longest non-cat burning stove

[Mitch Newton]

I get easy 8 hr. burns with the T-5 and can get 10+ hrs. on a full load. The Super 27 should be able to do this as well...

Ray

raybonz, that's a nice looking wood shed. Is there any way to enlarge the picture so I can get a better look?

 

[raybonz]

raybonz, that's a nice looking wood shed. Is there any way to enlarge the picture so I can get a better look?

Thanx Mitch! Have pics here: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/getting-ready-for-winter.75747/#post-959610 . Also more pics in the forum somewhere..
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/my-firewood-and-recently-built-shelter.22819/#post-22819

Ray

 

[corey21]

Pokers kill baffles. Fires don't kill baffles.

Sorry off topic i don't think a poker could kill my stove baffle looks like the only way i could kill it is with high heat?

 

[Todd]

Check out the Harmon Oakwood, Lopi Leyden or Avalon Arbor, all top loading non cats with long burn times but can be a little fussy at times if you don't have a good drafting chimney.

Oh, and don't fear cat stoves, they are not that hard to operate or require a ton of maintenance.

 

[etiger2007]

Pokers kill baffles. Fires don't kill baffles.

Very true Bart, I have a small dent in the vermiculite because the poker slipped on me.

 

[HeatsTwice]

Wondering why you burn so much wood I thought it would be much more moderate than that in California..

Ray

Well, it gets down to the mid 20's in late Dec thru Feb. But the real reason I burn so much is that:

1) Got a big house.
2) Three girls, Wife & two daughters = always cold.
3) I work out of my house so I am home all the time and often cook on the stove.
4) Electricity and gas are expensive.
5) While I have my share of hard woods, most of what I get are Arborist 7 yard truck dumps of pine and other soft woods which those guys can't sell to wood processors. But I have an unlimited supply of downed, limbed and bucked wood.

 

[raybonz]

Cool looks like a nice property you have there!

Ray

 

[Highbeam]

For the next few years, all I have is alder and a little fir, so I'm not going to count on lengthy burns here anyway.

You may not know this yet but the red alder will be the best wood for long burns. People like doug fir but it doesn't produce enough ash to shade the coals from air. The alder does make enough ash so burn times are longer.

House size, insulation, location does not matter when you are shooting for max burn time. The tradeoff for longer burn times is less heat per hour. If you try to maximize burn times you will do this by minimizing heat output so you must first have sufficient heat before you even care about burn time.

In the non-cat world, burn times are limited by pollution requirements. You will pretty much find that larger stoves burn longer. You will also find that heat output is almost out of your control, other than fuel load, so you must size your non-cat to the house. It's a tough deal, really no reason that anybody should be using a stove smaller than 2 real CF for heating.

 

[MofoG23]

My insert has a 2.4 cu ft firebox. Quad claims up to 12 hours burn time....I can get an easy 8-10 hours when using a good hardwood such as oak. When loaded up, after 8-10 hours, I can find around 300 degree's surface temp's on the front of the insert.

Very happy with its performance.

 

[Sprinter]

You may not know this yet but the red alder will be the best wood for long burns. People like doug fir but it doesn't produce enough ash to shade the coals from air. The alder does make enough ash so burn times are longer.

House size, insulation, location does not matter when you are shooting for max burn time. The tradeoff for longer burn times is less heat per hour. If you try to maximize burn times you will do this by minimizing heat output so you must first have sufficient heat before you even care about burn time.

In the non-cat world, burn times are limited by pollution requirements. You will pretty much find that larger stoves burn longer. You will also find that heat output is almost out of your control, other than fuel load, so you must size your non-cat to the house. It's a tough deal, really no reason that anybody should be using a stove smaller than 2 real CF for heating.

Interesting perspective. I was just going by BTU/cord figures, but I suppose other variables are important as well for burn time. In fact, I actually like alder because it's plentiful here, easy to cut and split and drys quickly. I may never have to push this PE for heat output anyway in this climate and house

 

[Backwoods Savage]

What is the longest non-cat burning stove on the market today that you can buy?? I currently own a Wonderwood circulator wood stove which does not do bad, but I am only getting around 4-5 hours of burn time. I would like to find a wood stove that can get somewhere around 7-8 hours at least so I don't have to get up every morning around 2-3AM to put more wood on the fire to keep it going. I know the cat stoves will burn much longer, but I don't want to worry about the maintenance and I have heard the cat stoves can have issues with creosote building up. Any input is much appreciated!

Welcome to the forum corey148.

Others have asked about house size and location as that has much to do with which stove will work best for you. I am thinking that your heat needs are not really great if I have that Wonderwood stove pegged right. With that in mind, several stoves would do well for you.

I'd like to touch on your remark about the maintenance and creosote problem you seem to relate to a cat stove. Perhaps you too had heard and read some bad remarks about cat stoves so tend to think negative about them. Please read the following and you will see that those 2 concerns just are not true with a cat stove.

