We have an old King-O-Heat. It could be from the 1950's or it could be from the early 1900's. I always thought if it lost too much firebrick or developed a hole or crack I'd replace it with the Vogelzang.
Ours is round sheet metal sides lined with firebrick with a large cast iron dome on top. The cast iron dome gets Very Hot. Frying bacon at 400F is no problem. I've even pressure canned jars of venison with no issue. When I pressure canned the venison, I actually had to let the fire burn down to keep the temp down. For cooking, think in terms of one pan or one skillet, but we have a 12" cast iron skillet (notice the theme, here
) For breakfast, we fry the bacon and render the fat/grease, then fry the potates or hashbrowns, then finally fry the eggs.
The heat goes up the stairways!!! The bedroom floor directly above the stove is toasty warm, but there are no vents or holes in the floor. We have a half-door at the top of the basement stairs, and at night, we prop the door open. In the summer, we put the top half back on and run a dehumidifier in the basement. The basement stays about 80F. The main floor stays about 70F and the upstairs bedrooms (4) are about 60F.
If the house is left unheated, it will take about 4 hours with a hot fire to warm the upstairs. Of course, anybody who thinks they are cold can go down to the basement and "bump their bum up against the stove"
We haven't done any baking, but I did get one of those basket things from Walmart to cook burgers on a campfire. I was able to insert it through the door and cook steaks on a cool fire. They had a nice smoke flavor!
If I had the time to engineer my own stove, I'd definitely want to build a water jacket and circulate the hot water under the concrete pad in the basement! Then again, it would probably cook us out of the house!
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