What size insert? Pics and floorplan inside:

[av8roc]

Hi guys, this is a follow up from my thread yesterday.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/45360/

I am trying to convince my wife that our living room is not too small for an insert, she is concerned it will be too hot to enjoy the room. The general consensus was a floorplan would help so I tried to put one together. Let me know if there is anything I can add to it that would be of use. The house overall is 1200' sq not including a partially finished basement. The living room as you can see is rather small but open to LR and kitchen.

Some inserts we are considering, recommendations are welcome however I am limited to Long Island dealers:

VC montpelier
Jotul 450
Jotul 350
PE Vista
PE Super

 

[szmaine]

Boy, you are good!
Link to the old thread, great floor plan graphic (how'd you do it?), and pictures too (nice house).
I'm a newbie and can't really help with the sizing but...I'm just impressed!

 

[av8roc]

Boy, you are good!
Link to the old thread, great floor plan graphic (how'd you do it?), and pictures too (nice house).
I'm a newbie and can't really help with the sizing but...I'm just impressed!

Wow thanks! I used www.floorplanner.com which is free and pretty self explanatory. The only tricky part was they don't let you save the file to your PC so I took a screen capture and saved/cropped it in MS paint.

 

[Rudyjr]

I assume from the staircase that you have a second floor ? I personallly think that if that is the case that you would be better off with the 450 over the 350. I think that the 450 will give you longer burn times and a good deal of the heat is going to go upstairs anyway. Our 450 is in our rec room (basement) with an open staircase and with the blower going on low we have a fair amoun t of heat upstairs. The 350 in my opinion when I was looking had a smaller firebox than I wanted to live with. The 450 handles 18-20 inch splits real well and I can easily get overnight burns. The other stoves I know nothing about. Just my 2 cents, Jim

 

[begreen]

Excellent pictures and floorplan. Thanks!

I'm leaning towards the smaller insert like the C350, PE Vista or Hampton HI200. This is a compact space to heat. If longer burntimes are desired, I would consider a cat stove. It can run at a lower heat level for a longer period of time. A freestanding Woodstock stove might look nice on that hearth.

 

[fredarm]

Excellent pictures and floorplan. Thanks!

I'm leaning towards the smaller insert like the C350, PE Vista or Hampton HI200. This is a compact space to heat. If longer burntimes are desired, I would consider a cat stove. It can run at a lower heat level for a longer period of time. A freestanding Woodstock stove might look nice on that hearth.

I agree. We have our Vista in a similar size area and when it's really going, unless it's very cold out, even that little stove can make the sitting area in the living room almost too warm. I think anything bigger is going to cook you out of that room.

 

[szmaine]

Just wondering - can his TV stay there with a wood heater?

 

[Dix]

What are you using that front bedroom for now?

 

[av8roc]

What are you using that front bedroom for now?

That's actually the master. The smaller bedroom we use as an office.

 

[av8roc]

Just wondering - can his TV stay there with a wood heater?

Well I burn regular fires without issue, pretty common nowadays to install TV's over fireplace mantle. I don't know if the insert would pose a problem but one of the showrooms here on the island has a TV mounted over an insert.. I believe it was an electric so that probably means nothing.


Anyone else have a TV mounted over an insert/stove?

 

[Seastrike]

I had the C350 installed late summer and am now using it with some regularity.
Its in a 21x24 room w/ 15ft ceiling and I must say, Im very impressed with it's capability to output heat.

The other night, just for fun, I opened the windows in this room, brought the room temp down to 55F, closed the windows
and cranked up the insert.
~3 hrs later the room was up to 72F.
In addition, the 1st floor house temp increased by ~6 degrees and 2nd floor +2F more than than.

The insert can throw some serious btu's.
However, the box is small, Im throwing wood in approx. every 1.5-2 hrs.

In short, I think you'd be pleased with the looks and heat output of the C350, but the tending may become an issue. I understand the 450 has quite a larger firebox and would require a bit less attention.

Both are great inserts. ENjoy !

