How well did you size your stove

[kmdesautelle]

I think my morso 2110 is too big, the house is 1000 sq foot ranch, the room the stove is in is about 400 - 500 sq ft. It gets too hot to be in the living room once the stove gets to 500, room temp is 78 - 80 degrees. I'm thinking now the smaller morso or hearthstone craftsbury would have been a better choice.

 

[Rockey]

Hard to tell so early but it seems as if I might struggle a bit. Englander 30 in the basement, Catalytic insert on the 1st floor. With just the Englander it keeps the temps steady until it drops below 40ish, thats with the Englander at 600-650. I don't have the blower yet so maybe that will help a good deal. I hope the insert can pick up where the Englander leaves off down to 0 deg because we usually hit that a few times this year. My propane tank has been empty since Feb and I have no plans to fill it up. 2700 sf between the 1st ad 2nd floors and another 1000+ sf in the insulated basement.

All I know is that at theis rate I may be out of seasoned wood around Jan 6th at 7:25 pm.

 

[michaelthomas]

I am thinking that the "30" might have been too much stove to work in tandem with my resolute on the other side of the house. An example is tonight...it is 25 outside now and in my 24x36 greatroom with vaulted ceilings it is 88. up above the garage the 3 rooms are at 75, down the hall from the greatroom in the living room it is 78 degrees and upstairs in the main house it is 72. I only have the "30" going and it has only been going since 4 pm. I do have ceiling fans and a box fan dispursing the fiery air from the beast, but geez this thing is heating 3000sf in sub freezing weather. I could not be in the greatroom for any length of time at 88 degrees. That is more kid central anyway and when they go to bed the room is empty. It will be an interesting learning curve to figure out how best to use both stoves for optimal but not uncomfortable heating. I am excited for the challenge but am just concerned that I over bought with the 30 when the 13 might have done?

 

[rathmir]

I think my regency is going to be just about right. The temps overnight have only been down to the mid 30s low 40s so far. In the evening the temp inside is about 77-79 in the main living room (1300 sq. ft. ranch) and the bedrooms are probably 72-74ish. My wife is from FL so she stays in the living room, and is happy. We'll see how it performs in the dead of winter, but so far I am pretty pleased. Definitely glad the dealer recommended the 2400 instead of the 1300 I was looking at originally. Haven't burned a drop of oil yet, and the electricity bills are much lower with no air handler for the furnace running.

 

[pumiglk]

So far seems about right. 2900-3000 sq ft or so, open floor plan on lower living floor with a lot of big windows and 10 ft ceilings (but otherwise energy efficient %-P ; 4 bedrooms on second floor. Wide staicase with landing. I installed ceiling fans in bedrooms that run slowly most of the time (on wall switch dimmers). So far heats whole house, pretty evenly, without breaking a sweat. Mostly building pretty modest fires (6-8 3'' splits), let the pipe temp get up to 700-800 and then turn her down to about 7/8. reload on bed of glowing embers 6-7 hours later if needed - coals will still be there at n+1 (n=number of splits) hours. Most nights only down to 30 so far, I am sure the equation will change as the temps get colder but I think there is plenty of room in the firebox (4.0 cu Ft.) to accomadate ramping up. We try to keep House temps between 65-70. Tend to close bedroom doors at night to sleep cooler.

 

[myzamboni]

~1200 square feet ranch layout and the F3 is just right. The cat agrees.

 

[pyro68]

[quote author="Jags" date="1225392363"]With all of the questions that we see about stove sizing and "is this gonna cook me out", or "will this stove do the job". I am curious about how accurate we have all been in our selection of stove size. So here we go. I would also like to know the square ft being heated and the cubic ft of the stove being used to do the job.




if you really want to mix it up, define heating :cheese: my definition is between 68 deg. & 72 deg. My wife; however, does not even begin to get happy until the temperature tops 78, preferably between 82 & 85. Why is it that one half of the "couple" usually prefers it cooler while the other invariably wants it smoking hot (temperature, that is)?

 

[bfunk13]

Not sure yet, havent really been able to fire it up yet.
I think it will be just about right. The first few burns were even too much
heat for my wife, who likes it warm. I think we got the living room to 85.
I am looking forward to filling it up and seeing what it will do.
I am sure it will be just fine. 1500 sq ft. with a BlazeKing princess insert.
We have seen temps here of -40 with 50-60 mile an hour winds.

Brad

 

[begreen]

Guilty as charged. We tried to get away with too small a stove at first. It's not that the smaller stove couldn't heat the house. But if the power was out, you had to work your ass off to stay warm. That and our lifestyle has shifted.

The F3CB was great when it supplemented the pellet stove, but not ok when the fireplace and pellet insert were gone. After that, the F400 covered 80% of our heating needs, and my wife loved the look of this beautiful stove. But a week long power outage convinced me that I wanted better security and less refills if I had to rely on the stove 24/7, day after day. Now we have the big stove, but fortunately it burns well with a half load and has never driven us to opening windows and sauna temps. Now I'm looking forward to real winter to see what this stove can do with a packed load of wood.

 

[egghead2004]

I voted too small.

I may be wrong, since my Oslo is in the basement trying to heat 1120 sq/ft down there, then another 2100 on floors 1 and 2.

I have insulated the basement since the purchase 2 years ago and added another 6" of insulation in the attic.
I am OK if burning 24/7, except after 3am on those 15 degree and below nights which are frequent here from December to February.
I also have to use the window plastic, but my 16 month old will probably not allow a good seal this year.

My next step is to make a 10 * 13 room with a corner hearth in the in the basement. I would then have to only heat 130 sq/ft before heat would come upstairs. we leave the cellar door open for the heat to come up. I think that will help a lot.

