Opinions on wood stove brands?

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

We're also in the PNW. Yesterday, the power was out in our county for ten hours. It was predicted to be out over night, but fortunately it came back on around 7pm. I was glad to have a wood stove for such a situation. 
Ours is a Defiant. 

It looks like this one.

[gregintenn]

Buck has always been the gold standard brand around here.

www.buckstove.com/

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Oh, you said insert. Hmmm...we did that in another house. It's not like the one you have in the picture. It's a traditional looking one--about half the size of the picture in my previous post. In 2009, we paid $2500 for the insert which included installation. You have to put something in the chimney to convert it. 

[andi9899]

Jan 17, 2016 21:14:18 GMT -5 alwaysbeoptimizing said:

We live in Seattle, so fairly mild. Our home has gas heat, but for ambiance and disaster preparedness, I'd like to convert one of our fireplaces to a wood insert. Any opinions on brands/how to score a deal/etc?

Looking at something like this. it would go in our basement den, so the heat could radiate upstairs.

seattle.craigslist.org/est/ppd/5386566138.html

Pricing seems to be all over the place talking to different shops.

If you have a working fireplace, why convert it? I've never had either, but as an insurance agent, wood stoves make my antennas move. We prefer fireplaces.

[gregintenn]

Jan 17, 2016 22:10:35 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

We're also in the PNW. Yesterday, the power was out in our county for ten hours. It was predicted to be out over night, but fortunately it came back on around 7pm. I was glad to have a wood stove for such a situation. 
Ours is a Defiant. 

It looks like this one.

That's pretty.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

We do enjoy the ambiance and its stateliness. Ours is further away from the wall than this one shows, so we do give up a lot of space for it. Ours bricks are built up a foot also.  

That picture is a bit misleading though. It's challenging to keep the class that clean. If we use it consistently, then the class becomes dirty within a few days of constant use. Then, it cannot be cleaned until it's completely cooled down, which can take another 10 hours. 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Jan 17, 2016 22:17:44 GMT -5 andi9899 said:

Jan 17, 2016 21:14:18 GMT -5 alwaysbeoptimizing said:

We live in Seattle, so fairly mild. Our home has gas heat, but for ambiance and disaster preparedness, I'd like to convert one of our fireplaces to a wood insert. Any opinions on brands/how to score a deal/etc?

Looking at something like this. it would go in our basement den, so the heat could radiate upstairs.

seattle.craigslist.org/est/ppd/5386566138.html

Pricing seems to be all over the place talking to different shops.

If you have a working fireplace, why convert it? I've never had either, but as an insurance agent, wood stoves make my antennas move. We prefer fireplaces.

Why?

[Deleted]

Why not just convert one of your fireplaces to wood?

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Jan 17, 2016 22:41:54 GMT -5 oped said:

Why not just convert one of your fireplaces to wood?

If the goal is to heat the house in the case of no other available heat, a wood stove is much better than a fire place.

[Deleted]

Could be. Depends on the fireplace and space. I was also thinking its Seattle, so not heating from 0 or anything....

[Deleted]

I just am partial to fireplaces

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Doesn't Seattle have restrictions on wood burning fireplaces?  I seem to remember hearing them talk about it on the news recently.

That being said, we have a gas fireplace with a blower motor and it does an excellent job of heating the room when we lose power.  The motor is small enough that it doesn't pull much off of the generator.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

That was a bit of a disappointment for me when we moved in here. With our last house (mine that's rented out now) with the insert, we still had the mantle original to the fire place. Here's our solution now. Look at the back right corner of the picture. I have another window just like that on the other side of the same wall. I can use the same stocking holders as I did on the mantle and put three on each window. There's only one there now as this is morning of Christmas. It's not cold in the house--my daughter is just a dork who is wearing a hat her BF gave her for Christmas. 

[tallguy]

Doesn't Seattle have restrictions on wood burning fireplaces? I seem to remember hearing them talk about it on the news recently.

Several counties impose burn bans if air quality is determined to be at certain levels. It means that people cannot burn outside at all, or in fireplaces, inserts, and wood stoves unless they are certified as having no other source of heat available. 

