Glenwood Modern Oak 114

What is the best stove? As Sting so often says "it depends". One aspect of a stove might be very superior but in other areas not as good or convenient as another.

I have a high ranch house with the split entry which is a staircase half going down and half going up and is double wide. Sounds perfect for heat distribution from the lower level and it is if you don't mind really strong drafts on that stair and across the lower floor going back to the stove as the cold air makes its way back. To combat this I installed another stove on the upper level. As an enthusiast it is twice as much pleasure to fool with them, but being an enthusiast what I like might not be acceptable to many people who just want an appliance to keep them warm with minimal work.

That lower level is ideal for trying out different stoves and with its easy access is work I can handle. Moving stoves around frequently can be trying especially at age 81 when I am slightly past my prime. Good exercise though carrying stoves and coal.

Back to stoves. My interest primarily is in good combustion. The latest stove is A Glenwood Modern Oak 114 which replaces a Columbian Oak which replaces a Franco Belge which replaced a Buderus Juno. Upstairs is a mid size Franco Belge which replaces the smallest Franco belge.

The Glenwood is unsurpassed in evenness of burn and ease of shaking down. It has the original brick lined fire pot. What you see in the picture is not erosion of the brick but rather fused coal ash to the brick. The coal tends to bridge just right to keep burning coal from dropping but not the ash. A poke after shaking and everything settles. The ash is less dusty because the grates have wide enough openings to not grind the spent coal to powder leaving a more clumpy cleaner ash. The ash pan could be bigger though it does catch all the ash. The stove does not have the optional back divider pipe so stack temperatures tend to be about 150 degrees lower than the stove temp. measured at the top side of the barrel. So usually the pipe will be at 230 to 250 or so while the stove is at 400. I did want a stove with higher stack temperatures than the Franco Belge because the low temperatures were causing too much rust in the SS chimney. The ability to easily burn fallen tree limbs was also nice. As Norcan suggested burning some wood will help to preserve the stainless chimney.I think.

The Columbian Oak was a nice stove but had things that annoyed me. Ash door was not well fitted. Opening for grate crank was not sealed leaking air. Fire pot was unlined making for uneven burn. The air adjustment valves were very sloppy and even though a good system they used a very fast pitch screw into too thin a casting resulting in very little contact for the screw. It was a bigger stove with a 15 inch by 8 inch deep fire pot while the Glenwood is 14 inch reduced to 12 inch by the brick and 9 inches deep. A much better proportion.

Franco Belge stoves are very hard to beat in their ease of tending and overall efficiency which they accomplish by utilizing a shallow fire pot but burn it hot. An excellent heat exchange system keeps stack temps. low. The bad part is they have to be tended more frequently and heat output is much lower than advertised though the figures by the maker are more in line. They are not a stove to put in the basement to heat the whole house. The combination of thermostat and hopper is what makes operation so convenient along with the ability to both shake and slice the grate which is very effective and needs to be. Ash pan is good size. The best. I have altered the stove by adding a 3/4 square solid steel bar to the front of the fire pot and raising the hopper to go on the very top of the supports. this increases the bed depth and at low output can burn more than 12 hours. !6 is the most I have done. Nut coal can also be burned at this setting.

If I have learned any thing it is that most stoves have good and bad points and like selecting a car or truck it depends on what it will be used for.

Unquestionably the round lined fire pot is the best for draft and even combustion.

For ease of use the stove with hopper or magazine and thermostat is best.

Thanks for your interest.

Yes the Glenwood does make it obvious that a lot of thought went into the design in little things that might not be so apparent in other stoves. Even the footprint is not square as it is in most oak stoves. Making it a little deeper allows the ash pan to go deeper to catch that ash at the back.

I can accept your statement that the large area above the fire was thought necessary for good combustion but it does seem to me so large as to not direct flue gas closer to the walls to enhance heat exchange. This is in the simple oak stoves and does not apply to those with extended flue passages such as yours. It might be that the makers wanted to keep the stoves as simple as possible to guard against the usual neglect of many users and their failure to clean more complicated configurations. Price also is a consideration.

I have been running the stove with manual damper only. Output is very sensitive to the position of that damper. With both air shutters open about 1/16 inch and damper closed 3/4 results in a stove temp. of about 400 with a stack of 230 or so. Leaving the damper open and adjusting with one air shutter alone open about 1/16 inch results in the same stove temp. but stack is about 30 degrees lower. I do believe it is a more efficient fire and I am getting a more healthy quantity of the other blue flame that only appears in a fire long after initial volatiles are burned off. This has to be better burning of CO caused, I think by, not more air, but by higher velocity air mixing better. This is very subjective and I will have to study more. Even with such a small quantity of air the round chamber is still maintaining a circular pattern as you can see by the lean of the flames, small as they are.