wood stoves

[MossRoad]

300 for a STT is too low. You should be trying to keep it closer to 500 or above for cleanest burning. Thats for any stove. You might be running the stove as supplemental heat, and not as the sole heat source for your entire house.

I did have to burn quite hot. The stove was specked to meat my heating demand with a little extra, however in practice it couldnt meet its specs unless it was ran at greater than 1/2 damper. The stove is rated for "2000+ Sqft" and my place is only about 1700 sqft. There should have been some cushion there to allow for drafts and/or different wood.

My new (well 4 month old) stove heats my entire place, using the same wood, with the damper on 1/8 open.

There is NO comparison between my old Napoleon 1450 and the new PE Alderlea other than the fact that they both burn wood!

Over on Hearth.com there are a few guys with the 1450 and they like them. There are also several who dont and have upgraded. Once you get a premium stove you start to see where the corners were cut on the cheaper ones, like the 1450 to make price point. Looking back now, I was penny wise, pound foolish. I should have bought the "good" stove the first time around, and wouldnt have taken a $600 loss on the 1450.

Id never go back to a stove with fibre baffles. PE's baffle system is one of the best out there. Easy to remove too.

It specifically states in the manual to operate it with chimney connector temps of 250-450. I'm getting that with stove top temps of 300-500. I'm not running it as supplemental heat. Its my main heat. The furnace only comes on if the house gets below 65. I keep the house about 72, so no furnace most of the time. Only difficulties were when it dropped below zero for a few weeks and our house is quite drafty. Blankets over the drafty doors resolved that issue nicely. There is no damper on Napoleon stoves. There's an air control. I run that wide open at start up for about 1/2 an hour to get the stove up to temp then turn it back to 1 and the stove burns for about 8 hours on a full load of good, dry wood. The stove is rated for 1000-2000 sq. ft. Our house is about 1300. But I believe those numbers are misleading on almost all stoves. It all depends on the layout of your house, air tightness, placement of the unit, number of stories, etc.... While I'm sure a better stove is, well, better, mine works fine for our needs. The energy savings payback on a more expensive stove for me would have been over 10 years. Mine was paid off just short of 5. If I ever build a new home I will probably look at better stoves. Thanks for the info.

 

[MossRoad]

Here's a quick overview of how I heat my home with wood. The stove had to be placed on an outside wall due to the layout of the house. Given a choice, I would have put it in the center of my basement. Anyhow, the stove is in a basement room that is about 16 x 24. The chimney goes straight up through the 1st floor, the ceiling and then the roof, providing 17' of straight chimney. It's double wall in the basement and triple wall inside the walls and attic and outside. I have some ductwork above the wood stove that directs air to the center of the 1st floor through a floor vent. There is an in-line hi-temperature duct booster fan in the duct work. I have that connected to a greenhouse thermostat placed between the floor joists in the ceiling of that room and it is set to cool off the room. When the wood stove heats the basement room to 78 degrees, the booster fan comes on and directs the hot air up to the first floor (trying to cool the room). After the fire goes out and the stove starts to cool (10-12 hours later) and the room starts to cool, and the temp drops below 76 in the basement room, the booster fan shuts off so cold air is not blown upstairs. It works well. I have a ceiling fan in the dining room on the 1st floor. Running that on low in the UP direction does a good job of circulating the heat out to the kitchen and living room. I can maintain about 76 in the center of the house and 72 in the outer rooms fairly easily most of the winter. :thumbsup:

 

[Egon]

Moss, you should keep it simple. Three slabs of slate!

 

[MossRoad]

Moss, you should keep it simple. Three slabs of slate!

View attachment 364708

View attachment 364709

I hope that's a reflection in the lake. :laughing:

 

[Egon]

The on the water.

