TN19/TN20 is a north/south stove. Or a cigar burner if you will. In the morning you'll find the majority of the hot coals towards the back. I rake them hotties forwards towards the air wash to get a new fire going near the door. The throat of the stove or "doorway" is 9x12 The firebox box itself is 15 to 16 inches wide and about 12 inches height by 18 inches deep. (pretty close to 1.9 cu ft) but there is an extra 2 inches or so of space from the firebox area to the window in the door so you can get a 20 inch log in as long as it isn't on the firebox floor. This does get awful close to the glass and likely not recommended. I've done it rather than go cut 2 inches off a split and there will be a witness mark on the glass from burning so close. Again, probably not recommended. I've never let one actually touch. One thing I forgot to mention is the door latch. It's rather easy to close and latch the door and be latched open rather than shut. It looks closed. Never had a runaway fire, just once or twice came back in three hours to reload/check on it and "someone stole the fire !!", or came back an hour later and 700º ?? Oops. In that regard it's a rather boring, bland stove. Which is just what we wanted. And being a cigar burner you don't need gloves to put splits in. You can't get lazy and go too long letting the ashes pile up. That space gets valuable in Jan/Feb.
Hi billb3, Thanks. Sounds pretty much like the stove we wanted. The guy we are buying it from said the box was only 8.5" clearance from top of brick to the tubes above. I wonder if yours is higher or they don't know how to read a tape measure.
You'll need a fire poker or something to pull the larger coals forward with. And a shovel of some sort to get the bulk of ash maybe once a month in the dead of Winter if you're pushing it. I don't like choking mine down cuz I did that the first year and got quite a bit of creosote in a brand new chimney. I shoot for a min of 300ºF right at the exit of the stove pipe and we only get about two cups of fine powdery soot out of 20 feet of chimney. Gloves ? No. There's never really any reason to get anything but your fingertips much past the door. You don't get a "fireplace" view of a fire Like you do with some E/W stoves. Oh well.
Thanks billb3, you are invaluable. Frequent cleaning shouldn't be a problem here. It seldom stays real cold for very long. I put up some more big cedar chunks today. I'm really curious how they are going to burn. The damper we got for the pipe has such big holes in it that i wonder if it will help at all., our chimney will be straight up. My husband suggested welders putty.
