Newbie needs a new stove...

[stickburner]

And the glass on the door will stay cleaner than on the King model.

Thanks for your insight I appreciate it.

Do you think the princess would work well and with a good draft?

Please keep in mind that this would be with piping run of 7 ft above the stove into two 45's and a horizontal 1.5' run of stove pipe into the existing chimney.

The top of the exterior chimney has a no permanent massive concrete cap on it. I may not be able to fit any kind of stainless insulated chimney pipe liner into it due to this permanent concrete structure.

See attached chimney pics from my original post to see what I'm dealing with.

Thanks again for your advice.

 

[begreen]

I agree. Hence my surprise at your recommendation here, given the climate and reloading wishes of the OP.

Most modern stoves have rear heat shields these days as clearances become more important to many. I think a convective stove will do just as well if not better in this situation, but that's just one opinion.

 

[begreen]

The secondary combustion takes care of that smoke - if running the stove properly.
Pitchy wood is fine in modern stoves when operated as intended.

I like burning doug fir other than occasionally getting some sap on my fingers that's hard to get off. It burns well and is particularly low ash creating. We have burned well over 15 cords without issue.

 

[stoveliker]

I use mineral spirits or isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) to get rid of sap stains on my hands.
My clothes though - different story. My "pine set" look like oil (tin?) clothes now...

 

[begreen]

I use mineral spirits or isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) to get rid of sap stains on my hands.
My clothes though - different story. My "pine set" look like oil (tin?) clothes now...

Haven't tried alcohol. I use goo gone made from orange peels. It's pretty effective.

 

[stickburner]

Most modern stoves have rear heat shields these days as clearances become more important to many. I think a convective stove will do just as well if not better in this situation, but that's just one opinion.

Thank you begreen. I'll take another look at the T6 and am open to other suggestions of course.

I don't know if a masonry heater is right for me and my home but from the research I have done it sounds interesting.

Have you, or other members of this forum, every heard of the ECCO stove before from England? Please see web link below. This is not an advertisement for them...I just want to list the web link to open up a dialogue and to further discuss my options. From the pricing on the web site it seems these "stoves" are in a descent price range between $4k to $8k depending on size and output. Not many parts to wear out or replace on it.

(broken link removed to https://eccostove.com/models/e730)

Do you know of any similar masonry type heaters distributed in the US? I would be interested in also taking a look at those. I'm not in a rush as it seems none of these wood burning stoves or masonry heaters are available to install very quickly.

I like the fact the Ecco Stove can be shipped to you as blocks on pallets or in a crate, and assembled on site, layer by layer, like a Lego block set of smaller manageable pieces to make up the much larger thermal mass heater. I also like the fact it has a very large viewing window and only need to build a fire a couple of times a day. I do realize that a masonry heater will not respond quickly to a cold spell. It it is slow reacting but I think in the mild conditions here it would provide a nice even heat with cold spells taken out by the propane furnace if necessary. I guess it could also overheat the home in a situation where the cold spell disappeared quickly and the stove was still giving off heat. I did find a couple of YouTube videos of people discussing them and that own them in the United States.

It is basically a "masonry heater" made out of pyrolytic silicone carbide that is loaded with heat from one or two hot and fast fires (1.5 to 2 hours each) charging up the masonry heater. It gives off the heat over the next 12 hours where the process is repeated. Fire size or frequency can be adjusted to produce more heat or less heat. Stove is very efficient because the fire is hot and fast (900° F to 1200° F) provided you have proper low moisture wood (15%)...just like any modern wood burning stove.

Just looking to explore my options. I haven't yet figured out what stoves or heaters would work best for me. I know nothing is perfect , however, I definitely want to pick something soon.

Thanks again for all the helpful information.

 

[stickburner]

I like burning doug fir other than occasionally getting some sap on my fingers that's hard to get off. It burns well and is particularly low ash creating. We have burned well over 15 cords without issue.

That is good to hear I have a lot of Douglas fir from the CZU fire that I could split up, s1eason and eventually burn.

