Woodstove for house

[SWNMELK]

We have a Quadra-Fire and love it. Was expensive but works great, heating 2400 sq/ft. will take a 24'' piece of wood. We live in SW NM so not as cold as Montana, our winter nights are mid teens, but think it would work good there too.

 

[RojoGrande]

+1 on the pellet stove. I have a Harmon used as primary heat for 2700 sq.ft. I'm at 9,000 feet in southern Colorado. Have a propane furnace as back up and primarily to circulate air through the house. I do have a whole house generator for outages but have only really had to use it a couple of times over the past 4 years.

Harmon also makes excellent wood stoves. My neighbor has one that he uses to heat his house.

 

[slatebuilder]

We have a Baker Heat King in our house. Technically it is a coal stove however we burn wood in it too. I would burn coal, and have burned a lot of coal at times when easy access to wood wasn’t available. Around here a tria-axle load of pole wood sells for the same money as about 4 tons of coal and we don’t have to cut and split the coal. However for the last 4 years or so we have had really easy good access to free wood. Our stove with burn 15 or so short bed pick up loads between mid October and mid April.

 

[PNWGator]

Add Kuma stoves to your list. The Kuma Sequoia is one heck of a stove.

 

[Salmonchaser]

Fans on the stove; a couple of ceiling fans and an open floor plan really help. Improved insulation in the floor and fixing any drafts make a huge difference in the back bedrooms. As the man from Colorado noted using the forced air system in the house really helps as well. To keep sweet pea happy in the morning I run the stove very hot for half an hour, turn on the furnace which gets lots of warm air to the master bath. Hand her a cup of coffee and get the hell out of the way. 1/2 hour later shut down the furnace, damper the wood stove; probably a good thing to run it a little anyway.

 

[Panda Bear]

To keep sweet pea happy in the morning I run the stove very hot for half an hour, turn on the furnace which gets lots of warm air to the master bath. Hand her a cup of coffee and get the hell out of the way.

dont worry about the brand of stove, as the aforementioned advise is what it is all about, not the brand of stove

 

[MThuntr]

Thanks for the input so far guys. Lots to look into.

I had 2 ceiling fans delivered yesterday to help moved the air. Today 1 will be installed in my living room area nearest the stove and the other in my bedroom.

 

[1_pointer]

Knowing my wife, if I was to even think about wood fired heat, it'd have to be an outside boiler system. BIL and my mom had one and they were very happy with it. Having 100ac of hardwoods at my disposal really makes it attractive to me, but I've not sold her on the idea. But, we do have a chimney...

If she is successful in convincing me to put a pool in, I think the outside boiler would be nice for heating it.

 

[Drake4]

I don't know a ton about woodstoves, but I do heat my house with one and have for the last 8 years. It is an Enviro Kodiak - made in Canada. It was cheaper than the BlazeKing model of similar size. It was also simpler, and seemed more stout and came highly recommended. I only burn lodgepole and heat a 3,600 sq foot house no problem. That said, my stove is in the basement, and so in the winter I try and keep the basement about 74 which in turn keeps the upstairs about 68.

This is almost identical to what I do. 4000 sf house, stove in the basement. I burn only lodgepole and cedar. It will keep the entire house in the low 70’s and burn you out if it’s not real cold outside.
I have a Kuma, and love it.

 

[Brauee20]

I have a catalytic Regency F5100. Heats our 3200sqft pretty well. If the wife is "cold" and I want to push it I can run the house above 80 when just below freezing. Doesn't have a problem with maintaining 70 degrees until it gets well below zero. I don't know if I'd do the catalyst route again though. I have to replace it every three years or so. It works super well, I only have to clean the ashes about every three months, and it makes a ton of heat cooking off the smoke from a smoldering fire. It's a chunk of change every time the cat starts to crumble though. It took a little getting used to seeing the probe temperature at 1000+ degrees too.

 

[C17loadclear]

Buck stoves are awesome.. not happy with hearthstone in comparison to the buck.

 

[Dan O]

I have used a Blaze King (King) since 2013. Once the cool weather hits in September, October until May or June it burns 24/7. It maintains heat in the 70 to 75 degree range as needed or wanted. When it's below 0 it will maintain the temp but use a bit more wood. I use lodgepole, spruce & larch depending on where I cut firewood for the day. I'll use about 5 cords a season. I'm very pleased with this stove and would not hesitate to buy another when this wears out if it does. One practice I try to maintain is to burn it hot twice a day, once in the morning and once before bedtime. This keeps the creosote in check. When I burn it hot I do so for about 20 minutes then damper it down.
When we have left for a couple of days I load it up and damper it down. It will have hot coals 2 days later and with fresh wood it will rekindle the fire without fire starter. It also has a variable speed fan that runs off a thermostat that blows hot air toward our stairway for the upstairs. This system works efficiently for us.