[teen persuasion]

Jan 17, 2016 22:10:35 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

We're also in the PNW. Yesterday, the power was out in our county for ten hours. It was predicted to be out over night, but fortunately it came back on around 7pm. I was glad to have a wood stove for such a situation. 
Ours is a Defiant. 

It looks like this one.

Ours is a Resolute Acclaim, it looks very similar.  It looks like yours has center opening front doors; ours is one door that hinges on the right (no center bar).  I like the broader flat top of yours - ours steps down on each side.  



Last night I made soup on the woodstove, something you can't do with an insert.

[steph08]

We had a wood stove insert in our fireplace in our last house. It would heat the downstairs fairly well, but the heat didn't really radiate very far. It was also used and fairly old.

We then moved to a wood burner in the basement and that sucker would heat the whole house. When we moved, we purchased an even larger wood burner and it heats our Cape Cod without a problem - the heat just radiates up from the basement - we did cut a vent directly above the wood burner and placed a small fan to help circulate the air up.

It was 2 degrees when I woke up this morning, and the house was still 66. If we had gotten up to fix the fire in the middle of the night, it would have stayed around 69/70.

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

Jan 17, 2016 23:09:33 GMT -5 oped said:

I just am partial to fireplaces

Love, love, love the sock display.  

[imawino]

Jan 17, 2016 22:41:54 GMT -5 oped said:

Why not just convert one of your fireplaces to wood?

A wood stove is much better at actually providing heat than a regular fireplace. Most of the heat from a wood fire in a fireplace goes out the chimney.  New wood stoves can be very efficient, only having to put in new wood every 8+ hours (obviously depending on the wood and how hot you are burning it).   We have an old, used, rusty model and it still keeps us pretty toasty, but it's not nearly as efficient as a new one would be.  We've been tossing around the idea of replacing it but at the cost it's not really worth it for us (we have natural gas heat in the house, so the savings in gas expense would be a long payback period).

To answer the OP:  Quadra Fire and Harman are good brands.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

teen persuasion, there is also  "lid" access. On the google picture you can see the black handle on the top center underneath the black pot. Since the picture of my actual woodstove is a picture of my daughter and dog, it's not as visible, but it is there. When I load wood into it, I always use the lid--much safer for my clumsy self! 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

I second getting a fan. The one in the house in which we currently live doesn't have a fan--hence the fan sitting next to it. When we did the insert in my house, we made sure to get a fan. I don't remember how much that increased the price, but it was definitely worth it. 

The cut wood must sit out for at least a year to dry, so keep that in mind if you're going to harvest your own trees. 

[Deleted]

Fireplaces don't need to be inefficient. They will never reach as high as some other sources, but look up Rumford. Also heating the masonry mass creates radiant heating, st pending in the mass of course.

The socks are our advent count down

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

Jan 18, 2016 15:42:59 GMT -5 oped said:

Fireplaces don't need to be inefficient. They will never reach as high as some other sources, but look up Rumford. Also heating the masonry mass creates radiant heating, st pending in the mass of course.

The socks are our advent count down

Did your DH build your fireplace?

[Deleted]

Yes. Its not his fanciest but it fits in here perfectly.

[teen persuasion]

Jan 18, 2016 14:05:01 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

teen persuasion , there is also  "lid" access. On the google picture you can see the black handle on the top center underneath the black pot. Since the picture of my actual woodstove is a picture of my daughter and dog, it's not as visible, but it is there. When I load wood into it, I always use the lid--much safer for my clumsy self! 

Yes, ours has that feature, too.  Our usable top surface area is essentially the lid and a bit around it; the left and right sides slope/step down.  So to add wood I have to remove any pots on top for a moment.  I'd also guess that the overhanging shelves on either side of your stove are not quite as hot as dead center, better for simmering.  When going full tilt, ours can be too hot for what I want to cook.  So in hindsight, I prefer your stove's style.

We generally only open the front door to empty the ash pan.

[teen persuasion]

This is what mine looks like.  Not my cat and dog, but our cat is usually stretched out in front whenever it is in use.

[CCL]

Jan 18, 2016 21:25:31 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

This is what mine looks like.  Not my cat and dog, but our cat is usually stretched out in front whenever it is in use.

Nice!