I am looking to get a new stove. I will burn mostly wood but want to give coal a try also. I have an amish stove shop about 2 miles away and they have some nice DS stoves. The stove is in the basement with a duct work forced air upstairs.
I live in a 1100 sqft ranch with an unfinished basement. DS has the Ecomiser200 and then a new this year smaller kozy king. The Ecomiser is basic and has a bimetal thermostat that controls a damper and a 900ish cfm blower for $2100. The kozy king has a electric thermostat (that would be mounted upstairs) with a forced air damper and a 3 speed blower 1100cfm to max 1500cfm. This is around $2600.
My question is does anyone have either stove or similar. Is the extra money worth the forced air damper and the upgrade in blower. Also they say the Kozy King is a little more efficient.
Any help would be great. I am coming from a US stove Hotblast that eats wood like its going out of style
DS Stoves Question
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If you are planning to burn a lot of wood, make sure you are getting one of the models with the smoke reburn system.
That said, unless you are getting cut and split firewood for free, I would very highly suggest getting a couple of tons of coal and burning it exclusively for a while. Coal has so many upsides, that it's hard to justify burning firewood. No creosote, much longer burn/tending times, coal doesn't need to be seasoned, it will burn whether its wet or dry, no cutting/splitting/stacking, no splinters, bark, or bugs in the house... Coal can also maintain a much lower burn rate than wood, and it doesn't smolder and smoke like wood does in that situation.
Between the 2 stoves, I'd probably get the Kozy King, sell your stash of cut, split and seasoned firewood, and use the proceeds to buy coal!
That said, unless you are getting cut and split firewood for free, I would very highly suggest getting a couple of tons of coal and burning it exclusively for a while. Coal has so many upsides, that it's hard to justify burning firewood. No creosote, much longer burn/tending times, coal doesn't need to be seasoned, it will burn whether its wet or dry, no cutting/splitting/stacking, no splinters, bark, or bugs in the house... Coal can also maintain a much lower burn rate than wood, and it doesn't smolder and smoke like wood does in that situation.
Between the 2 stoves, I'd probably get the Kozy King, sell your stash of cut, split and seasoned firewood, and use the proceeds to buy coal!
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If you're going to burn coal then go with the Kozy King. The firebrick is 1/2 a brick deeper with that one and I know the combustion air blower / thermostat keeps the house within one degree of the setting through the burn in a big drafty house. For wood, I don't know that there is a big enough improvement for either one over the Hotblast to spend the money on a new furnace, but then, I've never burned wood in the Kozy King.
- coaledsweat
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Be advised that switching back and forth between coal and wood can be problematic. Coal usually requires a barometric damper. With wood, the damper can feed oxygen to a chimney fire. And it will become covered in creosote making it pretty much useless as a functioning draft control. I recommend you choose one fuel, you already know how long wood lasts.