Wood Stoves: Common Sense Selection Tips

Reader Contribution by Bruce Mcelmurray
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Planning to buy a wood stove soon? There have been several very excellent blogs written on wood stoves but here is one that may help you find the right dealer and consequently the right stove. When it comes to specialty salesman I am probably just as vulnerable as the next person, maybe more so. I generally rely on the specialist to guide me in the right direction. After owning several wood stoves in my lifetime I finally became smarter. It took a while, but if you are patient enough all good things come to those who wait.

The first stove we purchased was when we lived in N. Florida. The salesman was outstanding and explained the stove and how to use and care for it in detail. He did the installation and everything was exactly as represented. That was where I really went wrong — I assumed all wood stove salesman were equal. I have since found that not always the case.

When we built our present home we decided to supply our heat with a wood stove since we had so much dead wood on our lot. We called and met a local wood stove dealer who was able to spew enough technical information that we wrongly assumed they knew what they were talking about. We were sold a high quality cast iron stove that was much larger than required. The stove was so large for our 840 s.f. house that we never could get it to heat properly and when we did get it as hot as the instructions specified we had to open our windows to equalize the intense heat.

Once we finally got it installed by the dealer we noticed that when it rained water would pool on top of our brand new stove and it was getting rusty and had never even had its first fire. The dealer refused to come back so we went through the factory and they hooked us up with another dealer. You know you have problems when the two service people arrive and one standing on the roof yells down to the other one, “Hey, you need to come up here and see this. You’re never going to believe it.” The problems were finally fixed at additional cost and for 15 years we heated our home with that oversized stove. It kept us warm but never was used to its best efficiency level.

Getting a stove too large for your home causes problems. One, if you burn it as hot as required for efficient heating it can drive you out of the house. Two, if you burn it lower than required it tends to burn uneven and will creosote your chimney faster than normal. Getting a stove too small for your house is equally bad.

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