Can Douglas fir be a good choice for the stoves discussed so far on the thread?

 

[Respect Wood]

We have a 2600 square foot home in MO. The main floor is all windows. We face south, the stove is located in a room on the north with 16 foot vaults. We have a Manchester with no blower. It will run you out of the main floor when it's 20 out ( currently 18 out and main floor is 71 and upstairs is 68 basement 63) and sleeps perfectly. It will run all night with the right wood and allow for easy restart in AM. It might be 63-65 in the AM around 730am. We just added a damper and it really stretched out the burn cycle. House is 2005 construction with 2x4 walls. 23 windows on the main floor. Basement is kept warm with a small Infrared heater. We considered a Jotul and Lopi but opted for the Manchester because it has a finished rear panel which can be seen from the outside. Side load is great. We installed our stove in the only place available. If the house was designed around it like yours I imagine the performance would only improve. Good luck.

 

[stickburner]

Thank you "Respect Wood" I appreciate your reply and insight.

I'm bouncing back and forth between choosing a blaze King King, princess or possibly the Hearthstone Manchester.

Most likely not going to go with a masonry heater as their massive in size, cost around 10K or more, require a Mason to install for an additional cost and take up a lot of space. It was interesting to think about it as they only require burning a fairly small load of wood, once or twice a day and getting 24 hours of heat. It seems pretty nice in theory but I'm worried about throttling it down because I get a lot of solar heat gain during the day.

How often are you firing your Manchester?

Are you loading it with full or nearly full loads when doing so?


Thanks again,

 

[Respect Wood]

Welcome. Today it's hovering around 40 and it's damp and starting to rain. No sun to be had. I loaded full at 945p last night and woke up at 6ish and then added about 5 splits and it took off with little but raking the coals forward. House was 63. They were maybe 16" splits. The box was far from full. My wife added another 5 split at 1pm. We've maintained 71 on the main floor since 9am. I would say we're loading just over 50% full considering the shorter length of the splits.

I split a bunch of my own last fall to size of roughly 22" and when I pack it full on hot coals with those it really stretches out the burn time. We're burning mostly oak and hickory.

We're still experimenting but feel we have a pretty good beat on it with the quality of wood and engaging the damper on the flue. Can keep it burning clean with very little color on the glass at all. Mostly just in the lower corners.

That BK is a heck of a stove. I was fine with black but my wife wanted something more ornamental. Have not regretted it, though. When the morning sun does hit the stove that brown enamel really looks good.

 

[stickburner]

Thanks again Respect Wood I appreciate your detailed reply.

Took my wife to look at some of the stoves and we prefer the slightly more modern aesthetics of the Green Mountain 80, the BK Princess, or BK Chinook 30.2 over the Manchester, or T6. The dealer did not have the Chinook or the princess or the king to look at but had similar stoves like the Green Mountain 40 and a regency stove. I am mostly leaning towards the Chinook 30.2, at least in the aesthetic department.

Are you there other stoves, more modern looking, kind of like the Chinook 30.2 that I should be checking out?

What are the tradeoffs in daily use of the GM80 hybrid versus the Princess or Chinook 30.2?

Is there a noticeable ease of use difference in using the thermostat knob on the Blazeking stoves versus using the air adjustment slider on the GM80?

I can see that the BlazeKing stoves are built like a tank... Does this burley construction extend to the Chinook? I don't know much about the build quality and reliability of the Green Mountain stoves.

Also the local dealer has never sold a King 40, only has sold the Princess in the past.

Dealer also thinks the Blazeking King would be too much of a stove for my home and this mild climate?

What are your thoughts?

 

[stoveliker]

I have a Chinook 30.2. Can't compare to the others you list as I don't have experience with them.
I can say what I like about the Chinook (and that'll be similar to other BK stoves, e.g. Princess). The thermostat - it is truly set it and forget it. It results in a very even heat output over the burn cycle (at the very end it does go down a bit - maybe only because the radiative heat thru the window is less with a smaller pile of coals).

