Heating with a wood cookstove only?

I say go for it- we use a wood stove my hubby built and we too put on bigger chunks at night for "keeping" it going. Some nights it goes out but it's so easy to get going as there are usually plenty of embers glowing down deep. Differant story when it's been cleaned out though. We pay $35 a month for gas and haven't had to pay for 2 months now. We cook and heat our water with gas too. I love throwing a pot of whatever on the stove to cook and I also have been known to turn a big pan upsidedown over with a rack to bake in - works really well.

How big is the firebox and is the stove air tight?

We heat our two story home with a wood cook stove. It is a Margin Gem,model 2002/black, Margin Stoves, Wood Cook Stoves. Older wood cook stoves don't have as large of a firebox and are not air tight so you would be putting wood in yours more often.

I cook on my stove and bake in it, during winter months. I love the look of the older stove with all the nickle trim but like the modern features of the larger firebox and being air tight. We have been using ours for eight years.

Well... given that my stove is well over 100 years old and most likely does not have an airtight firebox (haven't test burned anything) I think it is likely we'll end up getting a regular woodstove also I will be thrilled if it does burn well, but I don't want to be getting up at night to feed it all the time. I do that enough with my little kids

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The only heat we have is a wood stove, granted we are in KY so winters aren't 20-below winters, but it definitely heats about 1300 square feet with no problem and we can bank it so it will hold the 'warm' overnight ... quick heat-up in the morning.

Growing up in MT we had only wood/coal heating and cooking, though we did burn coal there almost exclusively, not a lot of wood available. The main ranch house was big ... had a kitchen range in the kitchen ... in the winter, also used a potbellied heating stove in the living room but the house stayed comfortable.

Very nice pictures! I love the plates on the wall in back. Thanks for sharing the photos.

An elderly neighbor heats her home partly with a wood cook stove - but only when the power goes out. She also has a wood stove in the basement. It probably heats more than the stove. She cooks regularly on the wood cook stove in the winter. She loves that stove and it is kept very clean and neat.

I would suggest a good wood stove. You can cook on top of those too.

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Yes but a word of caution. When I was doing research on wood stoves, I finally called Vogelzang and questioned them about which stoves would provide the largest square footage heating potential and still have a cook top. I asked about the stoves that are rated for heating and was told that you might be able to heat a kettle of water or warm something but they were manufactured with highly insulated tops that prevented the heat from dissipating too rapidly from them-thus the high btu rating on many wood/heating stoves.

I would suggest that you call them or another manufacturer and ask them questions.

The folks at Vogelzang are great and nice to deal with. On the customer service rep's recommendation we chose the large box stove. They delivered it to our address, and we have never regretted the choice. Only draw back is no oven and I have since learned that a dutch oven with a rack inside placed on top makes a nice little oven for cooking biscuits and small batch items.

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Old stoves commonly need to have their gaskets replaced to test as 'air-tight'.

However the industry standard for 'air-tight' is much more than that. It is effectively a requirement for people to buy new equipment and stop using the old.

The only 'requirement' for air-tight I am aware of is insurance. Some insurance companies may require you to have a new air-tight stove.

Our stoves are not air-tight, among our friends in this area I am only aware of one family here who has an air-tight stove. They only have it because the In-Laws wanted to buy them something. There is no legal requirement for one. I am not sure of any benefit other than being able to say that you bought a new stove.



If you want a new stove, then buy a new stove.

If you want to use your old stove, I suggest you look at replacing it's gaskets.

Have fun

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You can also get an in-line oven that fits into the stove-pipe. However they are small.

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Well, we certainly aren't going to buy a new one just yet... when we do, it will be a Quadrafire But I can get a regular wood stove on craigslist for about $500 or less, which is how my folks got theirs and it has done the job just fine. It'll only be 850 square feet anyhow. I initially bought the monarch as a prep and I also just wanted to learn how to cook on a true wood cookstove (plus I think they are beautiful) so I think it will just be a part of the kitchen - we'll use it in the winter and then cook outdoors in the summer.

The nice thing is, we'll be building with cash which means we don't have to have insurance, so it really is completely up to us (no building codes either).

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Uncle Dutch Farms
Blogging from working city mom to homesteading housewife.
Rural Living Today
Encouragement for the Urban-to-Rural Transition
My review of the Piteba oil expeller

Hey Walter did you build your stove or buy it?

Edit: nevermind, I actually went and read it That little stove actually is really cool - I checked but they are not for sale in WA. state codes, I imagine.

__________________
Uncle Dutch Farms
Blogging from working city mom to homesteading housewife.
Rural Living Today
Encouragement for the Urban-to-Rural Transition
My review of the Piteba oil expeller