New From Montana

[bhylton]

All,

New member here from NW MT saying hello.

we are building a new home starting in a couple months and am in the search for a stove.
specs:
1500 sqft
2/3 of house is open vaulted ceilings with a 400sqft upstairs.
pipe will be a 24ft straight shot with 16ft inside the house

Wood:
mainly Doug Fir and Larch, will also burn lodgepole pine.... maybe spruce...hopefully not though haha

Stoves available locally:
Pacific Energy, Lopi, Jotul, Quadrafire, Blaze King, Napoleon, Ironstrike??

What are some opinions? really looking for a stove that will burn all night during our long, cold nights.

would a large stove like a PE summit choked down be too much? i'm concerned that the smaller stove wont burn long enough, hot enough to keep the back corners of our 1st level warm through the night

thanks all!

 

[kennyp2339]

I think the PE summit will do you good, your going to loose some heat to the vaulted ceiling, even with fans going, just the way it is, please keep in mind that you will want to use double wall (dvl) pipe from the stove collar to the support box, single wall pipe will cool down to much with the length and you will be fighting creosote development.
Now if you spend the extra coin and have a supper tight home I'd recommend a BK stove, these are nice because you can turn them way down and have long burns when outdoor temps are marginal, and still turn the stove up high for polar outbreaks, plus the bk's love soft wood.

 

[bhylton]

I think the PE summit will do you good, your going to loose some heat to the vaulted ceiling, even with fans going, just the way it is, please keep in mind that you will want to use double wall (dvl) pipe from the stove collar to the support box, single wall pipe will cool down to much with the length and you will be fighting creosote development.
Now if you spend the extra coin and have a supper tight home I'd recommend a BK stove, these are nice because you can turn them way down and have long burns when outdoor temps are marginal, and still turn the stove up high for polar outbreaks, plus the bk's love soft wood.

thanks for the reply. I was under the impression that the softwood may not burn got enough on low for the catalyst to operate correctly? ?

 

[begreen]

Softwood will burn fine in either stove. We burn mostly doug fir, sometimes hemlock or alder and have a stash of hardwood for really cold weather. Many BK owners burn ponderosa pine or doug fir, low and slow. A friend up north heats their 1600 sq ft home with a Summit burning softwood. It's their only source of heat.

When it is really cold out you will be pushing the stove harder for more heat. Burn times will decrease on either stove. Our overnight fires range from 10-12 hrs to 8 hrs. depending on how hard the stove is pushed. We use the heat pump mostly when temps are above 47º outside, so our stove never smolders.

Your best investment will be to super-insulate and seal the house well. Spend extra for cold climate windows. That will pay off for the life of the house all year round. In a tight house the stove will need an outside air connection, so plan on one from the start. And yeah, vaulted ceilings are not the best for heating, especially if the power goes out. The heat will pocket at the peak and stay there without some means of increasing convection like a ceiling and stove fan. Stove location can sometimes help improve this a little.

 

[Zack R]

I'm always recommending the Jotul F45, it could be a good option for the space you describe. It's also 2020 EPA compliant.

Its nice to hear from someone who is building a house and actually has the foresight to plan the wood stove correctly. As @kennyp2339 mentioned stick with double wall indoors as it will retain heat better which really helps with a strong draft and minimum creosote.

 

[John Galt]

Hi neighbor. That set up sounds like my last house. Heated it with a Quadra Fire. Loft was very warm, main level was nice. I spent most of the day feeding the fire and woke up to a cold stove every morning since I refused to get up in the middle of the night to load it again. A ceiling fan stirred the air but it was impossible to balance the two areas. Everyone I know has a loft and high ceilings, that style is great for the summers but never made sense for heating.
I'm currently building and will put in a BK King for the burn times and thermostat.

 

[bhylton]

I will take a look through the BK thread here. Am i going to be able to burn old bills and paperwork in the cat stoves? any problems starting a fire with fatwood, newspaper, paper grocery bags? i would hate to get one and have to buy a new $200 catalyst every season.

Where you at in MT, JG?

 

[John Galt]

I'm just a bit west of Missoula.

