wood stove for ft. awesome

New member, been lurking a long time. I currently have a zero clearance fireplace that doesn't heat anything, I will be removing fireplace and fake stone surround. House is bi-level total 2000sq. ft, evenly divided. Room stove will be in is 225 sq ft living room with kitchen adjacent. House is heated with natural gas. I have been looking at blaze king princess,sirocco,chinook and ashford, because of the ability to turn down the stove so I don't over heat the room. Dealer suggested the 20 sirocco because of the small sq ft and he thought it was better that I didn't run a big stove at 25% that I would be better running a smaller stove hotter. Couldn't I just put less wood in the princess? any experience with a similar situation would be helpful. Thanks

 

Your dealer probably doesn't realize how cat stoves work best at lowest outputs and also he probably doesn't realize that the 20 series box has a higher output at low than the 30 series box on low.

The only reason to buy a 20 series BK is because you absolutely can not give up the extra 2" of physical space that the 30 series occupies. For that 2" you will be giving up a huge amount of burn time and be forced to futz around with a tiny firebox.

Bilevel with 2000 SF is almost too big for the princess. Your dealer again fails to understand that stoves are not sized for the room they are in but for the area. I heat my whole 1700 SF house with a princess in a warmer climate and have never felt "overstoved".

 

Truth.

 

Thanks for the info,he had a 20 sirocco and princess side by side , I really didn't want the 20 due to how small it was and didn't have the depth the princess had. upstairs is 1000sq ft and so is downstairs, stove will be on 2nd floor so not sure how much of the heat will be making it downstairs, maybe with my furnace blower on might circulate some of the heat down?

 

Big difference between winter in NE Ohio (OP) and Puget Sound (You)..........................however; I agree with you.....................go bigger on the stove!!!

 

welcome to the forum, andrew. Same as MW said - go bigger, you'll be glad you did.

 

Huh? How does that work?

 

Its worth a try using your furnace to recirculate the air. It all depends on how your system was built. We retrofitted AC into our house it proved useless at recirculating wood stove heat. My return is upstairs, stove down. There are only 2 rooms beyond the return so it is pretty far from the heat to begin with. As such it isn't in the right place to get hot air to circulate nor is it able to return cold air to the room with the stove in it without making all the other rooms colder, even with the dampers closed in most of the other rooms. If you can feed the return with hot air you might have better luck.

 

It just does. Bk was able to throttle the 30 box way lower and keep the cat working. The 20 was a step in the wrong direction imo.

 

I realize that and it is part of my point.

 

You rarely, RARELY, hear someone complain that they bought a stove too large for their home. But, you will find many, many, MANY, examples of people complaining that their stove is too smaller for their home and can not keep up.

 

Go big or go home

 

Or better yet, go home to big. Heheh.

 

Looks like the princess will prob get the call, I have two cold air returns 5ft from fireplace and 10ft away, I might actually be able to efficiently circulate heat downstairs.
Dealer had a princess burning he let me adjust the air, opened the stove throttle for a while , then shut back down and stove put on a pretty impressive secondary light show, it was nice to feel the way the heat radiates from the top and front, and almost cool to the touch on sides, back along with the low stove pipe temp.

 

The big plus with the princess is that deep firebox to hold tons of ash. It's an older model that emits a bit more particulate and it is pretty ugly but I've been very happy with my princess.

 

Technically speaking, you're not supposed to have a cold air return within 10' of a solid fuel burning appliance. Might be an issue of you need to have it inspected.

You may or may not have success using the furnace to circulate heat. If the ductwork is inside the insulated envelope of the home, at least you won't be losing heat, but at best you may have 75° air coming out of the registers. Likely cooler. That's much cooler than your furnace blows. You may just feel a draft.

But you won't know if you don't try.

 

All duct work is inside finished basement , I guess in 1971 cold air return code may not of been up to par, or hacks.

 

I actually think the pedestal princess is better looking than the sirocco and ashford which the dealer had both in shop.,, he had a chinook 30 said he has never been able to sell any of the chinook , even though I thought it was sharp looking.