Search for the Right Stove Continues

[Jbird560]

As stated in my previous thread, we are building a larger cabin in SW Arkansas as our permanent retirement home. 1152 sqare foot bottom floor with cathedral ceiling and about one third of the area in an open loft area. SW Arkansas. We have been looking at wood burning stoves to be the primary source of heat. I probably need to add that we are using thermal pane windows along with some fixed glass at the top of the cathedral ceilng. The roof is metal with 2 X 6 joists and plan to fill the space between the decking and the finished ceiling with blown in cellulose. the walls are 2 X 4 with R-board (6.5 r factor) plus filling the 4" wall cavities with blown in cellulose. We will caulk everything. Pier and beam foundation. Still studying what to do about insulating the floor.

Hope this gives a good idea of what I will be trying to heat with my stove purchase. When I started looking at stoves on the internet I thought this would be a quick selection process, then
I found this web site! Reading everything here I can find and trying to avoid making a poor decision is daunting to say the least. I really appreaciate all the help from the members here. I have gleaned a few things so far that are coloring my search. The Harman was eliminated due to poor end user reviews. I also am coming to the conclusion that down draft stoves are problem prone and fussier to operate. The wife and I went to Little Rock yesterday to look at stoves and saw some beautiful and not so much units and am not much closer to a conclusion. The stoves we
looked at are the following:

Jotul Black Bear-latches and hinges seemed loose and stove did not seem to be top quality

Buck Stoves-Solid construction but somewhat spartan and ugly to our eyes (great performance
trumps cosmetics)

Lopi Leyden-nice looking but down draft technology which has mixed reviews (mostly bad)

Quadra-Fire Millenium 3100-Solid construction and best looking plate steel stove

Hearthstone Heritage-Back Iron finish- Very good looking stove-megabucks for us ($2400 for
stove only). Of course my wife thinks this is the one she has
to have.

Drolet Legend-Like the looks of this one but have not been able to see one in person
to see if it is made well and if it will meet my needs. Not much info on
burn times, etc.


As mentioned above my wife would like to make the stretch to the Hearthstone but there are
other considerations. Right now it is 14 degrees here with some wind and we are freezing our
butts off (unvented propane heater in our small cabin). Seems we are having colder winters
every year up here on this mountain our cabin is on so we are motivated that warmer is better.
But being realistic we know that we may have two months of very cold weather here but there are several months each year where we will start out with a fire in the morning but let it go out
during the day and fire it up in the evening for the night. My concern is that a soap stone stove
will not cool down fast enough to conform to the warm afternoons. I have zero experience with
wood stoves as we have only had heat-a-lator fire places in previous homes we owned in Texas.
We spent 8 years in Vermont previous to moving back home a year ago and all of our heating up
there was done with oil furnaces ($$$$). Would hate to feed one of those on retirement income
and rising oil prices! We will have backup propane wall heaters here but would like for them to
never come on.

Well, that's the whole story and I would appreaciate your best advice. Also would like to know which of the above listed stoves are "down draft" technology. One last thing, what does "shoulder season" refer to. lol.

Thanks again,
Jbird

 

[snowtime]

This is your heat not some backup so I would make sure you get a stove that will make it through the night. I recommend the T5 from Pacific energy. Its a strong welded steel firebox surrounded by a cast outer skin. What this does is give you a comfortable heat that you can sit close to. This is great for close clearances to furniture. The cast looks great and your wife might love it. The other benefit is the top is movable trivets that let you warm mitts or dry things out and you can cook on it. The draw back is it is a pricey stove. This stove will be important to your everyday life so I would consider spending the cash.

 

[fredarm]

"Shoulder season" is fall and spring, when you're not burning full time (if you're a full time burner). It's a great time to burn less-than-optimal wood (punky, chunks and uglies) because you're not trying to get the maximum heat out of your stove.

Second the recommendation on the T5. I've been very happy with my PE insert.

 

[PLAYS WITH FIRE]

I kinda think of it like this. Am I buying a stove that will outlast me or am I buying a pair of shoes? I think in this case form follows function.