Crank it higher and you have a nice flame show, a bit lower, and it's lazy blue northern lights, a bit lower and you have a nice warm glowing cat-eye in the dark. And, you can dial it down a lot, allowing continuous heating and hot reloads in shoulder seasons rather than intermittent fires with cold reloads and temperature fluctuations because continuous fires would be too hot.

Yes, others say other stoves can have an even output too. However most (...) folks going to a BK do laud this aspect of a BK.
Yes, you can make smaller fires in another stove. I still prefer to stuff the box, char the load, dial way down, and walk away for 20+ hrs.
Note that on my first try I reached 26 hrs - of course "on low", so with less heat output (even a BK can't make energy out of nothing, but depends on the quantity of fuel in the tanks). This is not a marketing gimmick.

The Princess has a deeper belly, i.e. you can take out ashes less frequently, than the Chinook. I find that may not be that big of a deal because I try to stuff the thing as full as possible, so when I reach 2" of ashes I'll take some out (Chinook has a belly of 2.5" I think) because I can put less splits in it otherwise. So while having a deeper belly in a Princess, I'd still not "use" that belly for ashes...

I do have to say, all stoves you mention need *dry*, DRY wood. Make sure you have a moisture meter (and know how to use it). You'll be disappointed otherwise.
Also, make sure your chimney is compliant with the requirements/recommendations in the manuals. Not doing so will make you disappointed - and possibly unsafe.

Regardless, all those stoves you note are good ones, from what I've seen here. There is likely no mistake possible in that respect (if your chimney meets requirements for all).
I'll let others praise their other stoves - deservedly so.

 

[stickburner]

I met with one of the licensed installers for the Blaze King dealer in my area. Aside from completely missing the 9:00 a.m. appointment and showing up 4 hours late, and mentioning that they partied hard the night before, they seemed to be very troubled, and confused by, or scared of, the purpose built wood stove hearth and chimney that we have.

Our chimney is purpose built for a large wood stove. It is massively overbuilt, with huge clearances, and works very well with the Vermont Casting stove we have now. The draft is fantastic and there is never any smoke coming out of the stove unless I open the door without opening the bypass first. There is 18 feet of chimney internal to the home with an additional 7 ft above the roof line straight up for a total of 25 ft of straight chimney flue with a sealed door clean out in the hallway of the house. The primary reason we want a new stove is to avoid from using a wheelbarrow full of wood to fuel it on a daily basis. I want at least an overnight burn time and a set it and forget it stove.

The installers did not even bother going onto my roof to check anything out about the chimney or flue.

I mentioned they could drop the pipe size down to 6 inch, use a flexible liner, use 45° elbows, whatever they needed to make it as easy as possible. They responded why not keep your 8 in set up and just get a new 8-in stove. I said yes that is why I was looking at the blaze King King 40. I mentioned I might prefer the princess as the window might stay cleaner and I'd rather run the stove a little higher output on the princess instead of super low for the king and possibly overheat the room.

They said they would talk to the dealer, and mentioned that he was a " stove whisperer" and that they would get back to me.

A day or so later I heard back from them, and to my surprise, they said I needed to abandon my current chimney and punch a hole through my roof to run a new 6-in chimney setup. My initial gut reaction was... " You've got to be joking "

Their proposal is completely ridiculous, unnecessary, ugly and overly expensive in my opinion. Not to mention I have a concrete tile roof and I'm not letting these guys do anything including punching another hole in it when there is a massive purpose-built wood stove chimney right there to utilize.

They have plenty of room to work with including 7 feet of stove pipe height above the stove before it turns 90 degrees and punches into the internal chimney flu with another 15 ft of flu above that, going straight up. They have a choice to either keep 8 in of flu size or go down to 6 in.

They also said to avoid Blazeking, Hearthstone or any catalyst stoves.

Needless to say, but I don't think I will be using these guys at all for installation.

