So I have a 2000 square foot house that came with a wood stove.  Its a better n bens and is at least 30 years old.  I needed some replacement parts so I went to the local fireplace place.  They told me that the company is out of business and that the stove was entirely out dated.  He also told me that I am burning twice as much wood in it as I would in a new stove.

I was able to have a friend fabricate the parts I needed and I have it up and running.  It does not heat the entire house but its great supplemental heat and we burn just about every day.

So do I keep her or look into a new one?  It gets hot its already installed and its free...  Am I going to be that better off with a new stove or should I just keep what works?

I have plenty of land and cut my own wood.  I don't pay to have it delivered if that matters.

Thanks

Newer EPA stoves have longer burn times, that is for sure.
They do require DRY wood to burn efficiently. Do you need one? That is a question that only you can answer. Do you want to heat your house while using less wood and have longer burn times per load? FYI, we have two stoves in our house.
In our basement we have a Cawley Lemay 600 which is an awesome stove that puts out a ton of heat.
We had an old insert upstairs but it got replaced in September with a new freestanding stove as the old insert was not enough to heat the upstairs.
After doing a lot if research I got a Jotul F55 and had it installed. It heats our house even during sub freezing temperatures. I average about two to three loads if wood per day and it will hold coals for twelve hours. So far we have been VERY happy with our purchase.
I also own lots of land and cut my own wood. We will probably go through about 4-5 cords this season.

Not entirely true.

EPA catalytic stoves have longer burn times due to the way they function. They're more of a "low & slow" type of burn. OTOH, EPA non-catalytic stoves burn more like "hot & fast". The former will give you a long lasting heat without the need for frequent stoking, but the heat output in BTU/hr is also quite a bit smaller to get a long burn time. That being said, the latter will provide more heat to your home if you stoke it frequently (for me every 3-4 hours in super cold weather or 5-8 hours in moderately cold to chilly weather) because they burn much hotter (but also consume the wood faster.

IMHO, you will save wood by picking up a new EPA rated stove but is it really worth it? Depends on your priorities. Cutting wood is a lot of work, in the long run it will pay off, but short term you won't see a great deal of benefit. If you don't mind sacrificing a little money to work a little less then get a new one. If you want to save the money and don't mind the work then learn how to burn PROPERLY in an old "smoke dragon" and keep what you have...

I went non-catalytic because I didn't want the additional maintenance of a catalytic stove (need to replace the cat every few years and they aren't cheap)...

I am in the process of designing my home and I have looked at lopi extensively. My current wood stove burns alot of wood as its an old stove and very inefficient. Getting up every 3-4 on extremely cold nights is a pain.

I had a home built smoke dragon stove that heated 1700 square feet up to 90 degrees in the dead of February.  That house leaked air like a sieve, and the stove was not able to be regulated well.  Even though the stove had a 6 cubic foot firebox the wood would burn fast, and a few hours after nearly needing to open the window to let in some cool air, the house would be cooling off fast, and cold within four or five hours.  We burned full time, primary source of heat, and went through 12 full cords of wood a few winters in a row.  Plus 600 gallons of propane.

We replaced it with the largest Pacific Energy stove (EPA rated with secondary burner) and had a much more even heat output - 6 hours between loadings on those bitter cold days.  Longer if it was above 10F.  It wouldn't cook us out of the house.  We used 2/3 of the wood.


Whether you need a different stove or not is up to you, how much wood you burn, the price you pay, and the comfort you seek.  It was absolutely the right choice for us.



LOTS of reading on all things woodburning at the Hearth forums.

I used the forums at Hearth.com to research our stove.  I settled on a Woodstock Soapstone "Fireview".  Its an EPA Catalytic stove and its awesome!  It can go 10 to 12 hrs on a burn.  But...Dry wood is a must!  It all depends on how much time you have to spend processing wood.  I'd rather be able to get by on 2-3 cord a year vs 5-6.  

Thanks im in no big rush, and I asked here because I thought it may have been a sales pitch.  First floor of the house is 74 now and 2nd floor is 68.  Heat has not come on all day...

My "new" woodstove is OLD and ,inefficient, but only cost me $70,couple cans of black spray paint and a new gasket,  but wood is free, as is teenage labor.

