Wood stoves?

[woodsghost]

Any recommendations on wood stoves for heating a home?

I get that I can use search engines, and I have (which is my my budget is now more than $400), but I would also love to hear any thoughts from personal experience.

The goal would be to heat a 1150 sq foot house. Well, there will be a main floor and a basement. I am looking to heat the main floor with the wood stove.

In the US, there is currently a 26% tax credit for wood stoves (renewable energy), so that will help. My goal is to have something I could run all night without restocking.

My plan is to have wood heat for ambiance/fun and as a backup in case either the propane lines freeze (happens from time to time) or there is a disruption in propane supply or a hike in propane prices (PAW or economic disaster). Primary heat is planned to be propane.

Budget would be max of $3k, but something closer to $1k would be super appreciated. And tax credits will help.

Any advice or thoughts are welcome.

Thanks!

[EBuff75]

The main heating in my grandparents' house (built in the late 1960s) was from a wood stove.  In their case, the stove was in the basement and the heat from it came up the staircase or via floor grates.  There were electric baseboard heaters in the rooms to even out the temperatures, but the bulk of the heating was from the stove.  It wasn't anything special - just an old cast-iron stove, but it was "high efficiency" for the 1960s when the house was built.  It was meant for heating only, so there was no window to see the fire, and it was a cone-top design which didn't have any type of heating surface which could be used for cooking.

Once he got older, they did have the house retrofitted with a forced air system so that he wouldn't have to lug firewood and tend to the stove several times a day to keep things running.  Most of the heat came up the staircase, which was an open design and was right in the center of the house (my grandmother designed the house and grandpa built it).  The stove was in what we would probably refer to as a basement rec room, which was VERY warm during the winter, due to the stove's placement!  Everything about the stove was passive, no fans or anything, just a big hunk of iron which sat up on legs to allow more airflow around it. 

My uncle (who lived just around the corner from them) had a woodstove as well, but his was in the living room of his house.  Due to my uncle's house being a fairly long ranch and the stove being toward one end of it, theirs was more for heating that one area.  IIRC, his had glass windows in the door so that you could see the fire (the one at my grandparents' house did not), but that wasn't really a consideration as the furniture in the room faced away from it.  Their house was built in the early 80s, so I'm sure it was more efficient than the one my grandparents had.  The downside (at least to me) was that the living room (where the stove was placed) would end up being 90-95 degrees when the stove was running!  My uncle liked that, and his chair was right next to the stove.  It makes me sweat just to think about it!

[Asparagus]

General tip: Go for cast iron over steel plate and avoid designer models and tall glass doors.

[Crosscut]

A DutchWest (Non-Catalytic, by Vermont Castings) has been our primary heat source for 15 years and hasn't required any maintenance other than polishing and new door gaskets twice, and it's sized about right for your square footage.  But no real experience with other modern efficient models either, our other two are a cheap Vogelzang boxwood stove and an old Franklin Fireplace, neither of which I'd recommend (although the Franklin does have it's charms).

[RonnyRonin]

not a recommendation, but some anecdotes:

My family heated exclusively with wood for most of my childhood, and they did it with perhaps the simplest stove I can think of:



No baffles, no vents, hardly any moving parts beyond the door and the damper; we cracked the door to varying degrees to adjust airflow and jammed a fork in the handle when we really wanted to seal the door tighter. My dad would cram it with hardwood and it would easily burn 8+ hours. I see these on craigslist fairly often (the above pic came from SLC's page, and is listed for $250!)

I kinda figure just about anything would be an upgrade efficiency wise from a giant metal box; but size might be its main advantage.

Catalytic stoves might be an upgrade in efficiency for a tradeoff in infrastructure burden (I haven't researched enough to say) but I think it's worth considering future legislation that might make non-cat stoves harder to use without fines or other repercussions. Availability of wood locally will probably determine if you care at all about efficiency.