Looking at options--wood cookstove plus...?

[Rusnakes]

Hi everyone,

We are currently wanting to put a Kitchen Queen 380 in our home for a cookstove (and domestic hot water in the heating season). We also were considering installing our already-purchased Jotul F55 in another section of the house. I'd love some feedback on things. We had a very well-versed stove installer come out last year and talk us into installing the Jotul into the center section of the house. But, we really want to do a cookstove with domestic hot water as well. Here are some of our thoughts/considerations.

House: 1832 original homestead farmhouse, in southeast Michigan. Renovated and reinsulated. Most is R-19, fiberglass insulation; some is R-23 mineral wool (and a few sections have 2x6 walls, so R 35-ish mineral wool). First floor is not insulated to the basement, which is a standard "Michigan" basement (granite and mortar walls, about 18 inches thick; cellar/Bilco door that is insulated slightly to the exterior).

We have a 2-story section of the house (about 1100 sqft) connected to a 1.5-story section (about 800 sqft)...connected to a 1-story section of the house (about 400 sq ft). Lots of doorways and walls (and windows)...everywhere. There is a door that separates the 1-story section from the other two sections. This is where the kitchen and a small laundry room exist.

Heating season: about 7 or 8 months out of the year (depending on how fall and spring are)

Stove ideas:

1) We wanted to put the Jotul at the junction of the 2-story and 1.5-story part of the house as a heat source (literally the center of the main two sections of the house). It would send heat throughout those two levels (there are two separate staircases, too, for circulation of air).

2) We'd like to install a wood cookstove, with plumbed in domestic hot water (tank in the same area, thermosyphon system), in the 1-story (400 sqft) section of the house. This would be in the current laundry room (has 3 small windows, cathedral ceiling, and the most-used exterior door in the house; this room is 16' x 8' and has a door to the kitchen area). This 1-story section is where we spend most of our time and we want to have the cookstove plus the hot water system more than anything. The stove installer guy originally said putting the Jotul back there was a terrible idea, since it is literally on the back side of the house and wouldn't distribute heat elsewhere efficiently. Which got us thinking that we might be able to install a cook stove back there instead and put the Jotul in the front section of the house

Biggest worry...we will roast ourselves out of the 1-story section with the KQ 380.

Thoughts?

 

[SteveKG]

It's likely gonna be hot in that room, with any wood stove, unless you fix up air circulation to the remainder of the house complex. I have no experience with your particular stove, but we've had three different cookstoves in our 175 sq. ft. kitchen, which is a room on one end of the house. However, you do not have to crank that stove up to maximum if you are heating an area with it, and not using the oven. I run ours pretty much every day in the winter. If I'm going to bake something, or etc., I occasionally open the door in that room to the outside, or crack it a bit. But I don't usually have to do that if the day is pretty cold anyway.

Heat distribution is going to be your project in any case, from the description you give of the floor plan. Our house is long and narrow, and we have the wood range at one end and a Woodstock at the other. It works out well...on the bitterest days, occasionally the rooms between the two stoves are a little cool, bathrobe situation.

As you can imagine, a cookstove takes hours, overnight sometimes, to cool down once heated up. This works out fine for us, as our laundry room is on an outside wall of the kitchen. I leave the door open to that room at night in freezing temp's, it can drop to low thirties in there after dark if I leave the door to that room closed off. In forty yr., we've never had the washing machine or water lines freeze, but I take no chances. The cookstove puts out enough heat at night, even if I let the fire die down, to keep things safe, freeze-wise.

I wouldn't get rid of our stove even if a couple times a month I need to crack open the outside door to cool the kitchen a bit.

 

[begreen]

It will get warm in that room, mostly at the peak of the high ceiling. I ran an old wood cook stove in a summer cabin that I worked on turning into a year round house. It was about 480 sq ft with a loft bedroom, and crappy insulation. The stove ran on most days that it got below 40F outside and the heat was most welcome. It would get hotter up in the loft, but not intolerably so, especially when the temps got below freezing. This was a simple open floorplan.

Does the cathedral ceiling abut the adjacent living space? I'm wondering if you could scavenge some of the heat that will pool up at the peak and blow it to the 1.5 story area. Can the door between the 1 story and 1.5 story be removed and the opening enlarged to encourage better heat circulation? In the least think about a way to blow cooler air from the 1.5 story space into the 1 story space. A simple table fan set on the floor and run at low speed will help.

