Interested in your stoves heating abilities....

I'm trying to make a comparison of the stoves being used as a primary heating source in case I need to switch stoves shortly....

I am most interested in people who are heating homes 2000 sq/ft and above with one hand fired stove as their primary heat, please let me know the make, model, collar size, blower/ no blower, duct hook-up, size of coal used, average temperature of your house while burning, stove temp, stack temp, any problems with the stove, and most importantly how much coal does your stove consume in a 24 hour period?

If you are interested in the pretense of this request, please look at my other thread here:
http://nepacrossroads.com/about14336.html

Thanks for your response.

I know its not a hand fed, but I can use 60-80#+ in my Hyfire stoker (130K btu reated) in a 24hr period, when its really cold outside. It has a much smaller burn area then hand feds.

I used a Surdiac 715 to heat a 2,200 sqft house just outside Reading, PA. It heated the whole house in the winter with supplemental heat from electric baseboard. I used about 2 tons of coal a season. The season was from just after Thanksgiving to just before Christmas and then resuming after Christmas to mid-April. Depending on outside temperatures I would burn from 25 to 75 lbs a day of pea coal. There was no blower, just a ceiling fan in the room where the stove was on the first floor. The basement was not heated.

The vent pipe was 6" with a natural draft chimney. I never measured stack temperature. I adjusted the baro to maintain proper draft by "feel".

In the ten years I had the stove I only had to replace one thing. The hopper was already cracked when I bought the house and it finally cracked enough to need replacement after about 12 years of use. I used the stove for another 8 years without any parts failing. The only other thing I replaced were some of the gaskets which I consider part of routine maintenance.

The stove could be finicky at times and there were a few times the stove went out without an identifiable cause but I was very satisfied with it. Shaking a Surdiac is an art form best learned through trial and error but once you get it down you will not have any problems. The stove would run for up to 18 hours without being shaken and could run for 1-3 days on a single hopper load of coal.

PM me if you are thinking of buying one. I don't have one for sale but might be able to send you in the right direction.

I burn 52 lbs. per 24 hours. 92K btu Mark III, drafty as hell house. With my basement included I'm well over 2K sq ft.

Hot water coils keep the TV room at 70° with occasional help from the oil burner. When the real crap hits the fan in January (below zero), I'll need the oil burner just to maintain anything above 60°, even with the Harman & coils cranking away.

Now that I think about it ..... probably nowhere near 2K sq ft, due to the fact that we closed off the entire 2nd floor, but I have to say the heat load of this place is probably like heating a well insulated 4,000 sq ft house.

Last winter I heated about 2000 sq. feet with my radiant model 82 Hitzer stove. This area included part of the basement, and the entire first floor. I kept the door to the second floor cracked open to maintain about 50 degrees, if you counted this in the heat load then I was heating about 3200 sq. ft. The house was poorly insulated, had a lot of windows, and uninsulated basement walls. The stove was next to the stairwell in the basement and I just let the heat come up the stairs. I burned anywhere from 50 to 100 lbs per day, and had to run the oil boiler on the cold days.

I previously heated the same house with an Estate Heatrola, the stove wasn't very air tight and only had two settings...hot and nuclear fission . I burned 80-120 lbs per day in that thing, but it really cranked out the heat and didn't require as much assistance from the oil boiler.

My dad heats about 2600 sq. ft with his model 82 Hitzer stove. He has the radiant model also, no blowers or ductwork. His house is 6 inch construction with new windows and foam insulation on the outside of the basement walls. His basement has two stairwells, one is next to the stove, the other is at the opposite end of the basement and works as a cold air return. The basement is usually about 80 degrees, the first floor about 72. The second floor is normally closed off and kept at around 62 by the oil boiler. During mild weather he opens the door to the second floor and heats that as well, which keeps the first floor from getting too warm. Last winter he averaged 50lbs of coal per day from the 1st week of December to the end of March.

The stove is in a ~ 27 x 30 ft room on the first floor at one end of an 11 yr old well insulated, tyvek wrapped open floor plan house. The long wall has southern exposure. In all weather conditions, this room stays in the low 70s. Air circulates w/o fans but I do run a ceiling fan three rooms away from the stove room on the north side.

• In weather where temperatures range from the higher 30s to the mid 20s, I go through about 40 - 50/lb.day tending it 2x a day. That keeps the ~ 3100ft sq house anywhere from the mid 70s during a sunny day to mid to low 60s at the far end of the house and bed rooms on second floor.
• In the colder winter weather of low 20s to the single digits, I'll go though anywhere from 50-90 Lbs/day, tending 2 - 3x a day and will need supplemental heat from the oil furnace. It will use 75-100 gal dung the coldest periods suplamenting the coal stove. Furnace running provide humidification too and I don't get into a static electricity condition this way. I leave the furnace thermostat set at 68 during normal hours and drop it back to 65 at night. The far reaches of the house can get into the low 60's at night and can still get into the 70's during the sunny days.

In my opinion it's not a valid comparison of stoves to compare the heating needs of one house to another, or of one identical house in one location to another in a different location. Rather you need to determine the heating needs of your house and match the stove's heating output to your needs.

The stokers can produce heat in a big way. The ability to move the heated air is the next challenge when using a stove. I pump my heated air to the bedrooms with a Panasonic energy star fan rated at 400 cfm, the intake is filtered and right near the stove. But still need to retun more cool air to the basement to get the full benefit of the Keystoker 90 waiting to be challenged.

