I hate imperial units

Not sure what the "specs" are for "modern" or "EPA rated" are this year, but it does have a secondary (catalytic?) combustion chamber. It really needs a hot chimney to get the down-draft working to get it all working (keep the "glass clean, etc.) together though. Once the chimney is hot it can be throttled back, but the house is already 110F. It also has a thermostatically controlled fan that wraps around the secondary combustion chambers to blow that air back into the room. The stove is built into the "wall" (really a massive concrete block structure in the middle of the house with the flues in tile/concrete blocks at each end.

It's not a fireplace. Most are a net-negative. This one seems to be pretty efficient (can't light it unless it's COLD).

Once the chimney is hot I an throttle mine back too. Unfortuneately, the house is unbearably hot by that time. Once it dies down to embers (6 hours or so) I have to let it completely die or the front "glass" is impossible to clean. The reverse draft on the "glass" doesn't work after a point and it smokes up. Get the hot again and it's a *MESS* to clean up.

But it's regulated while propane doesn't seem to be. I am not a fan of a lot of government intervention but for monopolistic energy situations regulation needs to be in place or they'll have us over the barrel.

Ours can be up and running at the desired BTU/hr rate in under 1/2hr if kindled right.

That stove may be oversized then. In our case I wish it would be a bit larger because it's tough to keep the house at 70F when it's below freezing or in a cold northern wind.

Ours used to be fireplaces. Those are the pits and as you wrote they can actually remove heat from the house. So we had inserts put in. Wood stove upstairs, pellet stove downstairs.

Then it is probably not a modern stove. Our glass never gets dirty. After about 80-100 hours of operation there will be fine ash splatters on the glass but they are really easy to wipe off after letting it cool down. Even when burning rather sappy pine.

Regulation is overrated. Aftar Katrina our gas rates spiked, even though there is no connection between our gas supply and the gulf. Energy costs/prices aren't local.

I can start it in a half hour easily enough. It has to stay regulated/stoked until it's left to die completely then completely cleaned or it's a total mess. 24 hours is about all I can get it going for without a real mess (I like to sleep).

The firebox is too small, IMO. If I could keep it (well) lit for eight hours I might be able to get two days out of it but I do like to sleep too. The issue is getting the chimney hot enough to get the draft working well enough to make sure the "glass" stays clear. The start-up puts out a huge amount of heat.

The start-up is enough to heat the house to an uncomfortable level unless it's *cold*. Note that we keep the house in the mid 60s and upper 50s at night. I don't like hot when I'm sleeping.

Have you looked into the corn stoves? They look quite interesting. AISI, wood pellets are a good idea as long as there is more waste wood than demand for pellets. After that it's more expensive than cut and split wood, which is more expensive than most other heat sources.

It gets filthy when the fire dies. The draft isn't enough to reverse the flow (the draft across the "glass" is from the top) and the fire smokes some. If the smudge/coke isn't cleaned when it's cold, forget it! What a PITA!

Our stove is likely the original (20 YO). It's an "Elmira", which is now out of business. It's a fantastic backup heat source (kinda important here) and works well when it's cold. It looks like another hot winter though.

Then it must be an old stove. Some of our neighbors have those and the glass looks like it was painted with rustoleum, can't even see the fire, just a faint glow. Ours never does that unless you choke it down too early too much. With pine it's just ashes in the morning and with almond there are plenty of coals plus some residual heat. The downside is that it's an insert sans ash drawer. The ash must be separated from the coals and shoveled out every morning. But we have that job down to under five minutes now.

Yes, but we don't want to spend another $2k+. It won't amortize because the pellet price is higher than wood but it is a stable supply/demand situation. So except for higher freight charges the price remained almost constant over 5 years. Around $4.30/bag for 40lbs of the good stuff (GoldenFire). Cord wood is cheaper, of course, but a pellet stove can run up to 24 hours without tending. We use between 1/2ton and 1ton per season, plus about 3-4 cords of split wood.

That must be an old stove. What also helps is our triple wall DuraVent chimney liner. That cost almost $1000 but it always provide good draft. IIRC the total stack height should be around 15ft minimum.

I'd still look into a newer one. The non-cat stoves aren't that expensive and might cut your wood consumption while giving you a more balanced heat pattern. IOW not all at once and then nothing but more constant. We can throttle it back to the point where it only burns the gases. Looks cool, a blueish cloud hovering over the wood but not really touching it. Anyhow, except for startup and reload a good stove should never release visible smoke out the stack. If there is a constant smoke crawling out it's not an efficient stove plus might cause a chimney fire (neighbors just had one).

I doubt that I use more than a *dozen* logs per winter to heat the house ;-)

I have a draft fan on my outdoor fireplace, due to the wind problem down the hillside ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Very different here :-)

Got to turn off some outside pipes this afternoon before the freeze rolls in. Else I'd be doing mop up and plumbing work tomorrow afternoon.

Those may be ok for recreational use but on a heating stove that would be scary. One outage and then...

a chimney comes close

Bye. Jasen

stoke it up good with dry wood, get a really hot fire going in there, the glass should clear in a few minutes.

Bye. Jasen

they changed the size of the inch to 25.4mm about the same time the changed the litre. (give or take 10 years) I guess they also changed the mile that day - what a headache for surveyors, and precision mechanical engineers

Bye. Jasen

glass should clear in

No, it gets baked on the glass and takes forever to clean the next time; it only goes down from there. I've been around this block before. It is a *requirement* that one cleans the glass before relighting the stove.