Funny you mention that... my brother just started burning coal this year in 2 stand-alone stoves with the plans of eventually putting in a wood fired boiler that would heat the whole place. He now loves coal so much he thinks he'll just go ahead and put in a coal boiler or furnace.

He only has to fill the coal hopper once every day or so, shake the shaker grates twice a day, and it's actually a bit cheaper than buying wood. He's using less than 1 bag of coal per day to heat a 6500 sf house. We had no idea that coal was that cheap/easy to heat with...

Any one know anything about the Englander 1800 sq ft stoves? 90% of the reviews i have read seem to be pretty good on home below 2000 sq ft.

Englander is a fine stove. A nice Buick of wood stoves.

In my opinion, the two cadillacs of wood stoves are Lopi and my personal favorite, Jotul.

In my opinion, Jotul is the Bentley or Mercedes Benz of wood stoves. jotuls foundry is the oldest continuously running cast iron foundry in Europe. Them Norwegians have been living in some darned cold winter climates for ever. They are absolute pros at making and designing wood stoves. I have a c450 imsert installed in april of 2013 that i love and am toasty by as we speak, and i persuaded my sister to buy a F 50 TL Rangeley. She and her family built the house out of town a bit and use propane for heat. Its a 2012 ranch which is about 2400 sf, and the stove can easily cook them out of the house if they arent careful. They absolutely love it. I know im partial, but if you are looking for the best, i suggest Jotul. In business for 160 years.

Dang dup. Sorry.

Agreed, I have been burning wood over 30 years. We put a Jotul Firelight in 2 winters ago, best stove I have ever run. I wanted the largest non-cat cast iron stove I could get and it fits the bill. Incredibly high BTU output and long burns.

Another vote for the Jotul J55. heats our 2000 sq ft home to the point where i need to open windows here in the winter.

and dry wood is a must, as mentioned above


ETA: sorry, i have the j500 not the 55. but it rocks

I love my Englander 30-NC!  Have it running as we speak, 32 outside with the wind blowing, but it's 76 inside.

I have the 13-NC Englander and it's been in use for 6yrs so far.  No issues and it heats our 1500sqft 20yr old ranch in MidMo just fine.  I do need to replace a couple of firebricks I cracked by forcing a long piece in.  It is the right size for our place but I toyed with getting the 30-NC for the larger firebox for longer burn times.  There are just enough coals left to refire in the morning after 8hrs, but it works better after 6hrs.  I scored the stove at Lowes end of season clearance for less than $500 so we got the 13-NC.  It was a trial to see if the wife would like wood heat and the thoughts were to get a fancier looking enameled stove to upgrade later.  She won't leave the house hardly now that she's addicted to radiant heat.  Lucky for her she wrangles our rug rats these days.

Guys thanks for the feedback.  Im gonna run my stove for now and watch for end of season sales at home depot and lowes in the Englander...

Jotul is for decorating, not to storage the heat-energy. I give you few hints and Finnish models, how real stoves look like:

http://www.uunisepat.fi/takat/mallisto/

http://www.tiileri.fi/fi/sivu/674


Here you can also see, how long these give heat after wood is burned:

http://www.nunnauuni.fi/tulisijat.html

Fixed your first link.

I haven't done any research in a while but I have one of these:  

http://www.hearthstonestoves.com/store/wood-products/wood-stoves/mansfield

It does require dry seasoned wood but I use so little VS. the old school style stove that its worth it.  I heat 100% with wood and it requires about three fills per day to easily maintain 65~70 depending on outside temps.

Other posts are correct the new style stoves are slow and steady even heat.  You can crank it up to put some heat out but you really need a good bed of coals in place to do that.  

I would also suggest using your stove for at least a full season before making a decision.  It took the wife and I about a year to figure out how to best heat the house with ours.

I also find its hard to adjust VS. the old wood stoves.  We usually run it full open or closed right off, kind of an like only having HIGH and LOW settings.  Once we got it figured out and found its "sweat spot" we were good to go.

The stove was in our house when we bought it, and unless your heating primarily with wood I don't know if I would buy one after looking at MSRP.

Mine:

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