Hearthstone Green Mountain and Blaze King Ashford

[mdocod]

Any new opinions on this question from a few years ago now that the Green Mountain stoves have a longer record?

Specifically, I'm trying to decide between a Blaze King Ashford 30.2 and a Green Mountain 80. Both designs are wife-approved. This will go on a hearth in an alcove on an exterior wall to replace an open fireplace. It's a first-floor family room with a 20'+ ceiling. The house is 4,000 sqft, open design, with upstairs bedrooms and a stairway/catwalk in the middle. We'll have a 25-foot Class A chimney going straight up inside a chase.

We'll use the stove in three seasons (Northeast U.S., mild spring/fall, cold winter) to supplement forced-air geothermal heating. Our firewood is basically free. I understand that the GM 80 takes a more expensive 8" pipe, but that's not a big factor for us.

Are they equally safe to run unattended at medium-high at night, and which would produce more heat? Would both produce flames if run at low-medium while we're sitting near them? How big of a plus is the thermostat on the Ashford? Could both run on 2x/day loading? How do fan noise and ash cleanup compare? Thank you.

The GM 80 is a 600lb hybrid stove optimized to burn at moderate rates, balancing primary, secondary, and catalytic combustion with high mass to slow down burn rates and spread out the heat output over time compared to traditional steel non-cat stoves. Burn cycles in this stove can be as short as ~6 hours when burning softwoods very fast, or as long as ~24 hours when burning hardwoods slow. On average, this stove is well suited to an average 20-30K BTU/hr burn rates.

The Ashford 30.2 is a 500lb catalytic stove optimized to burn at low rates, balancing a slow primary fire / smolder with a heavy dose of catalytic combustion and thermal mass to slow down burn rates and spread out heat output over time even more than a Hybrid stove. Burn cycles in this stove might be as short as ~8 hours when burning softwoods at the highest speed available, though this is not where this stove shines. 18-28 hour burn cycles with 12-18K BTU/hr burn rates is the sort of behavior most users of these stoves are looking for.

I think the GM 80 is much better compared to the likes of a BK King, both being 8" flue, and both having a similar BTU/hr operating range, with the BK offering that output over longer burn cycles made possible with an even larger fuel box. For a 4000 sq ft home, I would probably avoid the Ashford, I don't think it's well suited to the BTU/hr that you could likely make use of in a house that large. The GM 80 is a better fit to the sort of BTU output that is meaningful for a large home.

 

[GM80NY]

Any new opinions on this question from a few years ago now that the Green Mountain stoves have a longer record?

Specifically, I'm trying to decide between a Blaze King Ashford 30.2 and a Green Mountain 80. Both designs are wife-approved. This will go on a hearth in an alcove on an exterior wall to replace an open fireplace. It's a first-floor family room with a 20'+ ceiling. The house is 4,000 sqft, open design, with upstairs bedrooms and a stairway/catwalk in the middle. We'll have a 25-foot Class A chimney going straight up inside a chase.

We'll use the stove in three seasons (Northeast U.S., mild spring/fall, cold winter) to supplement forced-air geothermal heating. Our firewood is basically free. I understand that the GM 80 takes a more expensive 8" pipe, but that's not a big factor for us.

Are they equally safe to run unattended at medium-high at night, and which would produce more heat? Would both produce flames if run at low-medium while we're sitting near them? How big of a plus is the thermostat on the Ashford? Could both run on 2x/day loading? How do fan noise and ash cleanup compare? Thank you.

I'm gonna say they are safe once you understand how your stove works and how you can ge the most out of it.

Mine give me dancing flames and to me, the flames are a sign it is running correctly. If the flames disappear there's an issue somewhere. In my case anyway.

I've been loading mine on these cold, below 30 deg F days, twice a day. Morning and night. around 3/4 of the way full all front to back.

Ash clean up is touchy. First, I would recoomend 14" pieces. 16" pieces front to back are a little close to the door and although It's been fine. Next few loads of wood I stack will be 14" to see if it will help keeping the pesky lower corners of the glass clean, and keep less ash from accumulating on the door.

You will have to learn the technique and the quirks. Messing with the ash can cause your Cats to clog faster. I've made a few threads on my issues down the line. Check them out.

It may seem like complaining but this thing works great when you get it down. I would buy another one. You're probably still going to need fans blowing the cold air towards the stove down low. Also, how tight your house was built will be afactor.

 

[begreen]

Agreed that the Ashford or Princess may be undersized unless the house is super-insulated or in a mild climate. Some clarification if comparing the GM80 to other stoves requiring and 8" flue like the Blaze King King or the Regency 5200. At 3.1 cu ft, the GM80 is the smallest stove requiring an 8" flue. Most stoves of this size use less expensive 6" flue piping for this size firebox. The GM80 is 550 lbs. and a manually operated E/W hybrid, the 4.32 cu ft King is a thermostatic, pure catalytic stove with a huge firebox that can load E/W or N/S. It produces steady state heat over a long period of time (12 hrs @ >50kBTUs) as opposed to the peak and glide output of the GM80. The weight depends on the base option but is around 500 lbs. Also to be considered for a large home would be the 4.4 cu ft Regency 5200 hybrid. This is also an E/W or N/S loader with a high top-end output and huge firebox capacity.

 

[tabner]

I'm gonna say they are safe once you understand how your stove works and how you can ge the most out of it.

Mine give me dancing flames and to me, the flames are a sign it is running correctly. If the flames disappear there's an issue somewhere. In my case anyway.

I've been loading mine on these cold, below 30 deg F days, twice a day. Morning and night. around 3/4 of the way full all front to back.

Ash clean up is touchy. First, I would recoomend 14" pieces. 16" pieces front to back are a little close to the door and although It's been fine. Next few loads of wood I stack will be 14" to see if it will help keeping the pesky lower corners of the glass clean, and keep less ash from accumulating on the door.

You will have to learn the technique and the quirks. Messing with the ash can cause your Cats to clog faster. I've made a few threads on my issues down the line. Check them out.

It may seem like complaining but this thing works great when you get it down. I would buy another one. You're probably still going to need fans blowing the cold air towards the stove down low. Also, how tight your house was built will be afactor.

are you loading/burning only N/S in your GM80?
Not being critical, i'm just curious.

In my GM60 i have done both, i have wood that's 16" to 18" long so I run E/W per the stove's intended design. But i have a lot of wood at 12" to 14" long so i have run a lot of loads N/S in this stove. I'm not completely decided on which i prefer. I will say though, i notice much more black on the glass if i load it N/S, not sure if this is the way the air moves through this stove, or I think maybe a lot of the remaining moisture in wood cooks out the end of the split, so having those butt ends right up against the glass just kinda gunks up the whole left and right side, that may be your issue. Curious if you would see clearer glass if you switched to E/W.

 

[MinM]

mdocod and begreen, how would compare the Ideal Steel to the GM80, performance wise? Slightly larger firebox than the GM80, uses 6" flue piping, steel vs cast iron...

 

[outdoorguy864]

mdocod and begreen, how would compare the Ideal Steel to the GM80, performance wise? Slightly larger firebox than the GM80, uses 6" flue piping, steel vs cast iron...

So I had the asbsolute steel for one year, but switched it out. But it had nothing to do with the performance at all, I just simply oversized too big and it heated us out of the house even at the lowest rate. Woodstock customer service is great. The quality of the stove was outstanding. I believe both of the stoves are also lined with soapstone, which i think is nice. Overall, the stove quality and performance, i wouldn't be hesitant to buy another woodstock.