I did not see anything in the Blaze King insulation manual that would preclude my chimney setup. Am I missing something here?

So, based on the above information, what do you guys suggest?

 

[stoveliker]

I think their thinking may be because of the need to have an insulated chimney. Not for clearance issues necessarily (though that may be necessary, but if I read your description it may not - I don't know), but to keep the flue gases warm enough to prevent condensation (creosote build up).

Maybe adding a 6" insulated liner in the current chimney is not feasible? And thus they suggested a new one?

I understand you not wanting this. But I'd ask them first why they suggested what they did.

(And yes, their late behavior and remarks about partying were not reassuringly professional...)

 

[stickburner]

I was under the impression that cresote was mostly due to burning wet wood. I also thought that as long as I was burning roughly 15% to 18% MC wood, new design catalytic stoves and for the most part, new design secondary burn stoves, would eliminate the majority of creosote.
My stove pipe and chimney heights exceed the minimums in the Blaze King install manual. The BlazeKing manual does recommend an insulated liner but almost my entire chimney is interior to my home and thus "insulated" for roughly 20 feet out of the total of 25 foot height. The clean out is interior to my home as well.

I understand what you're saying stoveliker and definitely appreciate your insight here. The installers seem to be ignoring the substantial benefits that my existing "indoor"purpose built wood stove hearth and chimney are offering here.

The house has had a wood stove burning in it for over 32 years without any issues whatsoever. The clay lined chimney is in pristine condition, was just inspected 6 months ago, and is cleaned yearly with about 3 to 4 months of stove use per year. There is absolutely no creosote build up even with a 35-year-old VC vigilant in use.

I really don't see any glaring issues here but im not an expert.

 

[stoveliker]

Being inside is not at all equivalent to being insulated. Consider 400 F inside the pipe and 70 F inside or 30F outside.
I.e. the temperature difference (and thus the cooling of the pipe) is either 330 F or 370 F. Not all that different.

Second, creosote can still occur with dry wood. Due to the chemistry of burning, for complete combustion (i.e. a perfect world), you get about 5 lbs of water for every 10 lbs of wood you burn.

Yes, wet wood makes the combustion less complete, and thus provides more smoke particles (that with the water can condense into creosote), but your combustion will never be perfect, also in a modern stove. And thus creosote is produced. The trick is to not have it condense in your pipe. And thus to keep its temperature higher than 250 all the way. Hence the insulation, because these stoves can have very low exhaust gas temperature.

 

[stoveliker]

The old wood stove was very different; much less efficient. I.e. blowing a lot of the heat up thru the chimney. And that kept the chimney hot, preventing "issues".

A modern stove really is a different beast.

 

[stoveliker]

Finally, code requires to have at least 2" between the masonry and any combustible. If you don't have that, you are at risk. An insulated liner does not need 2" clearance from the outside of the masonry to any combustible.

Sorry for the many posts. Things pop in my head...

 

[MR. GLO]

Finally, code requires to have at least 2" between the masonry and any combustible. If you don't have that, you are at risk. An insulated liner does not need 2" clearance from the outside of the masonry to any combustible.

Sorry for the many posts. Things pop in my head...

Can rock wool fill the void between the chimney and framing?

 

[stoveliker]

Can rock wool fill the void between the chimney and framing?

From what I understand it doesn't matter what is in between (air or non-combustible rockwool), it needs to be 2". Insulation outside the masonry does not change that requirement.

 

[stoveliker]

Of course @bholler is th e resident expert on this.

 

[bholler]

Can rock wool fill the void between the chimney and framing?

Yes that would be fine

 

[stoveliker]

Can rock wool fill the void between the chimney and framing?

ok, I misunderstood the question. So, yes you can. (But it doesn't change the 2" requirement.)

 

[bholler]

ok, I misunderstood the question. So, yes you can. (But it doesn't change the 2" requirement.)

Correct

 

[stickburner]

What non cat stoves are worth considering?

It would be nice to stay with 8" pipe size but not absolutely necessary.

Thanks