Happy Heat! Wood Stove Help

[MotorSeven]

It's hard to believe that a stove can run for 40 hours on a single load without dropping below the optimum burn temperature of around 250 degrees. I can leave my stove smoldering for a long time, but it's not good for the chimney, and it's not keeping my house warm in the mean time. A stove running at a given efficiency will extract a certain number of BTUs from a certain number of pounds of wood. I don't see how a long burn time is desirable, unless it is accompanied by a significant increase in efficiency, since it will just mean extracting the BTUs from the wood at a slower rate, resulting in a colder house.

EDIT TO ADD: I guess the one caveat would be that a stove should be able to be loaded in the evening before bed, and still have viable coals in it the next morning, so you're not building a fire from scratch every day. But that's something like a 12 hour burn time at most.

The King has a CAT and that is one way it gets longer burn time. Cat's burn all those particles in the gas and smoke that a conventional stove can't burn so you loose it up the flue. The Cat gets really hot when this occurs, so the stove gets hot too. I do agree that 250 degrees is not going to keep my house comfortably warm but it will take the edge off. You can push a King harder and keep the temps higher...but your burn time will suffer. All in all the BK King would be my number one choice if I was going to replace my Soapstone.....and someday I just might do that.

 

[coobie]

Hello Everybody,

The wife and I are looking at (finally) putting in a wood stove. The first stoves we looked at were Vermont Castings which are very beautiful stoves, but the headaches that it seems they can give their owners seems a bit more than I want to deal w/ especally for the price. I also looked at napolean as many owners seem to like them but, most of their stoves seem to have a smaller fire box though, still nice stoves. Also, Lopi which seem good but not anything that seems to draw me towards them besides the solid reviews.There are several others that seem to be nice stoves but after finding this certain stove I may have my mind set. It is a Jotul F50TL Rangeley this stove seems to be built like a tank! Very heavy, but relatively simple. Not a lot of fancy about it, except the top load, which I could do without, but I like the idea of throwing food up top and cooking when we lose power or when I don't feel like going out in the cold.

I guess I am wondering if anyone here has any experience w/ Jotul and more specificly the F50TL. If so tell me all about it. I would sure appreciate it.
Also, if anyone knows any other good info pertaining to wood stoves I am all ears. I grew up in a house w/ wood heat but there is always something a person doesn't know. Any info on flue setup is always good. Such as installing a flue damper or not.

Thanks all.


Here is some Technical spec
Emission:2.84 gram/hr
Heating capacity:Up to 2,500 SQFT
Approx weight:569 lbs
Log size:Up to 20 in
Flue Outlet:6 in
Efficiency:Over 84%
Flue exit options:Top and Rear
Effect Max output:83,000 btuAccessories
Ash solution:Yes
View attachment 359451

Good information here on stoves of all kinds Hearth.com - Information on Fireplaces, Wood Stoves, Pellet Stoves, etc.