Thinking of heating my home with a wood-burning stove. I would appreciate any information you may have, including stove brands and installation recommendations. Will a stove heat a large, open room? Thanks.

It will heat a large room.
Distribution through house is passive.

We installed a Pacific Energy wood burning insert in our house in Connecticut and it reduced our heating bill by around 75%, burning 24/7. I liked the heat from the wood burning stove. Make sure the room its installed is large enough - it gets quite warm.

What size rooms are you wanting to heat? I ask because we have them in our house but our house was built in the 1800's to utilize them. So, each end wall has an 18" limestone wall with a 'flue' built into it and a hole in the wall for you to plumb up your stoves. The flue is shaped like an upside down "Y". One is in the kitchen and one is in the main room of the old part of the house, and we have one in each adjacent bedroom.

These are the old style cast iron style that look like this:



The one in the kitchen was much bigger as it was used to cook for the family. There are many styles.

I say all of that to say that during The freeze where the grid nearly collapsed, we had no power for a 2 weeks. So we fired up the wood stoves....the house was built before electricity so this was kind of it's jam. Our master bedroom, fired with live oak and mesquite got hot. Like 80 degrees hot.....like sleep in your underwear on top of the covers hot. It was in the teens outside. It was impressive.

So, yeah, it will heat your house, but you will need adequate wood to supply it. I do not burn mine every single day in the winter, only days that are under 50 degrees. So, I might go through a cord every two winters.


The only caveat is that you need to make sure you have it installed safely. Mine were installed way back in the day, and I had to do some very interesting hiding and explanatory gymnastics when the insurance man came to look at the house prior to insuring it.

We have one at the ranch house, it will definitely heat the house. Ours has a blower that helps circulate the hot air off the stove. It also has a glass front for a bit of ambiance. Ours is a bit on the small side, I wish we had gone a bit bigger. I would like a bigger firebox for a longer burning fire.

Good news is 1000sf comfy & spit on power grid promises by profiteers
Bad news is in/out when freezing new wood w/termites/hot ashes & coals fire risks
Caveat: creosote build up in pipe = house fire risk if not cleaned
Ideal: stove has a cheery window view of the blaze

BIG design requests since 2021 Feb deep freeze

We looked at a home with one and the insurance was going to be a mfer. Just FYI

Didn't think of that; could be a major factor in my decision.

Rule Number 32 said:

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We looked at a home with one and the insurance was going to be a mfer. Just FYI

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Yeah, they made a HUGE stink about mine since they are basically cast irons boxes free standing that conform to no current building codes. I had to move my furniture out, disconnect stoves and rearrange the rooms to meet current distance requirements prior to the insurance man's visit. Otherwise they wouldn't have insured the house, even though we rarely use them. It's just funny how strict and dumb it is. In a 150 year old house whose primary heating system was stoves, and it's still standing...maybe they aren't as bad as the insurance guys think. Just a thought.

I mean, look, fella, nothing in this house is built to current codes and it shouldn't need to adhere to them. But it is a risk to them...the whole house is as an antique, and I get that, but they go over the top.

It was approved anyway and then I put everything back. Nice to have during the freeze.

Jotul is one of the premier brands. You can also get wood stoves that are fireplace inserts.

I'd be surprised if insurance is too big an issue. In cold areas of the country, a very significant percentage of homes are heated with wood burning stoves.

As far as heating the house, if you have central hvac you can run it on just fan to help get the heat to the far corners of the house.

I lived in PA for about 5 years and had one. Like everything else there's positives and negatives. You don't exactly save money unless you have access to free firewood. I did, but I had to cut it and split it myself. I burnt about 4 cords/winter. That's a fair amount of work and some costs: chainsaw; chainsaw blades, fuel, oil, blade sharpening eqpt.; some cutting equipment such as chaps, a timberjack; gas driving too and from my woodcutting area, etc. The wood cutting and splitting is great exercise that I enjoyed doing a lot.

The warmth and radiant heat are great. The dirt, bugs, smoke, bark, etc. are not-so-great.

Just to play devils advocate....

I don't think the statistics exist but I'd wager there were significantly more home fires 150 years ago than today....