Your abin sounds like it will be beautiful and air tight like a birds A55, so you may want a real nice stove and conversation piece. I have a Buck 74 that is not too perty to look at because I got the Plain Jane model and use it as an insert. However this stove is quite the performer. I don't burn 24/7 but would like to just don't trust wife yet, I love my home they way it looks now!

I think I would look for something built like a tank and could take anything I can throw at it!

 

[begreen]

This is a continuation of thread: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/70143/

 

[Jbird560]

At your suggestion I looked on the website at the P.E. Alderlea T5. Looks like the size is right and there are dealers in Arkansas. This is a very nice looking stove and I like the warming shelves that swivel out. What would you guess the approximate price of this unit in black iron to be?
Thanks,
Jbird

 

[begreen]

The link in previous thread for the T5 included the price. IIRC it was around $2K.

 

[WidowMaker]

Blaze King Princess or the Lopi Liberty

 

[Jbird560]

Looking for the right stove sure takes a lot twists, curves, and re-evaluating. I think I have found a deal I can't refuse. Odds are good that our new stove will be the Woodstock Fireview. I have satisfied myself that all the hysteria about catalytic converter problems is a little overblown and
is easily off set by the savings in wood, labor, tool wear and tear, and long burns. I have read all the reviews I could find (a bunch) and have never researched anything I have bought that has
such universal high praise for the product as well as the service from the manufacturer. Several reports of no charge repairs past the warranty period. Compare that with all the complaints about other manufacturers trying to dodge reponsibility for failures during the warranty period. Talked to the people at Woodstock today and they were friendly, helpfull, and went out of their way to answer all my questions. Couple that with the six month unconditional return policy
(they even pay the freight for returns) and the $500 dollar off sale currently in place and you have winner, winner, chicken dinner in my book. To add icing to the cake they have a lay a way plan that allows you to pay the unit off over a period up to 12 monts before taking delivery. This works out great for us as our construction of the cabin will mean that we will not be ready to use the stove till next fall. If there is a better deal on a better product I can't find it.
Jbird

 

[begreen]

Sounds like a good decision, especially for 24/7 heating.

 

[Todd]

Great choice, the stove will serve you well.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Jbird, that sound great and I think you will be very satisfied. Congratulations.

 

[shawneyboy]

Sounds like you found the right one... Now start gathering up some fuel You have a year so we don't want to hear anything about you having high MC wood Go man GO

Shawn

 

[Jbird560]

Speaking of wood, we have about 3/4 of a cord of oak that we cut, split, and stacked about 2 months ago and we plan to continue to cut and stack wood as we progress with building this cabin. We are building the floor now and then will have
a local contractor put the cabin in the dry and we will take it from there. Our neighbor was nice enough to offer the use of
his gasoline log splitter for splitting that first batch we cut when we were clearing the building site but we don't want to have to borrow his splitter and would like our own. The one he has is very big and expensive so I have been looking at
hydraulic splitters powered by electric motors in the $500 range. We have no need to drag the splitter into the woods so
we think this will be a economical alternative. Can anyone recommend an electric splitter in our price range?
Thanks,
Jbird

Note..we have the wood split and stacked in a single row on landscape timbers but it is not in a shed and not covered. I guess we had better find something like old tin or a tarp to put on top to shed the rain. We plan to build a wood shed to store our wood in after it is dried.

 

[snowleopard]

My experience suggests that once a female bonds with soapstone, nothing else will ever be anything but second-best. You don't want to be the man who kept her from that stove. I think you're going to be absolutely happy with that stove. Another appealing feature is the little `baking box' created in the cat compartment--throw in a few 'taters to bake while your toasting your buns.

I wouldn't worry about the soapstone cooling off enough in the afternoons. You'll find the rhythm of when to burn and when to let it go out. My shoulder season is probably akin to your winter weather, and I found that usually all I needed was a good evening fire. Stove is still warm in the morning, cool in the afternoon when the sun has taken over warming the house. As it starts to cool off, I've already got the fire laid to light. Lather, rinse, repeat. Will you be putting the stove under the loft end of the house? or out in the cathedral ceiling end? If the latter, you'll need to think about moving the heat to the other end of the bottom floor. I can understand wanting to have the stove in the `great room', but if it's at the far end under the open ceiling, heat is mostly going to want to go up. A compromise might be to tuck it just under the loft, so that the stove pipe goes up through the loft instead of up through the open space. Especially if you run a transom the length of the great room, that will catch some of that heat spillage, and vortext (yes, I just made that word up: vortext--to move heat from one place to another via vortices) the warm air around the under-loft space.