We have about 1800 sq ft first floor and 1500 sqft basement in our well insulated, double pane Andersen windowed ranch house. The Mark III (with a blower that runs constantly when the temp is over 80*) is in the basement which is unfinished and is the "primary" source of heat. It has a 6" flue pipe going to an insulated double walled SS chimney. The flue pipe temp just below the baro is usually 175* - 225* depending on how cold it is outside and how hard I am driving the stove to keep up with outside temps. If we get a cold night (for us) down around 0* F I will keep the flue pipe temp around 225* and be feeding two - three 4 gallon buckets per day.

It is not hooked up to our ductwork, our open stairway is directly in front of the stove and the blower throws the air right up the steps. The flooring is warm enough from the radiant heat off the stove to have be barefoot and comfortable We also have a propane furnace which is only used during late spring and early fall or if we go away for a couple days. We are in Cecil County, MD which is fairly mild compared to most that are on here. Last year which was a little colder than most we burned about 3 tons of Nut coal. The living room, dining room first bathroom usually run about 72*, the bedrooms and back bathrooms and kitchen usually run about 65*. If I turn on the furnace blower (blower only, no heat) to distribute the air in the house it will bring the temps to within 2* from room to room.

I am extremely happy with the Glenwood No. 6 Baseheater I bought to heat my new house up here in the Poconos. This stove is the primary heater for my 2,200 square foot log house. The Glenwood is extremely efficient as it burns at most about 40-60 Lbs of coal on average per day during the coldest weather. When the temps are above 30 or so the consumption rate is around 25 Lbs. It easily burns continuously with two shakings per day. The stove temp is around 450-500 degrees and the stack temperatures are around 100 to 120 degrees when the stove is set on baseburning mode. I couldn't ask for a better stove. My entire house including the upstairs bedrooms are comfortable as the stove is in the basement and the heat flows upstairs. I also have a parlor stove in my living room and if I light both of them I am opening a window somewhere even when the temps are down in the Teens.

Also using a Mark III in a two story 200 year old farm house with good insulation. House is 1500 sq. ft. kept at 72 - 74 degrees. Stove is in cellar and has two coils in it. One for All hot water and one for radiant heat in main floors. No problem heating house in the coldest part of winter. Tend to fire every 12 - 16 hours. When do I appreciate this stove the most? When the electricity goes out. Compare that to a stoker.
Tom

I have to agree with Pete69. Every house is different. I have a small heating and air conditioning business. I wouldn't recommend a certain size stove without doing a heat loss on the structure. This takes into account how the building is contructed, size, orientation and insulation, (composition, size and orientation of windows), door size and composition, etc, etc.
All these factors combine to determine the amount of heat required and speed it escapes from your building. Heat always travels from hot to cold.
To give you an example - I have a 32' X 64' X 10' Pole building (2048 sq ft or 20,480 cu ft, if the walls were 8' - 16,384 cu ft) . This building is well insulated R19 in the walls and R58 in the ceiling. Your ceiling is going to be the greatest heat loss. The building has 13 (3'X5') insulated windows, 1 - 6' terrace door, 1 - 3' pedestrian door, 2 insulated garage doors (16' x 8' and 9' X 8') and 2 insulated 4' X 4' sky lights. Its on a concrete slab thats has the end insulated and 4' of the perimeter insulated with R10. This building has a heat loss of approximately 62,000 BTU. I purchased a D S Machine circulator stove rated a 96,000 BTU. I've set the stove thermostat at midrange. This unit has been keeping my building between 65 F and 72 F. The inside temp varies with outside temp because I'm not adjusting the unit thermostat to compensate for the outside temp. The greater the difference between the inside and outside temps, the greater the heat transfer to the colder area. Insulation just slows down the rate of heat transfer. I'm burning approximately 20-25 lbs of coal per 24 hr period. I shake the ashes in the morning and evening. I've been keeping a log of inside temp, outside temp, coal used, t-stat setting, ashes emptied, etc. I want to know how much coal to order for this stove in 2010. I'm assuming we'll still be able to buy coal then, with the current administration, it may be outlawed. Hope this helps.
Fred A

I'm just a shade under 2000 sq ft but I'm heating a "raised ranch" with my Harman Mk I. Stove is in the unfinished basement. House was built in 1973 and it's all OE. That means single pane, wood double hung windows. All 18 of them, plus a sliding glass door and a picture window. In some places around the windows, I can see outside.

One thing I found that made a big difference was running a humidifier in the basement. Really improved the "feeling" of warmth.

I'll use 1.5 to 2 tons between Halloween and the end of February to keep the upstairs at 70-74*.

great, anybody out there with an Alaska Kodiak or a Hitzer 50-93?

I use a hitzer 82 ul. I'm in south central pa. I used about 3.5 ton last year, it was my first. I heat a basement and 2 living floors all about 800sf. The basement is stone wall concrete floor. The rest of the house is pretty well insulated. It does most of the heating. When the weather is in the twenties and windy the stove poops out with the first floor 69-70, and the second story though only 62 or so. Just not enough heat to push up the stairs. I'm just running the oil for now, I think the stove has more "room", just trying to figure it out, as i am sure i was getting more heat last year. I use a home made heat cabinet around it with an 8" duct and 8" fan blowing 190F air into the kitchen. THe first floor is open floor plan and 8.5' ceilings. 2nd story is all bedrooms off of the center of the house.