There are people here that say never to burn anything in a cat besides wood or pure wood byproduct. Fatwood and newspaper are fine, bags may be borderline because of the glue. I'm not taking a chance with mine and will still use a burn barrel. I expect the cat to last about 3 years with burning 24/7 for 5 months so there will be an ongoing expense but that is a convenience charge so we can come home to a warm house after being gone all day. I hated getting home to a cold stove and 50 degrees inside and then only burn one load before bed. That was a log cabin so no insulation and took a long time to bring that mass up to temp.

 

[Simonkenton]

Yes the vaulted ceiling is a killer for the wood stove. I am in the North Carolina mountains. I have a new addition that is 20 x 24, with a 22 foot high cathedral ceiling.
The last two days we have had a low of 16 and a high of 30, really cold for these parts, Good God am I burning up the wood! And I am burning hickory, it is a lot better than Larch. You need to put a ceiling fan or two in there and try to drive some of that heat down.

If I were in the Land of the Cold, like Montana, I would not have built the cathedral ceiling I would have the 8 foot ceiling.

 

[bhylton]

I just spoke with my BK dealer... He is saying the catalysts on these stoves last like 10 years and he has never seen one need replacing, and that they are bullet proof... never heard of "thermal shock" cracking them or trouble with clogging, just clean once a year normally. sounds great... but very contradictory to some reports here about replacing them every 2-3 seasons. got some thinking to do.

as to the vaulted ceilings.. yeah, they make it tougher to heat. but nothing like looking out big picture windows at the mountains. we have family just down the road with a very similar house and they heat it with about 3-4 cords per year just fine. that said i'm thinking we will be ok. thankfully its a dry cold unlike you folks get in the Carolina's and Virginia's

 

[bhylton]

I'm just a bit west of Missoula.

I'm up in the Flathead

 

[byQ]

There's a Tulikivi dealer in Livingston. Probably pretty expensive but maybe they have some end of the season deals.

 

[mar13]

I have a Slightly bigger, but similar sounding style of home. Much more temperate climate for me, however. There can be a huge difference between upstairs and downstairs temps, especially in downstairs side rooms. I'd think about some supplmental ways to heat the downstairs side rooms so that you don't have to roast the upstairs of the house to keep downstairs warm. Occasionally kicking on the central furnace helps distribute (and add) heat around my house.

And in Montana, for a split level house, I'd go for the Summit over an F45, assuming an F45 would be equivalent to a T5/Super.

 

[Woody Stover]

If the area where you spend most of your time is fairly close to where the stove is going, I might opt for a more radiant design with no side shields. That will heat up objects and occupants nearby, keeping more of the heat where you need it. A convective design will heat air more, which will rise to the vaulted ceiling. Some of the Jotul stoves are more radiant.
If you are pretty handy, you can buy a stove brand where the dealer is further away, and handle maintenance yourself. That will expand your stove choices, if you want a radiant stove. Dealers are a crap shoot anyway. I'd guess that a fair number aren't all that good.
You can have the builder install the chimney and hearth, but read the installation instructions for the stove and for the chimney, and make sure everything is done right.
With good insulation and air-sealing, you won't need a big stove cranking big heat all night; The house will maintain temp pretty well. If the heat kicks on for a hour before you get up, no bigs.

 

[mar13]

My previous stove was a very radiant VC. It still got very warm on the second floor relative to downstairs. Of course a ceiling fan, which I can't install without great expense or aesthetic cost, would probably help.

 

[bhylton]

There is definitely no way around the blatant disadvantage of this style house when it comes to even heating. That's said, it's a beautiful house design and being brand new, should hold heat just fine.

An idea I have is to have two air returns for the heat pump. One down low, and one way up high. So in the winter, you can just run the furnace fan (no heat) but have the option to select to pull air from near the peak of the house to recirculate. Vis versa in the summer

 

[Simonkenton]

As I said I just built my addition 4 years ago. It is a very well built log cabin with R 44 in the ceiling.
Expensive insulated windows, they cost $700 each.
I know it gets a lot colder in Montana than it does here.
If I were you I would go with R60 in that ceiling.

 

[bhylton]

Yeah man, I hear ya