Heating with a wood cookstove only?

[Betho]

I have an old Monarch wood cookstove/range that I bought a few years back. It's currently being stored and I haven't tested it or anything but I'm just curious...

We're looking at building a pretty primitive/offgrid cabin next spring. The cost of bringing utilities up there would be prohibitive so we're looking for a more affordable way to get this done, and our budget will be pretty tight.

So - since we already have THIS stove (and assuming it works fine once cleaned up, of course), I'm curious if it would be necessary to get a second regular woodstove for heating? The cabin design will have an open floorplan with a bedroom downstairs and an enclosed sleeping loft for the kids upstairs.

It will only be about 25x25, so pretty small. Has anyone used one of these for heating only? I guess my question is actually this - I imagine it would be fine during the day, but wouldn't the fire die out quickly overnight?

I guess I'm trying to figure out if it's worth the hassle of trying to use it for home heating. We may just try it the first winter and if it doesn't work maybe get another stove, but I'm just curious what other people's experiences are. Maybe we'd be fine, especially if we orient the cabin to take advantage of passive solar.

[tprice]

A wood stove cookstove will certainly heat the space. You are right about them not holding fire for very long though. I used a old Homecomfort stove for one winter and nearly had to run a conveyer to keep up with the wood. Bought a new, airtight cookstove for next winter and paid for it in two years in wood savings. The old stoves were designed for baking not controlled heating. My Homecomfort is now in the summer kitchen and still bakes better than the new one. TP in SC

[FarmboyBill]

I can see where, keeping it HOT all through the day and 1/2 he night would eventually cause the brackets that hold the eyes to buckle and get distorted.

[jwal10]

I have a small one in my off grid cabin that has a water heating coil in it. I built a large block wall with river rock as a hearth, it holds heat well, the back side is in the airlock entry and is painted a dark brown and on sunny days the sun warms the wall keeping the cabin warm all night. They use a lot more wood than a newer airtight stove but the fire is a series of fires banked all day with small pieces. Tt burns, dies down and wood is added before the fire goes out. The cabin is 18'x20'....James

[tinknal]

I would think you would spend half the day splitting wood.

[am1too]

My wood heating stove cost me less than $200 brand new and it will run me out of the house in an hour. I have to watch it or the temp will climb to 100 very easily. It would do great in a 25' square cabin. She will hold a fire all night. I can cook on it too. It has those pan lids you lift out and set a pan skillet over the open hole. Nothing better than double duty. And it is small.

[salmonslayer]

I lived in a small cabin heated just by a wood cook stove when I was a boy and I remember getting up in the morning and throwing some small pieces in the stove and huddling by it to get warm. I have very fond memories of that but I dont think I would be ready for it now. In more recent years I have seen people use them for cooking and its literally a fine art but man do baked goods taste good. Oh, the other thing is that its hard to regulate the heat...I remember sleeping in the loft and dripping with sweat but my feet freezing when I was on the bottom floor.

These pics go back a half century or so but things were a bit more primitive in my childhood and its kind of interesting to find the old pics. Just had a childhood friend pass away which is why I was digging in these old photos.

[Alice In TX/MO]

Oh my gosh, what a wonderful set of pics.

[Ravenlost]

Growing up the wood cookstove was often the only heat we had...and that stove is still going strong! It was installed when the house was built in 1935. Only thing that's ever been replaced was the grate (a couple times). While our bedrooms were cold (often woke up with ice on the inside of the windows) we all survived just fine.

[Betho]

What cool pictures! See... I'm also thinking I'd be spending all day long splitting firewood. Or actually my husband would do most of it (though I do quite a bit of the splitting now).

I guess we'll have to play it by ear... I'm so spoiled by the Quadrafire in our current home (a rental), that thing will go for 14 hours easy.

