Wood burning stoves

[Rick]

So who here is familiar with quality wood burning stoves? What is the name brand of some of the better ones? I know there is a big difference in how well they hold a fire. The ones sold by the home improvement stores are mostly junk. Giving serious thought to installing a stove. Don't want to add an insert to the fireplace because I don't want to give up the fireplace.

 

[Rick H]

I have been very pleased with my small Jotul.

 

[Bisley]

Seven years ago, I purchased an Alderlee T5, produced in Canada. I installed it to replace the thirty-odd year old manufactured fireplace that came with the HUD home. It has an opening to accommodate 17" logs and is freestanding. The first winter, it cut our utility bill -- gas and electric -- by slightly more than half. This is a catalytic-burner stove, which has baffles along the inside top. When adjusted properly you can see flames shooting from holes in the baffles down on top of the wood. Five to ten minutes after lighting, I usually do not see smoke coming out of my chimney, which is important when living in greater suburbia.

Hope this helps.

 

[RicinYakima]

I have been happy with my Vermont Castings stove, for 25 plus years. However it is not as efficient as the newer designs, but can fit into small spaces.

 

[Petrol & Powder]

While I don't own one, I have experience with the Jotul stoves.
They are TOP NOTCH.

There's a strong American tendency to "Go Big" and there are times when that is appropriate. However, unless you need to heat a large, poorly insulated space OR bank a fire so that the stove can burn for hours without attention - a high quality, small stove has a lot going for it.

It is always more efficient to run a small fire hot than to run a big fire cold. If you pack a stove full of wood and then choke the air off, a lot of the potential heat of that fuel goes up the chimney in the form of smoke and creosote. You are losing potential heat and making a mess of your chimney.
If you run a big stove hot (lots of wood, fed by lots of air) you can end up with too much heat, particularly in a small, well insulated home. The answer is a small, high quality, efficient stove. The price you pay for that efficiency is you must tend the stove a bit more often (there's no free lunch in life).

The Jotul design extracts the maximum amount of potential heat from the minimum amount of wood. They are well made stoves with excellent castings. They are a bit on the expensive side and you can't get a lot of wood in the stove, so they're not the best choice for primary heat sources where the stove must be unattended for long periods of time (like if you have to leave for work and will not return for 10+ hours).

A couple of situations where the little Jotul stoves thrive are climates where it is often cold in the morning but warms to above freezing nearly every day. Or, supplementing the primary heating system and it's not critical that the fire burn for many hours unattended.

Many of the Jotul stoves are non-catalytic but have a "smoke box" to help recover some heat that would normally be lost up the chimney.

The Jotul 602 is small but an excellent little stove. I wouldn't hesitate for a second to buy a good used Jotul 118.

 

[Petrol & Powder]

I don't have a dog in this fight but I did a quick search on-line.
It appears you can still get the 118 (or at least a new form of the old 118)
JØTUL F 118 | Wood stoves - Traditional (jotul.com)

I would recommend at least looking at one of these.

 

[Spindrift]

I didn’t know Jøtul was sold in the US! This is a norwegian product. They have been making stoves for a long, long time. Very common here in Norway, I have one in my cabin in the mountains. These stoves are quality products, that last forever. If you like the design, you can’t go wrong.

 

[Petrol & Powder]

I didn’t know Jøtul was sold in the US! This is a norwegian product. They have been making stoves for a long, long time. Very common here in Norway, I have one in my cabin in the mountains. These stoves are quality products, that last forever. If you like the design, you can’t go wrong.

They ARE sold in the U.S.A. and have been since at least the 1970's (probably longer).
They are excellent stoves.
If they are good enough for Norwegians, I don't know what better endorsement one could hope for !

 

[creosote]

I put a "waterford" Erin" stove in our house after the Loma Prieta earthquake separated the chimney from the house.
They have the secondary burn, but no catalytic gizmo to worry about. It directed air across the glass., which kept it clean from soot.
The stove was so well designed there was no smoke from the chimney, only small heat waves. Once it was going.
An ash pan with door under the fire box to remove ash while the fire is going is nice.
Also you'll want to make sure the chimney is the right diameter for the stove. It creates a proper draft.
A stainless chimney pipes can cost as much as the stove.

 

[Glaciers]

I use Blaze King stoves. I have one in my house and one in my shop. The Princess model is a catalytic converter model and I am very happy with them. The one in the house has had a continuous fire since October and will stay burning until April or first part of May. I believe they are made in Canada, not sure.
I'm happy

 

[Glaciers]

Jotul stoves are sold here in the interior of Alaska and I know there a good stove but I'm not personally familiar with them. The Blaze King stoves are by far the more popular stove sold here. For what it's worth. YMMV.

