I finally did the log in thing for this site which has been useful for years. Weirdly I read this thread after having seen something on another thread - a photo of a brand new still-in- box stove that we put in a remote cabin 20 years and which worked miracles.
Here is where we put the Waterford Leprechaun:
(1) Old - very old - 900 sq ft single story cabin in the mountains of Virginia
(2) Cabin originally built of rough cut lumber - not a piece of insulation anywhere except someone had put vinyl siding over the wood. Only "insulation" was some gypsum wallboard, rough boards nailed horizonatally making up the walls and then vinyl siding.
(3) Single pane windows - we did slap up some cheap storms on it.
(4) No foundation, no crawlspace, no basement - just sitting there on rock piers with the one side of the house 2 1/2 feet off the ground because the ground dropped away.
The bloody place gave new meaning to drafty - I have had 3 -season back packing tents that had fewer drafts and better insulation.
In order to be able to use it during the cooler months, we put in a little cast iron wood stove (early EPA) which was rated for 800 sq ft. at 33,000 BTU (but the stoves by that company were probably way way under-rated on power.) It was THIS STOVE
The Waterford Leprechaun worked - and worked fabulously. No pipes froze. It burned small stuff (so the wood supplier gave us great prices because no one else wanted the little wood.) Stuff it up over a nice bed of coals, down the damper and it held a low burn, heat and coals all night so all you had to do was toss in some small tinder and up it came in the AM and was blasting heat within 15 minutes.
And it passed the ultimate test of extreme conditions. We had gone up to check the cabin in the winter and a record snow/ice storm hit. Normal winter temperature stayed above 0 - it hit MINUS 31 degrees. We were stuck at the cabin as our 1/2 mile driveway was blocked by a 3' diameter oak that came down. Electric was out - ended up being out for a week. So no range to cook (electric), no refrigerator (at least that could go outside), no well pump (but we had a creek next to the cabin) --- and the only heat was this little stove.
So I cooked on top of the wood stove - even baked a cake on top. We had coffee and hot meals. We had hot water - I stuck a 20 qt pan on the wood stove and it heated it. And we had showers because I pulled the solar shower out of the pack backing equipment and hung it on a nail in the bath after filling it with hot water heated on the little wood stove.
And we were WARM - warm enough that we could wear cotton sweaters inside as if we were home with central heating. That little stove kicked way beyond its rating - would run wide open with no problems and would held heat over night. (Although at minus 31 we did have to refill it around 3 or 4 AM where normally there were still hot coals in the AM)
Nothing fancy but it was the first company to use secondary burning. Simple damper system controlled it beautifully. Burned anything I put in it without fussing about whether the wood was 6 months old or 6 years old. Never had a fit or a snit and you couldn't kill it unless you blew it up with dynamite.
We sold the camp several years back. Buyer didn't want the stove (building new cabin) so we sold it. Last time I heard from the person who bought the stove, it was still going strong - no breakdowns, no repairs, no parts needing replaced - as of 3 years ago and the stove was pushing 20 years old.
It was a Waterford Leprechaun. It outmatched and outperformed its closest competitor the small Morsø.
Check this thread for a picture of it on the thread called "The Clarks Ace Hardware Warehouse/Time Capsule Thread."
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/70573/
I called Jay who started the thread to see what other Waterfords he has NIB. He still has the Leprechaun. Now it is too small for our set up or I would buy it in a heartbeat. Maybe I still will if he can rattle up a larger Waterford so we will end up running 2 (closing on new house. this month and it needs a wood stove...)
Solid, near-indestructible, cast iron, idiot-proof small stoves that do more than they should are hard to come by.
I should have kept that stove........sigh............
BTW< yeah, I know only warranty status is questionble since Waterford pullled out of the US and the only parts source for Waterford is Lehmans Hardware but since they don't break down - or do so very very rarely - so what? We ran that thing hard - really hard and often wide open whenever we were at the camp and it ran pretty much the equivalent of 1/2 a heating season for nearly 10 years before we sold the place. Only thing it ever needed was a new door gasket available at any hardware store.
Check it out - you aren't far from Maryland.