 

[DBoon]

I have a similar size house (1250 square feet) in upstate NY (much colder than Long Island), but my house is only one floor.

For your size house, layout and climate a small insert will be fine for you. I've seen others recommend the PE Vista. I would also recommend that you look at the Lopi Answer. I'm not familiar with the other stoves mentioned, but the Vista and Answer are very similar in size, construction, and quality. They both have a outer jacket to circulate blower air through, which makes them a good choice to use as an insert.

If it matters to you, the Lopi stoves are made in the US, and I believe the PE stoves are made in Canada.

I didn't get an "insert" per se installed in my fireplace. I just put the regular Answer stove in there and had it fitted with the blower option. I just thought that the insert model looked a little cheesy, but it does the same thing as an insert. The blower gets the heat out of the enclosed space of the old fireplace, and I also didn't have to modify my hearth (you need a 16" non-combustible hearth in front the stove). It's not too hot in the LR where the stove is, and plenty of heat gets to nearby rooms to keep them 66-68 degrees even when it is ~10 degrees outside. Note that my house layout isn't as open as yours. We have insulated walls and storm windows, and the house is moderately tight.

This is a quite nice setup for us. The back bedrooms are harder to keep warm with the stove when temperatures are very low, but we like the bedrooms cooler anyways. When the temperature is only 40 degrees, we burn smaller fires less often, and we do not overheat. We can control the temperature quite well just be choosing the size splits we put in the stove - warmer outside temperatures mean smaller splits, and colder outside temperatures mean larger splits.

I am sure that before you are finished getting advice, you will hear plenty of opinions that you should "upsize" to the next size stove and then can always burn "smaller" fires in it. This doesn't strike me as particularly efficient, and unless you are going to burn 24/7 or burn softwoods, you shouldn't need the extra capacity. I'm happy to get 75-80% of my heating from the stove, and I'm not too worried about not getting the last 20-25% if it means it is 85 degrees in my living room.

Oh, my wife loves the stove. It doesn't cause a lot of mess and it doesn't fill the house with smoky odors.

 

[av8roc]

Really good stuff guys, thank you.


It seems like the general consensus is that the smaller inserts would be sufficient for my house but the one thing that worries me is the burn times. I would like to be able to load up the box, choke it down and head to bed and have it pump heat for the majority of the night.

Do you guys think that is possible with the 350 winterport?

 

[begreen]

Ideally, for low, long burns, you'll need a cat stove.

 

[av8roc]

Ideally, for low, long burns, you'll need a cat stove.

Don't think I could sell my wife on it. It will be hard enough to get her to agree to an insert that isnt quite flush let alone a stand alone stove. Not only that wouldn't a stove put out even more heat than an insert due to the increased surface area?

 

[begreen]

Woodstock makes soapstone cat stoves. The soapstone softens the heat and makes the stove more convective. It will not heat you out of the place unless run with the air control open more. These stoves can run for hours on a low burn and still burn cleanly due to the catalytic convertor.

Otherwise you have a bit of a paradox with a small house and the desire for long burns. You could get a mid-sized PE insert which is known to have good burn times and maybe open a window until it's in the single-digits outside.

 

[DBoon]

I would like to be able to load up the box, choke it down and head to bed and have it pump heat for the majority of the night.

Well, as a small stove owner, I will say that after 7-8 hours you may have a few coals left over to start the next fire, but it won't be producing heat.

However, I'm not sure you should be worried about this. Your climate is not that cold, quite frankly. If you load the stove up before you turn in for the night, it will put out nice heat for 3-4 hours. That will keep your size house pretty warm (provided it is insulated and has storm windows). Imagine if it kept your living room at 75 degrees until 3 in the morning, then, with no additional heat, the house will only slowly cool down - it will still be reasonably warm in the morning. Then, in the morning, you'll need to get a new fire started, either from coals or "new". Regardless, the morning fire will start and get up to heat quickly due to the still warm fire brick in the stove.