 

[Rally]

Might consider an outdoor stove too. No mess or smoke in the house, and you can plumb it into either radiators or freestanding plenums with fans. They make heat exchangers that go directly into existing ducting also. Keeps the mess in one spot in the yard/woodshed.

 

[Glaciers]

Our local government banned outdoor boilers because we have such a heavy inversion in the winter here in the lower part of the valley where Fairbanks sits. I bought a indoor coal fired boiler and was installing it in my shop and had already installed the insulated buried runs to and from the shop to the house when this ruling came down. Never uncreated it. Sold to an out of area fellow. Went with approved wood stoves instead.

 

[MikeN]

I have had a Jotul 602 since 1975. Excellent little unit. The Jotul 118 has about twice the BTU output of the 602 (28,000 vs 55,000) if I'm not mistaken. The Jotuls are cast iron and should probably be taken apart and resealed at some point. They are excellent stoves. I now have a Blaze King princess, a welded stove with a catalytic converter. It is the biggest seller (by far) in interior AK and for a good reason.

 

[Bret4207]

Our local government banned outdoor boilers because we have such a heavy inversion in the winter here in the lower part of the valley where Fairbanks sits. I bought a indoor coal fired boiler and was installing it in my shop and had already installed the insulated buried runs to and from the shop to the house when this ruling came down. Never uncreated it. Sold to an out of area fellow. Went with approved wood stoves instead.

We have a few places locally where outdoor boilers are verboten because the town/village banning them was populated by a few mouth breathing morons with outdoor boilers that would burn things like disposable diapers, garbage, plastics, tires, etc. Sometimes I think there should be a test given at about age 25 or 30 and if you can't pass the common sense portion you are retro-actively aborted.....

 

[Outpost75]

+1 on Vermont Casting and Jotul.

When I lived in NH we had Vermont Casting, today in WV I have the Jotul 602

 

[JonB]

I am on my second Century and it's showing it's age, rust-wise in the burn chamber. Century was made in Canada and sold by the box stores, it's a thick steel plate made air tight with glass door, fire bricks, and air control, but not catalytic. I think Century was bought out in the 90s sometime? I'd like to find a third one (a good used condition one), as it works well in my tall house with lots of draft. because of this thread, I looked around the classified ads yesterday and didn't see any, but I did see a nice looking used Jotul #8 (from mid 1980s, I guess?) but price was $1300 the ad said it was used very little.

 

[Petrol & Powder]

There's no magic to a wood stove, it's a box that holds burning wood. Some designs are clearly better than others with elements to increase durability (fire brick, extra plates, etc.), elements to increase efficiency such as smoke chambers and baffles (Jotul is very good at that) and features that make them easier to control and use (air inlets, ash pans, etc.)
The real differences are the sizes of the stoves.
There is a tendency to go too big when sizing a stove. That often results in either inefficient operation or way more heat than is needed.

There are times and places a big stove is needed (Big spaces, poor insulation, long unattended burn times, etc.) However, more often than not, a huge stove is a mistake.

 

[glassparman]

I bought one about 17 years ago. The name on the front is "Country". I got the blower option as well. All I know is if you don't know how to use it, it will cook you right out of that house! I do not use the old heater in the house because it uses WAY too much propane.

When I'm ready for bed, I have usually timed it right so the wood in there is just a pile of red glowing embers. Then I load it up with my hardwoods and immediately shut the control down. I put the blower on super low and that stove sits there and simmers all night long. When I get up in the morning, I stir up the leftover hot embers, put some pine in and hit it for a moment with my old manual bellows and whoosh! it roars to life.

I learned the hard way that if the fire is too hot when I go to bed and load up with the hardwoods BEFORE I shut the control down, I could have a runaway fire! They are literally that good. Also, this model has the "reburn gasses" thingymabob or whatever they call it. It is a couple of tubes in the top with holes and it reburns gasses or something like that. Supposed to be cleaner burning.

I guess Country is made here in the high desert in Hesperia??

Mine looks like this model:



I love my wood burning stove and will never switch back!

 

[L Ross]

Ours is a Wonder Wood Automatic. I paid 50 bucks for it 18 years ago. It came out of a deer camp that the majority of hunters no longer wanted to mess with wood and went with propane. They now miss it a lot. A heavy wire strung over the old stove dried their clothes. It has a blower fan that blows out near the bottom and across the cold floor. I keep the little motor oiled up and it has been just flawless for us. I replaced the fire brick when I got it, and the rope gasket around the door about 10 years ago. I worry about the grate because it developed a hump in it but has not cracked so....