Hearthstone Equinox Alternative

[mrd1995]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post on the forum, my wife and I were looking to get a wood stove installed into our newly purchased home prior to the winter of 2020/21. We were pretty much set on getting a Hearthstone Equinox however I recently learned from our local dealer that they will not offer the equinox with the 2020 US EPA standard. Our home is a 1500 Sq. Ft. Ranch with a fully finished basement semi open floor plan. We are looking to install the stove in our large family room in the basement, we will add a few floor registers to allow the heat to rise more easily to the upper level. We have a attached insulated garage as well with a room under that we will try to heat as well, so all in we will be heating approximately 3600 Sq.Ft. basement is 8in block with 2in foam insulation and up stairs is 2 x 6 with fiberglass R30 in the ceiling.

This will be a completely new install. We have multiple options with our local distributors, Regency, Hearthstone, Harman, Blaze King, Jotul, Pacific Energy I think those are the bigger name available with Install.

Budget <4.5K$ for the stove.

Open to different design appearances, we want a well built efficient stove with at least a 10hr burn

So two questions for you guys:

Do you think the Hearthstone Mansfield, Green Mountain 80, or Manchester would be sufficient given the fact that our home is insulated?

If not, what would you recommend for an alternative to the Equinox?


Thank you in advance

 

[begreen]

Welcome. Is the total area of the basement + main house 3000 sq ft? If so, that will take a large stove like those mentioned. A Jotul F55 or PE Summit (or T6), Osburn 2400, Regency 3500 etc. would also cover it. The big question is how well the heat will naturally convect. Holes in the floor would need to be sized and located properly. They should also have fusible-link dampers to prevent fire spread. Where is the stairwell located? Can you post a floorplan sketch indicating chimney, stove and stairwell locations?

The garage room should be treated as a separate zone. The likelihood of heating it well from this setup may be slim.

 

[mrd1995]

Welcome. Is the total area of the basement + main house 3000 sq ft? If so, that will take a large stove like those mentioned. A Jotul F55 or PE Summit (or T6), Osburn 2400, Regency 3500 etc. would also cover it. The big question is how well the heat will naturally convect. Holes in the floor would need to be sized and located properly. They should also have fusible-link dampers to prevent fire spread. Where is the stairwell located? Can you post a floorplan sketch indicating chimney, stove and stairwell locations?

The garage room should be treated as a separate zone. The likelihood of heating it well from this setup may be slim.

The sq. ft. that is the basement and the main part of the house. The room were the stove will be is a open 30'x30' minus the boiler closet 5'x4' with the stairs and hallway to the room on the opposing side from direct line of site to the future stove location. The home currently has a boiler with a direct vent, so no chimney. We are going to come out of the stove up about 3' with stove pipe, 90 to double wall out the wall, clean out T, up 3' over the peak. We will have a continuous vertical of approximately 23-25'. Once we reside the house there is the possibility of boxing in the chimney pipe to further insulate it. On the ten minute floor plan sketch you will see the Laundry room on the basement sketch, we currently keep that door closed and the boiler zone kept at about 55F so if possibly we may let some heat in there but we don't currently keep it very warm the aging wine doesn't care!

Thank you,
Michael

 

[begreen]

10 min sketches are good. That helps a lot.

In a word, the setup is sub-optimal. The stove location is not central, which puts most of the heat where it is less needed, under the bedrooms. Ideally, it would be under the living room. Tall exterior chimneys can be problematic, especially if the basement is a negative pressure zone.

It's good that the basement is insulated, that will help. Is the floor insulated or concrete? The stove will do a good job of heating the family room and a moderate job of heating the kitchen/dining room, by heat will head up the stairwell if it is open and not closed off too much by sidewalls. Cutting holes in the floor may not help a great deal with this layout.

Where do you spend the most time, living room or family room?

 

[mrd1995]

Mostly in the Living Room, but we plan on utilizing the family room more in the future. It is the access to our back yard, hot tub, and patio. The floor is concrete. I was thinking about a booster register in each bedroom to pull the air up, also we have large ceiling fans in every room including one in each dining and kitchen area two total.

Thank you for your help by the way!

 

[mrd1995]

Also as a side note, I had two local distributors/installers come out to our home and let them check out the proposed location for the stove and asked them to size a stove for the home. Both companies have been in the area for some time, the one being the installer that everyone seems to recommend. Both of them seemed to think that the Mansfield or hampton h300 sized stoves(2500 sq. ft.) would be sufficient for our home. This maybe a silly question but do you see a reason that they would recommend a slightly undersized stove, and we started looking a few months ago prior to them being sold out of the equinox stove. I went back today at lunch to talk to them again and I asked them about the PE Summit and he said he thinks it would be to much stove for our home. I am torn whether to trust there judgement or not.

 

[begreen]

Mostly in the Living Room, but we plan on utilizing the family room more in the future. It is the access to our back yard, hot tub, and patio. The floor is concrete. I was thinking about a booster register in each bedroom to pull the air up, also we have large ceiling fans in every room including one in each dining and kitchen area two total.

Thank you for your help by the way!

The concrete floor is a giant heat sink. It will suck up a fair amount of the stove's warmth. You won't need registers in the bedrooms, they will be warmed pretty well unless the family room ceiling is insulated.

As to the recommendations, go large. FWIW, the Summit, Manchester and Mansfield fireboxes are about the same size. The H300 is a good stove, but 1/3d smaller.

Do read up on negative pressure in basements in other threads here. If the stove is competing for air then it could be an issue.

 

[mrd1995]

Oh okay, I have only seen the smaller steel Pacific energy stoves in person. The basement has drop ceiling so it sort of insulates the upstairs floor. I do plan on putting a outside air supply, our house buttoned pretty tight. I predict we will have a negative pressure issue. But I will check out the other threads.