BrowningBAR said:
When you have an EPA stove and a Pre-EPA stove you see the difference. Right now I am loading literally twice as much wood in the Vigilant as I am in the Heritage. That is not always the case, but it has been for the last several days.
Well, you know I can't speak from personal experience, all I am doing is relating what has been told to me by more than one pro in the field. These guys have everything to gain from telling me the Castine will outperform my stove, but they tell me otherwise based on personal experience from their own use and that of hundreds of customers.
I listen to what some say here who have compared stoves "A & B" style, and I am not doubting them. If I thought for a minute I could get the same amount of heat from a stove using half the wood, it would certainly be wonderful getting by with 2 1/2 cord a year. Who here in the north is burning 24/7 from a basement install and heating their home with 2 1/2 cord a year? It doesn't even make sense to me, that's why I question it. You can only get so much heat out of a cord of wood. I run my stove hot and clean on minimal air, so half my heat isn't going up the chimney. Half my wood isn't going up in smoke or I'd see some from time to time.
If someone can clearly explain how I'll be able to heat this place on 2 1/2 cord from late October to early April, I'd consider taking the plunge. I'm not a stubborn man, but I read over and over about experienced folks having trouble getting enough useful heat from the new stoves, and I am a bit afraid to jump when what I have works perfectly fine for me. If the new stoves are working better for others, I am happy for them. But I'm a New Yorker from Missouri. You have to prove it to me first.
I don't know if you caught the thread about a study comparing old conventional stoves with highly efficient designs. One of the stoves used was a VC type stove, but was burned in updraft position only (in order to simulate a conventional air-tight). Even burned in that less efficient manner, it still averaged about
63% overall efficiency burning seasoned oak. I would not doubt the figure in that study at all, based on my own use of this stove. Obviously in your case, the saying YMMV is appropriate.
Regarding max output, it is physically impossible for a radiant heater to put out more heat than the sum of its radiating surfaces can produce. The Oslo and the Vigilant are just about the same size, and they have just about the same surface area. How can the Oslo put out 55% more heat than the Vigilant at the same operating temperature? The Castine is noticeably smaller. How hot would it need to get to significantly outperform a Vigilant running with a stable 750º temperature?
The Vig is certainly a dirtier running stove, there is no getting around that one. In the study I mentioned, it put out 38 grams/hours of PM into the air. That's 5 times the maximum amount allowed in a non-cat EPA stove. So how much extra fuel is lost in that exhaust? Well, at a steady 24/7 emission rate of 38 gr/hr, the stove would emit 912 grams of particulate matter. In 30 days it would emit 27,360 grams. After six months that would be 164,160 grams, or 362 pounds of wasted fuel... slightly less than 1/10 of a cord of seasoned black birch, hickory, hard maple, black locust, or beech... the kind of wood I am currently using to heat this joint. So even if an EPA stove had 0 g/hr of PM, it would only save me $14 of wood per year in physical fuel losses. And the kicker? The same stove burning green oak at about 40% MC had only 20 g/hr in PM emissions, so that is only $7 of fuel a year lost into the air... and it still got a 58% overall efficiency. Not too shabby, I'd say.
It's all of these things that give me pause when I get to thinking about making the switch. These new stoves are a lot of money, and I'm burning to save money. The opinion of professionals in the field who I know and trust not to lie to me refuse to make the same "you'll get twice the heat from half the fuel" claims, at best saying things like, "You'll definitely use less wood." or, "If you're burning 7 cord now, you'll burn 6 1/2 with the newer stoves." Why are they lying to me when telling the truth would put steak on the table instead of fish sticks?
I'm not saying anyone here is lying, or even that they are mistaken in their observations, but I'm not standing there filling their stoves, or sitting half-naked in their living rooms, so I have to wonder where all the claims are coming from. I've also been doing research on this for a while, and it just doesn't add up so far. I wish someone would explain what I'm missing, because I really want to drink the Kool-Aid and become a true believer, but anecdotal tales just won't make the folds of my wallet open up, not while it's 11ºF outside and I'm sitting here sipping whisky in my sweats and t-shirt at 2:30 AM, hours after I filled the stove that's sitting in the basement on the other side of the house.
Of course... it could be the whisky.