Soapstone and Water Heating Considerations on Buying a Wood Stove

[begreen]

Begreen, I'm interested in the Alderlea T6. I currently have a Quadra fire 4300. Looking for a bigger box and higher output. We have cooked on flat top stoves for years (boiling water, pancakes, frying veggies). On your stove with the warming shelves over the stove not extended can you for instance boil water or do you have to rely on the concealed hotplate?

The stovetop is not concealed, it sits under the swing away trivets. I boil water on the stovetop almost every morning. The nice thing with the trivets is that they provide a wide range of low temp control and one doesn't have to lift anything off the stove. They just swivel open.

 

[coaly]

I only burn hardwoods in the cookstove. I think it heats the house loaded about half way the same as the Mama Bear did filled. With a larger firebox I can put more in overnight and still be heating in the morning compared to coals and a warm Fisher stove in the morning. The 24 gallons of hot water on the back radiates all day for what it's worth. It's 20*f. outside now and expect 10* tonight. I won't turn the coal stove up, and start a fire in the cookstove to cook supper, then load it lightly tonight keeping it 68 to 70 in here. I run the stack 300 surface temp which has the air a little more than cracked. Less than 1/4 open on cold nights is enough. 1/2 open will drive us out but fine for an hour of cooking. It will have good coals in the morning to add a couple splits to cook and let it go back to coals by the afternoon. I don't clean the grate so it stays packed with ash for an extended burn. If we were using the oven a lot I would rake it down to bare grate in spots for more air to kick it up fast. That isn't needed for house heating. I go through the same amount of wood as the Goldilocks or Mama Bear on the same same chimney. I just get the added benefit of cranking it up to use an oven or the much larger stove top. Square inch heating surface area is about the same as a Papa Bear which heats 2000 sf.+

If mine was the newer version with secondary burn I would probably be using it this year instead of coal. Looking forward to heating with wood the next couple years before taking another winter off using coal. The coal is cheap enough costing about 450 a year, it's just not as clean burning. You just don't feel tied to the wood stove 24/7. When it stays below 10* heating with the cookstove only, I open oven door slightly and let it burn harder to keep the flue temp up. It's a fine line being just right and overheating the house. I seem to get it too hot in here the colder it gets outside. It's a mental thing bumping it open farther knowing it's getting colder and suffer a 75* bedroom in the morning. Could be I could never do that with the other stoves, so I over compensate still with this one.

It's difficult to compare houses, but this one heating 1848 square feet has about 12 hour lag time from the most solar gain of the day. A sunny day at the warmest between 1 and 3 PM feels the warmest inside from windows, then loading for overnight we have to take into consideration if it was a full sun day since loading it like a rain or snow day will easily overheat the house at 3AM. This place cools as the sun goes down, then heats up early morning at 3 or 4 AM mid burn when it's too late to cut it back. Must be the 6 inch insulated walls and double insulated ceiling that capture and radiate that heat back inside. Even nights I don't think I'm burning hard enough creeps up before the sun comes up, so I've learned to expect that. A couple sunless days requires much more fire when you don't get that temp surge overnight. After 35+ years you just do it keeping it within a couple degrees inside. The Kitchen Queen has been the steadiest most even heat, but it's 800 pounds of steel plus 24 gallons of hot water so it weighs twice as much as the other stoves we had here.

 

[SpaceBus]

The big difference between our setups is that my primary heater is an EPA stove that is pretty efficient. Not quite as good as the new 2020 stoves, but still pretty good. If there was a Fisher, or any other antique stove, providing heat, then I absolutely would use the cookstove to heat the house. I imagine your Kitchen Queen is 15-20% more efficient than the Fisher.

 

[webby3650]

Not quite as good as the new 2020 stoves, but still pretty good.

I wouldn’t say that. There’s a lot more to efficiency than a cleaner stack to me. These new stoves are more efficient in the flue, but not necessarily easier on wood..

 

[begreen]

I wouldn’t say that. There’s a lot more to efficiency than a cleaner stack to me. These new stoves are more efficient in the flue, but not necessarily easier on wood..

We'll need a couple years of running to evaluate how well these stoves work in varying seasons, but so far many are performing pretty well.

 

[KJamesJR]

I live in the lakes region, NH. My house is roughly the same size as yours (1700sq) and some nights (like last night) our stove struggles to keep us warm without having to run full tilt. Firebox is about 2 cu ft. Aside from the odd polar vortex nights, it keeps us toasty.

You’re living in gods country. Colder with windchill coming down from Mt. Washington. I would strongly suggest a 3 cu ft firebox in whatever you decide to get. I think most cook stoves are about 1 - 1.5 cu ft? I wouldn’t dream of trying to heat with that in northern NH.