 

[8N Ren]

Got another quote for the Jotul f500 Oslo with blower $3240, not a distributor but he can get it in. I still want to go look at the PE's but that's going to have to wait till the weekend. This guy was cheaper than the distributor in Winnipeg by almost $600 and seems like he actually wants to make a sale and help us out with what we need and want unlike the distributor. Fine by me if they don't want my money!! Too far to go for parts and service anyway, if the need arises.

So the shopping continues.......

 

[8N Ren]

Oh and an Enerzone 3.4 came in at $1500 with blower .
Both of these are plus taxes, install and chimney. Which I think will be around $1500 or so.

 

[westcliffe01]

Its been a few years now, but I got a small Century stove at Menards in a fall special for $250. The stove pipe, ceiling thimble, class A, flashing and rain cap added another $450. I took it to my uncles place in VA. They are not wealthy, shall we say. Their thermostat was set at 55F from fall to spring (oil heat) and they are not young. Wife and I drove down for thanksgiving from MI with everything loaded in the back of my station wagon and arrived late at night. Next morning we asked my uncle to help us with unloading a "package" and he discovered what he was in for... We built a custom floor protector from 1x1" angle iron, 2 sheets of cement board and ceramic tile laid on top. Next day we found the best location for the stove to be sited and a good location for a roof penetration that allowed a straight chimney. Chimney was in and first fire was lit by the second evening. The stove was pretty light, with a heavy stove one needs to allow enough time for the grout to cure fully before putting the stove weight on it. My PE T5 was a lot heavier and I cracked the tile on my custom corner floor protector when I installed mine. The cracks are very fine, but of course I know that they are there....

My aunt still thanks us every fall when they light up the stove, it has really added comfort to their winters and they now use very little oil, which is a good thing considering what has happened to the price of diesel fuel and HHO in the last 5 years.

Picture from that first fire..

I should add that winter in VA is in no way comparable to Manitoba or Michigan for that matter. Type of wood available is different too (generally pine ?) So all of that points to a LARGE stove and also generally to a catalytic stove, which burns volatile wood like pine much more effectively than a secondary air stove. I personally have a pacific Energy T5, but I burn hardwood. If the OP has only pine species (trees with lots of resin) it would be very well worth the extra effort to get a Blaze King, because it will work with resinous wood far better than the other options.

 

[MossRoad]

Nice story. Good memories that will warm the heart in more ways than one. :thumbsup:

 

[8N Ren]

Westcliffe, I've got oak and poplar. One good and the other not so much lol. Only pine right near me was planted in the last 2 years by us.

 

[8N Ren]

I guess the vermont castings dealer has too much cash and doesn't want mine cause they didn't get back to me with a quote after a week's wait.
We looked at Blaze King and neither one of us like the looks of it although the seem to be well made. I'm leaning towards the PE T5 that thing seems like quality.

The Boss likes the Enerzone solution 2.9
Anyone here use an Enerzone? They are made by SBI here in Canada

 

[Scooby074]

I looked at an Enerzone 3.4. A thread I created on another site might help your decision making?? PE Summit vs. Alderlea T6 vs. Enerzone 3.4 vs. Jotul F600 FL vs. Jotul Carrabassett | Hearth.com Forums Home

It has a great reputation. Talked to the dealer, said it was the best bang for the buck. Not nearly as nice looking as the Alderleas though/

 

[8N Ren]

I looked at an Enerzone 3.4. A thread I created on another site might help your decision making?? PE Summit vs. Alderlea T6 vs. Enerzone 3.4 vs. Jotul F600 FL vs. Jotul Carrabassett | Hearth.com Forums Home

It has a great reputation. Talked to the dealer, said it was the best bang for the buck. Not nearly as nice looking as the Alderleas though/

No it isn't as nice, thanks for the link Scoob I'll go have a looksee.