The last time we were in the market for a wood stove we too scratched out the thought of any cat stove. We went to the few stove dealers around here and started asking questions. Decided that none of the ones we visited knew squat about wood stoves and wood. Right there, that is scary...

Long story short we ended up buying a cat stove but from a very well respected manufacturer. Besides, they gave us a 6 month guarantee. If we bought the stove and it did not perform as expected or not enough stove to heat our old drafty home, they would take it back and refund 100%. How could we go wrong? We bought.

There was a short learning curve because the new epa stoves are much different from the older stoves. Thankfully that learning curve is very short. I laugh now because when we first saw this stove we laughed because others thought that stove would keep us warm. I wondered just how that could be because it was so small.

We are 100% satisfied with this stove and never considered sending it back. With our old stove, an Ashley, we were never really satisfied with it because in the dead of winter we had to close off part of the house and even then were never as comfortable as we wished. Not so for this stove! We have not closed off any part of the house since starting burning with the Fireview.

Best point with the stove is we get more heat and stay nice and warm without closing off any part of the house. Second best point is that we have accomplished this even though we only burn half the amount of wood we used to burn. That alone is enough benefits to make it worthwhile for us but there is more.

We read constantly about folks having problems with creosote. We used to with the old stove but have not had any creosote since. We heat 100% with our Fireview. After 2 full seasons of burning we did clean the chimney just to see what we would get. Got about a cup of soot. That was in the spring of 2009. We have not cleaned the chimney since.

What about maintenance? So far we have replaced one gasket (we just were not happy with how it had been installed at the factory). Woodstock not only sent us the gasket but also the gasket cement so we could redo it. It really did not take long at all and that is an easy job. We have replaced the catalyst but it was under warranty.

As far as maintaining the cat, every so often you have to clean the cat. On our stove that means we lift the top lid, reach in with one hand and lift out the cat. I then take it outside and lightly brush it with an old paint brush. Replace the cat and close the lid. It takes anywhere from 2-4 minutes and is so easy a child could do it and do it well. We plan this year on not cleaning it at all through the winter and just clean it when we do the normal summer stove cleaning.

In maintaining that cat, we spend a lot less time doing that than others spend trying to keep their glass clean rather than all that black crap on the glass and soon they can't even see their fire.

Of course this brings the question, what about keeping the glass clean? We usually clean our glass once in the winter or maybe twice, depending on the wood but we do not clean any black from the glass. It is just ash that gets up on the glass so it doesn't even block our view of the fire. We just clean the ash off to make it look nicer.

We wish you good luck. Should you decide to check out the Fireview or other stoves from Woodstock, click on this link:

www.woodstove.com

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Sorry Corey but I forgot to answer the question about burn times. This time of the year (spring and fall) we don't yet need a lot of heat and we find that 2 or 3 splits will give us warmth all night and the house temperature will still be in the 70's come morning. I think 12 hours is about the maximum time for a long burn.

I'll also state that we make certain our wood is ideal. For this we want to burn wood that is 3 years in the stack after being split. That may seem like a lot but there are many benefits of doing this and besides, if we burn oak, for sure I do not want to burn that until it has dried for 3 years minimum.

Be sure to look in the Wood Shed forum here on hearth.com

 

[Dakotas Dad]

Wondering why you burn so much wood I thought it would be much more moderate than that in California..

Ray

While he is in a "moderate" part of Cali, you, like most, don't really realize how perfect California is. EVERY climate is available there. My dad has property outside Truckee, and when I was a youngster, it's where we lived year 'round. I have seen 20 FEET of snow on the ground, and that ain't a drift. Seen it snow a foot on the 4th of July...

When I was in middle school we moved to the central valley, and life was good.. Year 'round, an hour to hour and half east.. snow to play in and ski, same distance west, the ocean to play in and surf. Year 'round.

 

[HeatsTwice]

While he is in a "moderate" part of Cali, you, like most, don't really realize how perfect California is. EVERY climate is available there. My dad has property outside Truckee, and when I was a youngster, it's where we lived year 'round. I have seen 20 FEET of snow on the ground, and that ain't a drift. Seen it snow a foot on the 4th of July...

When I was in middle school we moved to the central valley, and life was good.. Year 'round, an hour to hour and half east.. snow to play in and ski, same distance west, the ocean to play in and surf. Year 'round.

Yup. You want it, we got it... Its fun. In the wine country, the colder it gets in the winter the better the grape crop is in the summer. But you have to be careful for what ya wish for, cause you just may get it.

Fine with me though, I have a Napoleon 1900, Obadiah's service and 15 cords of wood.

....Bring it on.... I'm ready....

 

[HeatsTwice]

Cool looks like a nice property you have there!

Ray

Thanks but, any property thats "yours" is nice - anywhere in this country. I've seen some outstanding spreads from the other experts on this site and often feel humbled.

 

[raybonz]

Thanks but, any property thats "yours" is nice - anywhere in this country. I've seen some outstanding spreads from the other experts on this site and often feel humbled.

I hear ya on that! It's quite nice in my location as well

Ray