Hi! New member here. We heat a 1400 sqft house in central New Hampshire with a Quadrafire 4300 Steptop. We purchased it used 2 years ago. This is the model with no automatic controls. The stove is in perfect condition. The 2 control levers are properly adjusted. Chimney is clean as a whistle. House if fairly well insulated, but not tight.
I have heated with wood my whole life. I have never encountered a stove that puts less heat into the room per load of wood. We are burning hard maple, hickory, ash and red oak. Very well seasoned. The woodstove burns like a champ. We consistently run it around 700 degrees. At full throttle, I can lay my hand on the side of the stove and keep it there indefinitely. Heat radiates through the glass and the top, but if you think of the stove as a cube, only 2 out of 6 sides radiate heat (33%). I am amazed at the inability of this stove to radiate. My whole life I have had "lesser" stoves that you couldn't come within 5 feet of when they were ripping along. I have a double 55-gallon drum stove in my shop that puts the 4300 to shame with scrap wood. I feel I am burning three times as much wood to be not quite as comfortable as I have been in the past. What gives? Please...any advice is much appreciated. Thanks!
I have heated with wood my whole life. I have never encountered a stove that puts less heat into the room per load of wood. We are burning hard maple, hickory, ash and red oak. Very well seasoned. The woodstove burns like a champ. We consistently run it around 700 degrees. At full throttle, I can lay my hand on the side of the stove and keep it there indefinitely. Heat radiates through the glass and the top, but if you think of the stove as a cube, only 2 out of 6 sides radiate heat (33%). I am amazed at the inability of this stove to radiate. My whole life I have had "lesser" stoves that you couldn't come within 5 feet of when they were ripping along. I have a double 55-gallon drum stove in my shop that puts the 4300 to shame with scrap wood. I feel I am burning three times as much wood to be not quite as comfortable as I have been in the past. What gives? Please...any advice is much appreciated. Thanks!