 

[clemsonfor]

i pais $900 for mine used, new its about $2200, it heats my 2000sqft home

 

[clemsonfor]

many dont have a house as tight or well insulated as you eddie! i have to push my stove harder in sc than some in the north due tolack of insulation

 

[8N Ren]

The wife and I took a trip to the city today, up until that point she was sold on the Enerzone Solution 2.9 . Then she laid eyes on the Pacific Energy Alderlea T5. Within 2 minutes she was sold on it. Compared to the Enerzone well there's not really a comparison. Better steel, cast iron, hardware, door gasket and we have our choice of 7-8 colors in a porcelain enamel finish. Just looking at it you can see right away where the extra money is going. Scooby you were correct my friend. We just have to decide on color, or go with the plain cast steel. The dimensions are perfect for the area where it will be placed.

Does anyone have experience with a colored stove?
I have a feeling that it won't be a problem seeing as they have a lifetime warranty on the unit.

 

[MotorSeven]

The Pacific is a great stove and the porcelain is tough....just be extremely careful when moving since that is where most chips occur. The other thing porcelain does not like(neither do owners) is an overfire where temps get up over 1,000 degrees. Of course that is also hard on all the other past of a stove, but it does happen from time to and it's always operator error. Mine just went postal last month to 1200 degrees because I had not checked my door gaskets in a year...both front and side door gaskets were shot.

I always wanted a porcelain one so it might happen some day........

 

[Scooby074]

8n
As MotorSeven mentioned the porcelain needs to be watched when moving the stove, after that, it is quite tough in normal usage. I dont have a porcelain stove (Alderlea T6 is only available in black) but a very good friend has an enamel Summit. Not a chip in it! I wish I could have gotten a T6 in enamel, i tried but its N/A, not only is it arguably better looking, its way easier to keep clean. The texture in the paint of the T6 is a dust magnet! Literally, dust will stick to the texture like a magnet. Hard to clean. But I needed the T6 for its size so I had no choice.

All the Alderleas are good lookers so I know what your wife was saying, mine was the same, lol, but she was "disappointed" in the lack of "pretty" enamel.

No real comparison between the Enerzone and the Alderlea. The Enerzone is what Id call a "premium" economy stove, good heaters, well built basic steel construction (compare it to a low end, like my old Napo 1450 and the improvements are obvious). The Summits and Alderleas are a full premium stove both in output and fit and finish. There really is a difference. Youre not making a mistake with a PE stove.

 

[westcliffe01]

The PE stoves are made by Canadians with "real" winters where it could really be a life or death situation if you lost your source of heat. I think you cannot go wrong with a PE stove. One item more to watch with a porcelain stove is getting water marks if you put a pot of water on it to boil (which you will need to do, trust me). Often it is impossible to remove water marks.

I would suggest not getting porcelain. It is easy to touch up the finish with black stove paint and you probably have 5 months a year to do it before the stove is back in service.

Final item, regardless of what your stove installer tells you, you DO want to install a stovepipe damper as high above the stove as you can reasonably reach. Any non catalytic EPA 2 stove WILL run away when the temperature is -10F outside and you load it up with a fresh load of dry wood. Closing the air intake will not be able to prevent the flue temperature from holding at 1000+F until the volatile phase of combustion is over. The stoves simply cannot pass the EPA test with a minimum height chimney and outdoor temperatures of 40-80F which is how they are tested, without having such a generous air intake when fully closed. The stovepipe damper is very useful under such circumstances as it reduces the chimney draft to a sane level allowing the stove to work as intended. This is a chimney / winter environment issue and you WILL need the stovepipe damper to control it. I had this issue on 2 different stoves so I finally wised up. It is a huge inconvenience to do this in the middle of winter with a chimney that is no longer squeaky clean after you have exhausted all the other options.

 

[8N Ren]

Scooby thanks for the comments about the color finish. I'm not too worried about scratching when moving it in, that will be the installers department, I don't have the urge to move a stove lol.

Westcliffe thanks for the comments about the pipe damper and yes no one knows cold like us Canadians!

And thanks to everyone who participated with this endeavor.

P.S.
Westcliffe with the water marks on a porcelain finish, Vim or Lime Away works well.