factor for me is that it is obviously used, I found a guy that was reasonable and I got it for a very fair price $200...I could not justify spending over 1K (easily) on a new stove for my limited heat need. If I had paid up for a modern stove, I would not realize a break even for a lot of years given my situation/set up.

I got what I wanted, I got what I needed, I got it for a price I love, it does what I want it to and it will out live me.

If I was younger and had a bigger and less insulated place I would go with a modern non-cat stove.

 

I like my epa non-cat stove. I didn't want to deal with a failure point or need to buy something every few years to use my stove.

 

....hmmm....blaming auto correct....isn't that excuse getting old...old like a "Fitcher Stove",