[jwal10]

Those pictures bring back a lot of memories, Mom only had a wood stove to bake with. We also had a big cast iron Montag heater in the living room. I burn mostly lumber in my woodstove, wood is cut 12" so easy to split....James

[PhilJohnson]

I had a wood stove that was just about darn near identical to the one in Salmonslayer's post. It was in a small 14x35 mobile home. I had a hard time heating the house with it. When it was 25 below it just couldn't keep up. Also having to get up every hour to fill it was annoying so most of the time I just let it go out at night. I am much happier with my wood furnace. Much longer burn time and a lot more heat. I got my furnace for nothing.

I could get the wood stove glowing hot and not warp anything. The much thinner furnace has to have the blower running. After a few years of off-grid heating the thing got warped pretty bad. Now it's cracked and I'll probably have to replace it. It was a cheapie when new so maybe a good furnace wouldn't have that problem.

[opportunity]

The 94 year old lady nextdoor has a woodstove that she bough in 1954 she usesed it to cook and heat her home up untill three months ago when she went to the nursing home. She chopped her own wood so it must not be to hard to use and keep going

[lovinthislife]

that pic looks just like ours except mine is black. We haven't used this stove yet but it will be my only heat except for in the bathrooms when we're showering, we'll turn on an electric heater.

We grew up using these stoves for the only heat. Yeah, it gets cold during the night, but that's why we have quilts on the bed. It doesn't take long for it to heat up in the morning and you can always dress in front of the stove too. lol

[ET1 SS]

Should be plenty heat.

Even better if you do the water coil thing and circ heated water through a radiant floor.

[lazyBum]

My brother has one is in butcher shop that we cook and heat with. It keeps the room comfortable, but somebody is constantly feeding it. Everything that is cooked with it tastes better, that's a scientifically proven fact*.



*Or maybe a very strong opinion.

[highlands]

We have a little box stove that we heat our cottage with (252 sq-ft). We use about 0.75 cord of wood a year and it keeps the place very comfortable. We cook on the top of it.

site:sugarmtnfarm.com wood stove - Google Search

[haypoint]

In 1977 I bought a farmhouse that had a wood fired boiler in the basement and a wood cook stove in the kitchen. I bought it in November and my BILs wanted to see it. So, after Christmas, we headed up north. The two feet of fresh snow was beautiful.
The kitchen has a door to the dining room, so we could simply heat the modest sized kitchen with the wood cook stove. I’d started lots of campfires, so this shouldn’t be a big deal. Note to self: it takes a lot of paper and kindling to get a hot fire started. We slept in sleeping bags on the floor.
It didn’t take long to get a good hot fire. The stove wasn’t air tight and had a tiny firebox. So, I slid into my sleeping bag for a night of rest. But, an hour later, the room was very cold and the fire was out, cold. So, I ripped up papers, used more kindling and got a fire going, again. This procedure was repeated hourly all night long.
I learned to love that stove and have accepted its limitations. I’m a lot better at getting a fire started in an instant. I do use it to heat the kitchen, but just when I need to take the morning chill off and I’m there to feed it regularly.
But I’m in a new place now and while I was shopping for a Baker’s Choice or Pioneer Princess, I scored a lightly used Elmira Oval. Those stoves are air tight and have a firebox that can hold a fire for the whole night.
By the way, that new snow looked wonderful, all sparkling with a clear blue sky and bright sun. It was my first night in my farmhouse and it was 30 below when I stepped outside.

[badlander]

We heat 1200 square feet with a Vogelzang big box stove. It's a bit of a wood hog but it can crank the temp up to 85 degrees or higher in the winter without breaking a sweat. It will hold a fire for about 3 hours without re-stoking during the night if we burn a good sized "keeper" log in it.

The local Amish regularly heat with their cook stoves. Most of the houses are rambling two stories. Some will add an additional wood burning stove in the living area but the houses are all on open floor plans as is ours.

We talk about putting in a standard LP furnace but in all honesty, we have so much timber that economics makes it prudent to use wood to heat.

[jersey girl]

We have a kitchen Queen cook stove and heat about 2000sq ft. with it. Our kitchen is in the center of the house, and the rooms circle around it. We have a ceiling fan above the stove to help move the air. At night, we put a large piece of oak or ash in the firebox and still have good embers in the morning.
Your stove should heat your house fine. Good luck!
Joanie