Another option would be a little-schmittle supplementary stove back at the other end of the underloft area. Like a little Morso Squirrel stove. Cathedral ceilings are a triumph of form over function, so need to be thought out and compensated for in the building process. I looked at a house when I was shopping with one of these. It had some really nice qualities, and I liked it a lot, but that ceiling scared me off. Someone I knew later bought that house, and they told me they were spending $700 a month heating the place that first winter. Got a Toyo stove in later that helped a lot, but it was cold downstairs. I"m guessing that the high ceilings helps with cooling in the summer, though.

 

[Jbird560]

The floor plan is very open. The bottom floor is 36' wide by 32'. The left hand 13' wide by 32' area contains the bedroom, bath, closet/utility room. The balance is LR and kitchen and all open. The open loft area is above the
13' X32' area. The stove will have to go in the back corner of the LR. Of course heat will not be an issue upstairs as
it is open and is just a hobby area for the wife (quilting machine). I think I have come up with a good way to move air around the house. I plan to build a 6" x 6" wood chase that goes from about one foot down from the peak of the cathedral ceiling in the loft down to the bedroom with a small industrial fan my son has access to installed near the bottom of the chase in the bed room. I believe that will take in the hot air that gathers in the peak of the loft area
and move it downstairs to the bedroom, down the short hall and back up to the loft. Hard to explain without a picture of the floor plan but I think this will work with maybe a thru the wall transfer fan (like the one sold on the Woodstock site) to move air into the bath and closet area. We also probably have a single panel propane heater in the bath to
turn on if and when required.
Jbird

 

[Todd]

Ceiling fans do wonders for moving heat. If you installed one in the great room and ran it in reverse the heat would be pushed back down along the outside walls then return back up creating a good circulation.

 

[Jbird560]

Yep, we definitely will have ceiling fans in the great room area. We have always had a ceiling fan in the bedroom but we are not going to put one in this one. We noticed that we never run the fan in the bedroom because neither one of us likes wind blowing on our face while we sleep (causes headaches). One trick that we have learned on the forum here is about having a small fan blowing out of the room you want to move warm air into. Works so much better than trying to blow warm into the room from another room.

 

[Renovation]

We noticed that we never run the fan in the bedroom because neither one of us likes wind blowing on our face while we sleep (causes headaches).

Have you tried reversing the fan so it sucks upwards rather than blows down? That can reduce the feeling of wind. Just a thought.

EDIT:

My experience suggests that once a female bonds with soapstone, nothing else will ever be anything but second-best.

Lol, thanks Snow. I felt like I was hearing a voice-over in a National Geographic special.

 

[Jbird560]

Yea, bed is against the wall and we can't stand it with either setup on direction. Should work well to move the air around in the great room of the new house.
Jbird

 

[CARNY]

I had a DUTCHWEST cast iron cat It has now been recycled Had to take it apart way too often. Would like to have a PE SUMMIT but was discouraged of cost. Bought Drolet Legend for 800.00 at Big R. Lots of heat burn time almost to long, hard to haul ashes because of many hot,live coals. only negitive so far : paint take a LONG time to cure, and door hindges look a little small for size of door. When it heats up great secondaries. Can't stop watching the fire

 

[hotprinter]

If this is your main heat, I would recommend a Blaze King Ultra. It has the longest burns available and I am finding that is what means the most to me. Even when it was -45 I only was loading every 12 hours, now that it is above zero it will go and go. I think I could go over 24 hours easily. Whatever you get, I would recommend a cat stove, they are very efficient and clean burning. Another thing I forgot to mention is that I have been burning 24/7 since we got it 17 days ago and have not had to empty the ashes yet. Less loading and less emptying is really nice.