 

[Fullquiver]

Jotul is a great stove.. If not a Jotul then whichever stove you get make sure to get a cast stove not a steel stove if you want to keep it for long..

 

[F250]

After a lifetime of burning wood in wood stoves for heat, I switched to a Harmon Pellet stove three years ago. We live in a 1000, sq. ft. house now, with the stove, now pellet stove in the basement. It was a great switch for us ! Instead of burning 5-7 cords of wood each year (4'X4'X8'), we burn 5-7 tons of pellets. The convenience is wonderful ! We have a 7500 watt portable generator that runs the entire home in the event of a power outage. Much easier on my wife to dump a 40 lb bag of pellets into the stove a couple times each day than have to mess with the firewood when I'm gone. No more mess with dust, spiders, bugs and snakes in the woodpile !! We lost our place to cut free firewood a few years ago. The price per cord of wood, and the price per ton of pellets is about the same.

 

[Mallardsx2]

There is only 1 brand to buy IMHO.

Quadrafire.

Quadra-Fire Stoves & Fireplace Inserts

Now part of the Forge & Flame family, explore the official home of Quadra-Fire's pure performance biomass stoves and fireplace inserts. Upgrade your hearth now.

www.quadrafire.com

You'll thank me later.

 

[deer_shooter]

I have a FireChief wood burning furnace the basement. My upstairs is ~2600sq and basement another ~1500sq and it does pretty good keeping the house around 72 in winter, hotter if I keep it loaded up. Only had it 2 years now and one of the fins welded to the top of the firebox fell off within the first 2 weeks and the flap to stop flames rolling out fell off this year. The firebox looks a little rough too so for $3000K, I don' think I'll buy another. I'll probably get one of the bigger outdoor furnaces in a year or 2.

 

[LuketheDog]

There is only 1 brand to buy IMHO.

Quadrafire.

Quadra-Fire Stoves & Fireplace Inserts

Now part of the Forge & Flame family, explore the official home of Quadra-Fire's pure performance biomass stoves and fireplace inserts. Upgrade your hearth now.

www.quadrafire.com

You'll thank me later.

We have a Quadrafire too, its incredible, it heats our whole house if I turn on the blower fan to circulate the air.

 

[OleRedbeard]

I have heated with wood solely for around 13 or so years and I think a lot of it would depend on what you are looking for as far as aesthetics goes. Do you want a glass front or an enclosed stove? what type wood do you plan on burning? If you do not have to absolutely have a inside unit the outside units are spectacular as far as heating goes and you can pretty much burn anything that will fit inside of it.
I heat with a glass front buckstove. The house is around 2000sq ft. The farmhouse I had before this I placed through the wall fans in the living room to the master bedroom and the kids room to help keep them warm and also to disperse the heat. Nothing worse than one room in the house being hot and the others only getting what little warmth can creep in. I usually burn locust or hickory at night so I dont have to get up and stoke the fire in the middle of the night and honestly unless it is below zero or close to it as long as you bank it up really well the house is decently warm in the morning without touching it.
with the through the wall fans make sure they are as high up on the wall as possible for obvious reasons. It really helps far more than you can imagine. If you have a upstairs all you have to do is put a few through the floor vents in with shut offs for the summer.
Be wary however. Once you get used to wood heat you will never like a heat pump in the winter.

 

[billy302]

Tell me about woodstoves...I'm shopping around for a replacement stove with hopes of ordering something and having it installed before fall. My experience is with very large furnace style of woodstove with blowers. What I do know is the one in my house is currently too small for the square footage to heat it efficiently as primary heat and was designed as more of supplemental. The previous owner tried to heat solely from wood but admitted it was too small and had gotten it too hot before. I'm thinking I may have to do some reconfiguring of the flooring to account a slightly larger woodstove footprint but that likely isn't too big of a deal as long as I don't got too wild with sizing. My house is right around 1800 sqft with the woodstove located in the NW side of the house (not ideal but that what I'm working with)

Is Blaze King still the gold standard of woodstove or is there a better option? If there is a better option please explain. What should I keep an eye out for while researching?

I'm open to just about any thoughts as I'm not real thrilled about the $3k price tag associated with a BlazeKing but there is currently a 26% tax credit on "EPA efficient" woodstoves (including cost of installation) so that will likely come into consideration for long term costs.

I use a valcourt Lafeyette zero clearance out of canada. Great unit, ducting runs upstairs through the attic to heat the kiddos rooms. works great.

 

[Trial153]

I have good luck with both Vermont castings and Pacific energy