Osburn fireplace inserts

I am still stove shopping and was wondering if anyone had an opinion on the Osburn stove. Are they strickly wood burners or do they have some that will burn coal also. I need a fireplace insert for a 38X26 in. opening.

Hi,

Welcome to the forum! I bought an Osburn 1800i little more than three years ago. It is the smallest insert they carried at the time. I really liked the stove. The 1800 is the bay window insert - I loved sitt'n by the fire, mesmorized by it. The only complaint - not really a complaint is that I thought the fan was a bit loud for the amount of air that the blower moved.

That insert cost me about 3 grand till it was all said and done - paid for itself in two years because I was burning oil at the same time.

Honestly, I don't know why you would burn wood. It was a lot of work - the stove is really efficient... but to keep it efficient, you need to burn it hot. I loved seeing the flames coming from below AND above - pretty cool. Burning the fire hot, means the draft wide open and feeding the wood every hour or two. Burning it hot also creates a lot more ash. The 1800i wasn't big enough to get the long burn time many a stove claims! I was luck to have a nice flame for four hours... If I went to be around 11pm, at 5am, there were A FEW coals I could pull together - throw some kindling on... and viola - fire! I did burn the fire over night with the damper wide open because I didn't want to worry about creosote.

Not to change the subject... coal is a MUCH BETTER DEAL! I wish I would have burned coal from the beginning. I would have saved more money and worked less if I would have begun burnig coal three years ago. Since then, I have moved from that place and I'm buiding another (move in on Saturday!) - and have designed the place to be heated with a coal boiler.

Not to bust your bubble - but coal is worth looking into.

Take care,

Pret

Pret
thanks for your input. We are still shopping around and considering all options, haven't settled on just a wood burner yet. We also looked at a Hitzer 983 coal stove. We liked it alot. Our only concern is the anthracite coal in our western part of Pa. is around 200 a ton right now and is going higher each mo. How would bitumonous coal work in the Hitzer? We want to put the insert in our basement which now has no heat at all. The 983 is 80,000 btu's. I was concerned it would be too much stove for our basement room which is 15X30 with adjoining rooms about the same area. What do you think? So glad I stumbled upon this forum. I have been reading everyone's imput and learning so much.

Hey,

Quite a few fellas here on the forum have been heating their whole house from a stove in the basement. With a good understanding of how air tends to move throughout the house, one can utilize a couple of strategies gain a more even heat throughout the house. I know there are a couple of threads on the forum that speak directly to this.

Do you heat with water, hot air or electric baseboard?

Take care,

Pret

Hi Tessie,, virtually any hand load coal stove will burn wood very well, but a wood stove most of the time will not burn coal... The Hitzer stoves usually are able to burn wood very well, a few have a Hopper feed top-loader design that requires you remove the hopper [2-minutes] first.

I'd leave my options open,, use wood in warmer months when only a quick hot fire is needed to take the chill off the the house,, then burn coal for the long cold winter nights/days..

$200/ton is not bad for anthracite..

Greg L..

We use water heat. Right now we have an oil boiler- $$$$$!! Of course we're trying to get away from it as much as possible.
Is there anything out there we could maybe heat our hot water with and still get heat throughout the basement? There are no heat elements in the basement for the baseboard water heat as of now.

Read up on all the boiler threads in the 'stoker forum', just above this 'hand feed' forum.. If you have the oportunity to buy a boiler, that is the way to heat your whole house.

A stove is supplemental heat, not a replacement for central heat.. Many people are able to use just a stove for 99% of their heating needs, the exception being really cold weather.. BUT moving heated air around a house is not an exact science, and we have MANY threads on the topic of getting more even heat throughout the house.. This is where a boiler and hot water works well, it distributes the heat on demand, as needed.

Hope this helps.. Greg L