Best ECONOMY woodstove?

RosewoodfarmVA,

We have clearance-reduction heat sheilds on both sides and the back. Clearance is correct. I knew I should have mentioned that first. Excellent point to observe.

Thanks,

Alex

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That is a very nice smoker

About how much meat can it hold?

That's a steal for that stove!

60-plus pounds. 780 square inches of grill space.

Here's my home-built wood stove. I did not build it, but the guy who did was a craftsman! We have used it 17 years, and it was in use for another 7 before that.

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Jim Steele
Sweetpea Farms
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." -- Robert Gates

i know somone who wanted to put one of the two-barrel woodstoves in his house and was told his insurance would be dropped if he put one in his home. Those barrels used to be made out of thicker material but are now thinner. They might work down south but i would hate to fire them hard where it gets cold.

My FIL ran one in Conn. for 30 years, same barrels. You line the bottom barrel with firebrick for $20, and it will not give you trouble. The temp in the top barrel only reaches 400-500 or so max, no worries there. One thing you do want to do is fire up a new one outside before installing it. Let the paint burn off the bottom barrel and let the steel temper. Then paint it with high-heat and install it.

The coolest idea I ever saw was in Virginia. A guy dug into a hillside and put a walk-in basement under his log cabin, which was two stories above the basement. He cut vent holes in the first story floor, put in registers, then vent holes in the second story floor with registers. His double-barrel stove was in the basement, where the wood and ash was away from his living quarters. He'd fire it up, then crack the windows open on the top floor...everything heated by convection!

As far as insurance, the barrel stoves are not UL listed, so I could see that part of it. But you'd be surprised how many folks here don't carry insurance at all. I also have heard homes with wood stoves won't be insured, but my stove in the house is homebuilt (not UL) and we've had insurance the whole time.

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Jim Steele
Sweetpea Farms
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." -- Robert Gates

Good points.

Some insurance companies do not allow woodstoves, others will not allow any form of homemade or non-UL stove.

I do not know whether oil drums from long ago where thicker or not. I intend to keep buring these guys every winter long, as I did last winter, and assuming that I am still posting here whatever year it does burn out, I will likely post at that time. Together we will see how many years these barrels will last.

As for Latitude, another good point. It is likely that in your Southern location your heating requirements would be different from us up here in the North.

A 200,000btu stove is nice when it gets cool.

I was Pm'ed asking about this thread, so 'bump'

Ha, funny this thing resurfaced. I ended up with an old Fisher Baby Bear, I love it. It heats the house much more evenly and uses half the wood of the old voglezang.

Kuma stoves are affordable and because they have a catalytic converter are extremely efficient.

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Camille
Copper Penny Ranch
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You asked about economy in a wood stove. Do you mean a cheap stove or the one that will burn less wood or one that will give the best heat on less wood? There are 3 questions that need to be answered before I can give a good answer.

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God must have loved stupid people because he made so many of them.

when hubby and i first got married, we bought a house with a wood fired boiler. what a chore, it was in basement. propane wall heater for backup.
later we moved to a large old historical building (means old windows, leaky roof and needed insulation)..we bought a cunningham wood stove, new, from Amish wheller/dealer down the road: 675$. first year all we could afford was single wall pipe we scrounged at junk yard, wleded and pulled into place 30 feet up. (with help). second year put triple wall duravent on. draft not very good but worked better. very large home to heat.
again we moved, (still own other place) and spent 1000$ first 6 weeks in propane for furnace. borught over small woodstove and burnt some coal in it. loved it.
looked on internet, found Amish delaer near us. got small loan at CU, prayed and set up. it was january (michigan). hour later found old farm, Amish dealer had one in barn, still in box, guy never came back after ordered it. we got it half price: $1237.00. its a Hitzer stove. has electric blower and hopper. and front window.
they loaded it with a lift (chain over beam and pulled). we unloaded it with 2 13 yr old boys help. put in kitchen. kitchen has hurricane draft! in pipe and chimney already there. had some parts, got also barometric damper.
get 50lb bags anthracite nut coal for $5.10 a bag, from other Amish dealer. would like tobe a few tons ahead but buy as we can. ton of bagged is a little over 200$.
the fire takes a bit to get started, but after that, shake a few times day, dump ash as needed. no wood mess, no cutting hauling chopping wood. dump coal in 5 gallon bucket, fill hopper. if not too awful bitter, one bag last 24 hours. heats most of our 6 bedroom old farmhouse.
very warm! beautiful to look at. took ash ad crinkles (doesn't make much) repaired pot holes, made flat patio garden to sit pots on.
we can burn wood in it if we run out of coal. we have done that.
fire burns 12 or more hours if you do nothing. few shakes, will burn 24 hours. we like sleeping through night and being able to go off for the day and not worry. there s no creosote, no danger of fire. outside of stove does not get very hot except top. blower is great but works without it too. could probably power it with small solar panel if need be. and minute amount of dust. no more than normal if using eletric heat.
this year we will buy a few tons to get ahead for winter. probably 3 tons should do it no problem.
there is a pic of it in the kitchen on our family blog;
www.ruralnewsandviews.blog.com

there are several sizes of hitzer stoves, and you can get a smaller one here used for about 400$. we love it and hope we'll not have to go back to wood anytime soon.

I'd give advice, but I'm the owner of an old Warm Morning stove that's no longer in production. We've had it about 30 years now, and it provides all the heat we need even in sub-zero temps for our house which is about 1100 sq ft. We can't get parts for it, but we have a local machine shop that made a new grate for the stove. I like our stove because we can damper it down and have heat all night without worrying about adding wood at 3 in the morning. The stove has an electric blower/fan that we only use in really cold weather to put more heat back in the bedrooms. Actually, it's almost too much stove for this size of house, but we know how to open windows. We're outdated for sure and should probably be looking to update our stove and method of heating, but at our age we figure it maybe will outlast us.

Good luck with your search.

I bought A Tile Fire 2000 on eBay for $200. It's one of the first stoves to have a reburner; super efficient and clean burning, so although it's from the 80s it's as efficient as stoves built today. They are made in Australia (originally New Zealand I think?). It's a steel stove with an offset partial wall of ceramic tile. It burns all night on a load of wood and puts out heat like nobody's business (according to other folks and the guy I bought it from, as well as online reviews - I won't know until winter). As for appearances, it's prettier than an LP gas heater, less beautiful than a Vermont Castings, and kind of funky/80s/retro with the tiles.

Good deals on used are out there, just be educated. I really liked some of the beautiful cast iron stoves but at 10x the price it's just not worth it. Most of the older, inexpensive stoves I looked at were cheap because they were junk, or were older Vermont castings which *look* as beautiful as the modern ones but were from the old, inefficient days when a lot of your fuel potential went up in smoke, literally.

bump

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