 

[Jags]

Hmmm...just pointing out the obvious from the poll. Of the stove installs that were not considered a good fit for the application (the "just right" category), there is a 4 to 1 ratio of "too small" as compared to "too big".

Interesting. Some because of install restrictions, some because of choice of stove, but the numbers tell the story. 4 to 1.

 

[fredarm]

I knew going in my PE Vista insert was going to be too small to heat the whole house (1900 sf colonial), but since I'm mostly an evening and weekend wood burner, it's not that big an issue. It's what would fit in my small fireplace. That said, it's been cranking out the heat nicely, enabling me to delay turning on the central heat (oil-fired boiler) and set it at a lower temperature. The insert keeps the living room and kitchen nice and toasty. Any bigger and it would cook us out of the living room. I wish that it would hold an overnight burn longer, but I'm trying some techniques I've read about on this forum to get a longer burn.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Works for me, except that the baseboard doesn’t come on in the coldest weather, and freezing pipes are a possibility in sub-zero weather, so I keep it throttled back a bit.

You can put Glycol in the boiler water and you wont have to worry about the heating system water pipes. Domestic water could still be a concern if you have colder areas of the house (with water pipes) that the stove heat doesnt reach. I put in Glycol and dont have to run the boiler at all now. Just a thought

Isn't there some concern about long term corrosion? I'd like to hear that there isn't...

 

[bokehman]

Isn't there some concern about long term corrosion? I'd like to hear that there isn't...

There are plenty of 20 year old cars out there that have had Glycol in their cooling systems all their lives without any corrosion. One thing with Glycol is it always finds places to leak where none previously existed, especially with pressurized systems.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I think they normally have significant inhibitors added to reduce it though- ya? I guess that plain auto ethylene glycol with inhibitors could do it.

 

[JMF1]

2400 sqft cape with 1950's windows, don't use the upstairs but keep that zone set at 50-55. I've thought of looking into antifreeze in the boiler just haven't. The Avalon Olympic works fine but sometimes working long hours lets her burn down low. All in all, perfect size I'd say.

 

[elmoleaf]

Intrepid II. 1.26 cu ft. firebox. Heating 1300 sf, about half of which is open floor plan.
Can run stove full tilt at 650F without overheating the room it's in. Small fan on the floor at other end of house, blowing towards the stove, gets heat down to the bedroom.
Only problem is stove is stone cold in the morning....however if it was larger firebox, it'd overheat one end of the house.

 

[kenny chaos]

Intrepid II. 1.26 cu ft. firebox. Heating 1300 sf, about half of which is open floor plan.
Can run stove full tilt at 650F without overheating the room it's in. Small fan on the floor at other end of house, blowing towards the stove, gets heat down to the bedroom.
Only problem is stove is stone cold in the morning....however if it was larger firebox, it'd overheat one end of the house.

That's why they should still be considered space heaters instead of central heating systems. In the old days, the wealthy had a stove in every room. Of course, people had more common sense back then.

 

[jpl1nh]

For our house the Keystone is perfect 96.27% of the time. With bitter cold windchills for several days in a row, I may have to run the furnace for 1/2 hour twice a day to keep it the 72 we like. I LOVE this stove, huge fireview with unique flame display due to the up front cat placement. Load it with a large piece of red maple in back bottom and a mix of red maple and hemlock in its little 1.5 cu ft firebox and 9 hours later there's still a nice enough coal bed to load her back up again. With oak and locust, I've had coals 18 hours later! Just slightly undersized for the very coldest weather (-20 windchills or below) but it's a keeper for us. Handsome little bugger too.

 

[cmonSTART]

I chose just right. The stove is great for what we do with it. It's our house layout that is less than great. It gets toasty in the living room when the 30 is cranking, but it heats our home.

 

[lazeedan]

I'm happy with the Homestead. It heats our 1500 sq ft ranch nicely even on the coldest days. When it's cold ( single digits or lower)
you don't want to sleep in too long with out reloading.

 

[njtomatoguy]

I like it cool- maybe 68/70 during the day, 60/62 t night. I am ok with th house going
into the 50's at night.

My CFM24007 works for me! and the dogs!

 

[chad3]

Just right vote by me.
Not because of me however. I picked this up from Preston Trading Post. I was going to get the Castine (Jotul 400) and the dealer there talked me into the Oslo (Jotul 500) instead. I'm glad that he did. I really like the stove. It has done me right for almost three years here, with never a time that I needed more, sometimes that I could have used less. I have a 1400 sf Cape with the stove at the very far end of the house. That room, which is never used for sitting, gets up to about 90 degrees, but the living room is usually about 72 and my daughters room up stairs is about 72. Can't complain.

 

[OilNoMore]

We've had some cold nights the past month (20's and 30's) and the Shelburne has been great. I am amazed at how efficient it is, though a better gauge will come in January I'm sure. I considered an Olso for our 1450 sq ft ranch and I am glad that I did not go with it, as it likely would have been way too much for the space we have. My wife, an earlier adversary of wood burning, has fallen in love with the stove and she has no problem maintaining a fire when I am gone. I have nothing bad to say of it, but again, I think a better test will come in the depths of winter.

 

[rudysmallfry]

Homestead is just the right size for my 1400 sq ft house. Mine is a typical box shaped house. I have the stove at the living end while the bedrooms are at the other end. I get the toasty living room/kitchen area and the cooler temps for sleeping at the same time. Glad I didn't go any bigger. I would have blown myself out of the house, even with the soapstone type heat. Would like longer burn times, but that would have required a cat. Didn't want the hassle.