There is a lot of obsession with overnight burns on this site. I'm not that obsessed with overnight burns, and I don't mind re-starting in the morning, and my wife doesn't mind if the house is 62 degrees on a really cold morning when we get up. Again, if your objective is 24/7 burning all winter for 100% of your heating needs, then you might look at this differently. Likewise if your wife is really fussy morning temperatures.

 

[szmaine]

Just wondering - can his TV stay there with a wood heater?

Well I burn regular fires without issue, pretty common nowadays to install TV's over fireplace mantle. I don't know if the insert would pose a problem but one of the showrooms here on the island has a TV mounted over an insert.. I believe it was an electric so that probably means nothing.


Anyone else have a TV mounted over an insert/stove?

Searched and found a thread on this, worth looking into I think:

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/21002/

 

[Rudyjr]

I had the C350 installed late summer and am now using it with some regularity.
Its in a 21x24 room w/ 15ft ceiling and I must say, Im very impressed with it's capability to output heat.

The other night, just for fun, I opened the windows in this room, brought the room temp down to 55F, closed the windows
and cranked up the insert.
~3 hrs later the room was up to 72F.
In addition, the 1st floor house temp increased by ~6 degrees and 2nd floor +2F more than than.

The insert can throw some serious btu's.
However, the box is small, Im throwing wood in approx. every 1.5-2 hrs.

In short, I think you'd be pleased with the looks and heat output of the C350, but the tending may become an issue. I understand the 450 has quite a larger firebox and would require a bit less attention.

Both are great inserts. ENjoy !

Both are great inserts, but the above confirms what I said previously about capacity. Good Luck, Jim

 

[av8roc]

Just wondering - can his TV stay there with a wood heater?

Well I burn regular fires without issue, pretty common nowadays to install TV's over fireplace mantle. I don't know if the insert would pose a problem but one of the showrooms here on the island has a TV mounted over an insert.. I believe it was an electric so that probably means nothing.


Anyone else have a TV mounted over an insert/stove?

Searched and found a thread on this, worth looking into I think:

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/21002/

Great link, thank you. It seems that many people advise against it but the ones that have done it havent reported any problems.

What really caught my attention is the combustable clearance limitation with my wood mantle. Can I get those spec's off the manufactures website? Not at home at the moment but when I get back tonight I will measure.

 

[szmaine]

Great link, thank you. It seems that many people advise against it but the ones that have done it havent reported any problems.

What really caught my attention is the combustable clearance limitation with my wood mantle. Can I get those spec's off the manufactures website? Not at home at the moment but when I get back tonight I will measure.

I know that the Jotul website has the full manuals on-line that do included all specs and clearances. The other manurfacturers
may as well. You may have to have a mantle sheild regardless of the TV on which you will find countless threads here.

 

[begreen]

What really caught my attention is the combustable clearance limitation with my wood mantle. Can I get those spec's off the manufactures website? Not at home at the moment but when I get back tonight I will measure.

That was one of the reasons for suggesting the Hampton HI200. It is close to a flush fit insert. If you chose an insert that extends out on the hearth, a mantle shield and hearth extension will certainly be needed. Actually, a hearth extension will probably be needed, regardless of insert choice.

 

[szmaine]

The Jotul Winterport looks pretty flush to me also - in the side view graphic they have there.
Is Hampton certifying their inserts for the tax credit? I don't see a certification on their web page as Jotul has (even though they claim the HI200 is 77.7% efficient).

 

[mellow]

Here is the deal that I am experiencing with the same room setup as you, for a non cat stove you will want to turn the fan down if you are in the room watching tv, if you don't do this it will blow you out of the room even with a smaller insert, we have our couch facing the insert as well and have a flat panel over the fireplace, all that heat gets directed right at you, the reason for this being for it to be efficient it has to burn hotter. With a cat insert you can turn it down while in the room and burn at a lower temp and still have nice heat coming from it, when you are not in the room turn up the fan and give it more air to heat the rest of the house more.

Just my 2 cents, but I would like to think its worth more than that.

 

[allhandsworking]

Just wondering - can his TV stay there with a wood heater?

The insert fan disperses the heat!