Wood stove heat

Burnham

Woods walker
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A follow-up to a tangent Brendon and I wandered down for a couple of posts in another thread...

Bren, here's the new stove, and a link to it on the Hearthstone website. Hearthstone is a Vermont company, assembles cast iron and also soapstone stoves there. The castings are done in Spain.

http://www.hearthstonestoves.com/wood-stoves/stove-details?product_id=11

We replaced our old Yotul 602, tiny little thing, but a heck of a efficient wood stove, this late summer...it had done yoeman duty in two houses for over 30 years for us, and was being asked to heat far more square feet than it was designed for in this house, which we've been in since building it 23 years ago.

Our house is a modified Cape Cod style, two stories with a centrally located staircase. The wood stove hearth backs up to the stairwell, right in the center of the first floor, and a cutout in the stairwell wall directly above/behind the stove allows heat to rise naturally up the stairs to the two bedrooms and bath upstairs. The first floor is laid out so there is a circular traffic pattern through the living/dining room, the front room/office, and the kitchen around the central stair and wood stove hearth. A ceiling fan in the living/dining room moves heated air very effectively around the floor plan.
 

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Those stoves are made here and do the job amazingly well ... plus the stones retain and transfer heat like no other material ... not a Chinese assembly line piece of crap ... to fit the stones to the casting one person completes one stove at a time ... the craftsman's name and date are on ther too .... wish I had one
 
I have an idea for a very efficient / affordable stove that operates like a masonry stove but with cheaper materials. I chaps my ass every time I look at my chimney and see all the smoke/ unburned fuel.

Nice looking stove B. We have a Jotul firelight in a 1200sq/ft house so have the opposite problem that you had, we get run out of this place....
 
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Those stoves are made here and do the job amazingly well ... plus the stones retain and transfer heat like no other material ... not a Chinese assembly line piece of crap ... to fit the stones to the casting one person completes one stove at a time ... the craftsman's name and date are on ther too .... wish I had one

Now don't be tossing apples in with oranges...mine, and a whole line of other Hearthstone stoves, are cast iron only...the soapstone models are nice, but have lots of different operating characteristics.
 
Cast iron stoves are probabley a leg up on plate steel stoves .Having said that I have a Lopi glass front plate steel stove converted to an insert and it heats very well a tad over 2000 square feet unless Mrs Smith lets the fire get low .--actually the old gal does pretty good for a city girl .;)

As I type I'm in a room away from the source and it's 75 degrees .Ha probabley too hot for a certain Eskimo type up near Boston way but just the way I like it come winter time .:D
 
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Worth noting that Erik has eschewed both fireplaces for retrofitted stoves :). Wise move, of course, if heating the house is a desired objective.

I dunno, Al. Cast iron stoves need some coddling, welded plate is near idiot-proof.
 
Sleepy time stove works! Homemade from a well tank, second generation, and yeah she ain't pretty. I wouldn't exactly pride on the efficiency, but great for cooking and smoking too, with the rack carrier I welded in there.....zillions of meals. A great hot lunch in a few minutes. I can control and shut it down quite well with the air intake and damper. Rows of half bricks on the bottom and up the sides a bit, keep it from burning out. Quarter inch plate. Various parts are still going after about thirty-five years of use.
 

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Fireplaces are useless for heating, for sure.

60 is comfy for me, Al. I think Val has it about 80 in the parlor. :eek:
 
Cast iron stoves are probabley a leg up on plate steel stoves .Having said that I have Lopi glass front plate steel stove converted to an insert and it heats very well a tad over 2000 square feet unless Mrs Smith lets the fire get low .--actually the old gal does pretty good for a city girl .;)

As I type I'm in a room away from the source and it's 75 degrees .Ha probabley too hot for a certain Eskimo type up near Boston way but just the way I like it come winter time .:D
 

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I know that pic well, Jay...and it warms the cockles of my heart every time I see it. NICE is the word! Your shop just radiates well-being.

Al, that is a truly handsome set up, brother. I like it!!
 
Oh say on Jay's barrel stove those things have a huge amount of radiant surface and do extremely well .Problem being they aren't approved for any thing but a concrete floor regarding insurance edicts .
 
Thanks, Burnham, nice to read you say that.

I see a lot of movement in the steel plate stove. Nothing damaging to the point of dysfunctional, but I would guess one of the possible disadvantages compared to cast iron. The box plate that sits on top was very securely welded at four places along the sides and all across the front edge. Most of those welds have broken, but it just sits on top, so not a problem. The other parts are a little twisted like an old man, but it's ok. The steel definitely wants to move, and age doesn't seem to stop that tendency. New cast iron must move around too?
 
I'd about bet on the double barrel type stove they used when they built the AlCan you could heat a barn .Fired hard they are rated at like 250 thousand btu's .

Fact I've seen them where they stuffed a 30 inside a 55 on the top section and blew air though it which came out like a blast furnace .
 
One good thing about a stove that can also be a blast furnace, is that if you get the stove pipe red hot, then let it cool, by tapping it a few times with a stick, the carbon build up inside just mostly falls out into the stove. Probably not recommended for your average home installation.
 
Fact of that matter it seems I'm going to need to install a stainless liner in my flue .

I hadn't noticed it before until a couple weeks ago the top ten feet is creosoted so badly I can't knock it loose with a wire brush any more .

Danged clay liner flue was designed for a fire place not an air tight wood stove .Probabley about 400 bucks will rectify the problem .
 
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