 

[Rusnakes]

This is good to hear really. The 380 is the smallest wood stove from KQ, so I was hoping it wouldn't totally burn us out. I like being warm though... :D

Our house is heat only on the ground floor currently (propane furnace), so heat distribution is always a thing here. Good thing is we rarely go upstairs, except to sleep (when we like it cooler anyway). So I'm hoping with the spread between stoves, it will fit the bill (especially in light of your situation...your house sounds very similar to ours in length and with the kitchen/laundry combo).

It's likely gonna be hot in that room, with any wood stove, unless you fix up air circulation to the remainder of the house complex. I have no experience with your particular stove, but we've had three different cookstoves in our 175 sq. ft. kitchen, which is a room on one end of the house. However, you do not have to crank that stove up to maximum if you are heating an area with it, and not using the oven. I run ours pretty much every day in the winter. If I'm going to bake something, or etc., I occasionally open the door in that room to the outside, or crack it a bit. But I don't usually have to do that if the day is pretty cold anyway.

Heat distribution is going to be your project in any case, from the description you give of the floor plan. Our house is long and narrow, and we have the wood range at one end and a Woodstock at the other. It works out well...on the bitterest days, occasionally the rooms between the two stoves are a little cool, bathrobe situation.

As you can imagine, a cookstove takes hours, overnight sometimes, to cool down once heated up. This works out fine for us, as our laundry room is on an outside wall of the kitchen. I leave the door open to that room at night in freezing temp's, it can drop to low thirties in there after dark if I leave the door to that room closed off. In forty yr., we've never had the washing machine or water lines freeze, but I take no chances. The cookstove puts out enough heat at night, even if I let the fire die down, to keep things safe, freeze-wise.

I wouldn't get rid of our stove even if a couple times a month I need to crack open the outside door to cool the kitchen a bit.

 

[Rusnakes]

It will get warm in that room, mostly at the peak of the high ceiling. I ran an old wood cook stove in a summer cabin that I worked on turning into a year round house. It was about 480 sq ft with a loft bedroom, and crappy insulation. The stove ran on most days that it got below 40F outside and the heat was most welcome. It would get hotter up in the loft, but not intolerably so, especially when the temps got below freezing. This was a simple open floorplan.

Does the cathedral ceiling abut the adjacent living space? I'm wondering if you could scavenge some of the heat that will pool up at the peak and blow it to the 1.5 story area. Can the door between the 1 story and 1.5 story be removed and the opening enlarged to encourage better heat circulation? In the least think about a way to blow cooler air from the 1.5 story space into the 1 story space. A simple table fan set on the floor and run at low speed will help.

Thanks, begreen, for the thoughts. The cathedral ceiling is not adjacent to living space unfortunately. The kitchen area (regular 8-foot ceilings with an unheated attic above) is between the laundry (where the stove would go) and the 1.5-story section. We thought about the possibility of running duct work over to the 1.5-story section through all the insulation we have up there (about R-60 using Roxul batts), but was wondering if condensation would be an issue or not as the air moved across the 14 feet from the laundry to the 1.5-story section. Interesting consideration though...

 

[begreen]

We thought about the possibility of running duct work over to the 1.5-story section through all the insulation we have up there (about R-60 using Roxul batts), but was wondering if condensation would be an issue or not as the air moved across the 14 feet from the laundry to the 1.5-story section. Interesting consideration though...

For sure you would use an insulated duct and if it could be buried under a batt of insulation even better. I don't think condensation would be an issue. In winter the air is quite dry due to the differential in the low outside dew point.

 

[Texas123]

So, is it my understanding a wood cook stove, given it's mass, would be a good heater for a room if not a medium sized home?

 

[begreen]

Yes, though most have a small firebox so you need to be willing to stoke it more frequently. There are exceptions though with larger fireboxes.

 

[SteveKG]

The few newer cookstoves I've seen tend to have a larger firebox. I have seen some "reproduction" sorts of cookstoves which don't. I have two that do have decent-sized fireboxes. The one in my avatar is something like 17" deep [front to back], 11" wide, and 15" in height. I have another, a Rais Wittus from the early nineties, which is even larger though the oven is small.

I highly recommend you choose one with a larger firebox, or as BeGreen said, you'll be hassling with it frequently, and that gets old.