Thank you for trying to direct me. I'm in Chicago. My 32 foot, 120 year old brick chimney is centrally located in my traditional 1200 square foot house with new insulation. I see all these fantastic stoves, old and new but the more I see the more I realise the less I know. Examples: would the older bigger stoves create too much heat, making it hard to disperse or does it retain milder heat longer because it's bigger? Is brick lined advisable? What about older versus newer, or cast versus steel? Bigger versus smaller? Heavy versus lighter(what would the Amish say)? Glass seems nice?
I'm hoping to spend $400-700 for a used stove. Another $800-900 for a stainless liner. I expect to provide natural gas heat to second floor bedrooms but I would love to have a room or 2 or 3+ that are luxuriously warm.It seems nice to have a 6 to 8 hr. burn time with longer wood pieces. Any ideas on a stove for me?
As mentioned . . . I think your first step would be to get a certified chimney sweep in to take a look at your chimney and inspect it . . . find out the size, look at the liner (and whether it has a liner and if so what type), if the chimney flue is already in use or not, etc. to see if the existing chimney is safe to use . . . otherwise you might have to go with Plan B and go with a metal type chimney which would add some cost to your plans. Around here, safety is #1 in our book.
1,200 square feet is very do-able and you could no doubt heat the entire home . . . generally what I recommend is to take a look at the various stoves you are interested in, see what square footage they're rated for and then pick the model that is one size larger. Most folks that go with this method of up-sizing one size stove seem pretty happy vs. folks that get a stove sized for their home and then find out that it's not quite large enough . . . or folks who go way too big and are way too hot.
In general . . . bigger stoves with bigger firebox = more heat . . . and while some could say too much heat is not a bad thing I would disagree as I like it nice and warm in my house, but not to the point where I have to sit in my skivvies with all the windows in the house open to the outside in an effort to cool down. That said, larger stoves often = longer burns. Some exceptions to the longer burns would be the stoves with catalytic combustors.
I like the newer EPA stoves vs. older stoves . . . you use less wood and get as much heat with long burns. Older stoves can also get a lot of heat and long burns . . . but at the dual expense of burning up more wood and/or smoldering the fire which can produce excessive amounts of creosote. Most newer stoves also have the "glass" windows . . . nice for the view . . . and to know when to reload the stove. Heck, sometimes I turn the TV off and just watch the woodstove for entertainment.
Cast iron vs. steel vs. soapstone . . . all have their pros- and cons- . . . and many of us could debate from here to eternity on why one material is better than another . . . fact is . . . many of us have steel stoves, many of us have cast iron and many of us have soapstone stoves . . . the one universal fact is . . . no matter what the stove is made out, all of us are quite warm.
As for the Amish . . . I cannot speak for all of the Amish communities . . . but the Amish in my area are as eclectic as us . . . I know one family with a Woodstock Progress in use, another family has an indoor wood boiler (uses charged batteries to power the circulators) and many others use outdoor wood boilers . . . and all of them have cooking woodstoves.