Thanks to some great advice received earlier this year, I am now about to go shopping for a new stove to replace my aging Waterford Trinity. I have narrowed the choices to these models:
1) Pacific Energy Summit Classic or Alderlea T6
2) Jotul F500 or F600
3) Lopi Liberty
4) Blaze King King
Yeah, I know there are a lot of differences between these stoves. I'm hoping that a visit to some local dealers will help me make up my mind. Price will not be the deciding factor, and I'm bipartisan on cast-vs.-steel. I bought my last stove for looks and I don't want to make that mistake again (because I have no central heating except my stove!) but I'm still having a hard time warming up to #3 and #4 because my stove is highly visible in my house. I'm pretty sure I can't go wrong with any of these choices, but that just makes the decision harder...
I have pretty much eliminated the Blaze King from consideration because I just can't stand the looks. But since that argument doesn't carry a lot of weight with my redneck neighbors who swear by the BK, it just occurred to me that the BK might have a few other strikes against it. For one thing, will I need a new 8-inch pipe? I think my Waterford double-wall pipe is 6 inches. Also, the BK doesn't have a cooktop right? We have frequent power outages here and I really love being able to cook on our woodstove.
As for the other 3 options, will all of them work with my existing stovepipe? And what about OAK? For most of its lifetime, I was using indoor air for my Waterford. But a couple of years ago when I tiled the stove area, I installed an air intake through the floor to the crawl space beneath the house. It's a 4" diameter opening. Does replacing my stove mean I'll have to drill a new hole through my tile in a different spot? And fill in the old hole? Not an appealing notion...
1) Pacific Energy Summit Classic or Alderlea T6
2) Jotul F500 or F600
3) Lopi Liberty
4) Blaze King King
Yeah, I know there are a lot of differences between these stoves. I'm hoping that a visit to some local dealers will help me make up my mind. Price will not be the deciding factor, and I'm bipartisan on cast-vs.-steel. I bought my last stove for looks and I don't want to make that mistake again (because I have no central heating except my stove!) but I'm still having a hard time warming up to #3 and #4 because my stove is highly visible in my house. I'm pretty sure I can't go wrong with any of these choices, but that just makes the decision harder...
I have pretty much eliminated the Blaze King from consideration because I just can't stand the looks. But since that argument doesn't carry a lot of weight with my redneck neighbors who swear by the BK, it just occurred to me that the BK might have a few other strikes against it. For one thing, will I need a new 8-inch pipe? I think my Waterford double-wall pipe is 6 inches. Also, the BK doesn't have a cooktop right? We have frequent power outages here and I really love being able to cook on our woodstove.
As for the other 3 options, will all of them work with my existing stovepipe? And what about OAK? For most of its lifetime, I was using indoor air for my Waterford. But a couple of years ago when I tiled the stove area, I installed an air intake through the floor to the crawl space beneath the house. It's a 4" diameter opening. Does replacing my stove mean I'll have to drill a new hole through my tile in a different spot? And fill in the old hole? Not an appealing notion...