Monday, January 5, 2009

Choosing The Right Stove

This post is in response to the question of how we chose this particular wood stove.

First and foremost, we had to choose a stove that was within our budget. I learned quickly that the price of wood stoves can vary widely, and it seems to me that a lot of the extra expense goes to "pretty". As much as I love the look of soapstone stoves, they're way too pricey for us. Besides, living where we live, our heating needs are fairly minimal and so it wasn't essential for us to get the best stove possible. If we lived someplace much colder, I would consider it more of an investment and put up more money to get the best we possibly could, but that simply wasn't necessary in our case.

This stove is a Drolet Classic that we ordered from Northern Tool. Drolet is a Canadian company, and well, we figured they might know a thing or two about wood stoves. ;-) We looked at the technical specs on this and other comparable models and concluded that there wasn't really too much difference. We chose this specific one based on the following factors:

  • The size (BTU output) is adequate to heat our house.
  • It was within our price range
  • It is UL listed and EPA certified (these were important to us).
  • It had some small design features that we preferred over similar stoves in other brands (it has a flat top rather than "stepped", we preferred a pedestal base over footed, it has a large, pull-out ash drawer, etc.)
We elected not to purchase the optional blower, and frankly, I don't think we ever will. It seems to heat very well even without a blower. We've had steady temperatures in the mid-thirties today and the stove is working great. The area right around the stove is VERY warm, and even the farther reaches of the house are pretty comfortable. It's easy to use, especially if you're comfortable making fires (if you've had a fireplace, or can build a campfire, it's a cake walk). It also kept a hot coal bed overnight, and reignited readily this morning with the addition of some new wood.

So far, we're very happy with it!
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7 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 5, 2009 at 4:33 PM

    You will love it. We simply adore our wood stove and I don't think I have ever loved my heating system before. They make you feel like even if the world goes to hell you will be ok. Does yours have a cook top ?

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 5, 2009 at 4:42 PM

    So happy you got an EPA certified stove. What zone are you in BTW? Also, how easy is it to remove the ashes, and how often do you have to feed the fire?

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  3. AnonymousJanuary 5, 2009 at 5:30 PM

    Brenda - I agree! It doesn't have an "official" cook top, but one of the reasons I got the one with the totally flat top was so I could put a pot or kettle on it. I've had a tea kettle on it all day today.

    Frau - we're in zone 8 (about 40 miles south of Fort Worth). We've only been running the stove for two days, so we haven't emptied the ashes yet, but it *seems* easy. There's a plug in the firebox that you pull out, then you brush the ashes through that hole and down into a drawer, which you can then pull out and dump. I was feeding it one or two logs about every hour or so until it got really warm in here, then I backed off.

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  4. AnonymousJanuary 5, 2009 at 9:17 PM

    We use ours all the time, but it's also pretty cold here. From experience, make sure you get a Carbon Monoxide detector to go with it. Those stovepipes do leak from time to time, especially if the screen up top gets clogged. CO is a killer.

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  5. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2009 at 6:22 PM

    We went through the same considerations in choosing our stove! I didn't know about the brand we got until I started calling the stove dealers in our area and asking what they carried.

    It didn't even reach 20 degrees for a high today and I'm so glad we have the stove.

    The girls are back to school now so we don't have a fire in the morning or during the day unless someone is around all day to feed it.

    That's the one thing - it doesn't keep a coal bed - but that may be us and the wood we got is really light weight.

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  6. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2009 at 9:06 PM

    NM Illuminati said...

    "From experience, make sure you get a Carbon Monoxide detector to go with it. Those stovepipes do leak from time to time, especially if the screen up top gets clogged. CO is a killer."

    Oh, so what... you're a fire chief or something? Oh. Oh yeah.

    Verde said...

    "That's the one thing - it doesn't keep a coal bed - but that may be us and the wood we got is really light weight."

    Round these parts we are surrounded by oak, pecan, osage and mesquite - all crazy hot long burning hardwoods.

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  7. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2009 at 10:19 PM

    Jerry said...

    Oh, so what... you're a fire chief or something? Oh. Oh yeah.

    I think there is some schlub around here who thinks he is.

    Seriously though, our screen has clogged on many ocacasions due to the pine wood we are forced to burn around here. It always sets off the CO detector alerting us to the problem. We also had issues with pinholes in the flue that did the same thing.

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