No, not at all. I didn't say anything about how they burn or manage the stove. Nor am I implying anything other than rebutting the claim that a non-cat in mild weather will force one to open windows. There is no need for a long burn, especially in a decently insulated space. A shot of heat in the morning can often last all day, especially if the house has good solar gain.
Yes there are some extremely low on the list. But the majority of the stoves out there are pretty close.
I found burning low full time during the shoulder season used a lot more wood than the one or two small fires a day I did with the non cat.The breakdown in this analogy is that it takes a second to turn the stove on to either setting.
Setting two or three small fires a day in an old stove takes time. Throwing a load of wood into a low-burning Princess every 24 hours takes less than a minute (well, probably 15 minutes if you do exactly what the manual says, less than a minute for me).
Also, your electric stove has the same efficiency on both settings. Most stoves do not. (The BK actually does better on the low setting.)
I've done it both ways and they both work; I just have a strong preference for the lazy low-heat method after several years with the BK.
Any other supplemental heating?maybe for you work that way but I prefer to comeback to a warm house. Lighting two to three fires a day take some time. Bring everything to temp and always having part of the house super hot compare to more even heat. About saving more wood burning that way, well, is hard to tell. Takes time to the stove to get to temp and start heating the house again. I don't know but for me is better cook slow all day and comeback to warm house or acceptable house temp. No supplemental heating here.
Again, this simply is not so, at least not with a cast iron jacketed stove. We just don't see these alleged temp swings. We did get a bit more temp swing with the more radiant F400, but never to something I would call super hot. Of course, this is going to vary with the home construction, size, floorplan and outside temps, but wide temp swings are not a given. That said, if one is away from the home for 12hrs or more then yes, the longer burntime is a real benefit.
That is what is better for you. I don't come home to a cold house at all. Depending on the temps I will usually have a fire in the evening. Sometimes one in the morning. Takes me maybe 5 mins to load and light. Go about doing other stuff till the temp gets up usually 10 mins or so then I shut it back. So one fire a day is like 6 mins 2 would be not quite double that because there would probably be coals from the previous fire.
I get it and not trying to create any argument about but based you mentioned small loads, I was assuming that was nothing in there by the time you come back 12 or more hrs later. If the house has good heat retention and the weather is not that bad I understand cause is not like I never do small loads. Sometimes I do it to take the chill over night cause I know next day will be warm .ad no needs to run full load. As @begreen said the type of stoves can make the differences.
I am in the finger lakes this week. Coming home sat. So no good weekend plansYou can tell it's mid-summer. We go thru this every year.
We need to get some cold weather, so we can get these porch dogs busy with their stoves, instead of bickering over cat vs. non-cat!
So... anyone got good plans for this weekend?
Even with a 1/2 load I will still have coals to restart after 12 hours.
There are ones that can keep up. But that doesn't mean they are great heaters
