The mess is def a prob if it is in living area. with mine being in a unfinished part of the basement beside a door its not bad. Then just leave upstairs door to basement open and heat comes up naturally. Also makes for nice heated floors in winter. Downside is its usually 80 degrees in the basement when its 73 upstairs. Thats reason looking at going with one of the other systems.

 

I have Enviro Fire, its a wood pellet stove. works great lots of heat easy to install, no resk of a chimney fires, the pellets are easy to store, I really like it compared to my old wood stove that for sure.

03 3500 Qcab Sbox full gauges

 

As WRTN suggested. Check out those Clayton stoves

I have an older model, the 14.2, relates close to the 1800 now. will accept a 12" x 36" round log, or more to the point, several of them.

Has provision for hot water heating, good burn time, brick lined, heavier than a dead priest.... BUT. it keeps my 3200 square foot house toasty warm down to temps in excess of -50C. The forced air setup is great too, just hook it up to a shared hot air plenum with your normal furnace, with flap style shut-offs, and go to town.

With the furnace plumbed in that way, should the fire go out, the normal furnace can take over, without missing a beat. Only drawback. If you get power outages, having a backup gen is a good idea. even though thermostatically controlled, these things will get hot, and you don't want that much heat buildup.

I have been using this brand of stove in various applications, off and on, for about 20 years. They are good, and definitely worth the dollars spent.

 

I second the pellet stove suggestion! I have one in the garage, of all places, and would like to put one in the house. Firewood, although it can be cheap, causes a lot of trouble for me, in extra time, work, poison ivy, dirt and lots of other smaller problems(bugs).
The wife has become a firebug and wouldn't live without some type of fireplace so, she doesn't mind the mess of the woodstove but, she doesn't do the biggest part of the work, EITHER. My pellet stove has be cleaned and then refilled and relit, WOW what a difference.

 

Earth Stove

 

that my scenario as well. stove kicks *** but here in fl it only gets to about 25. itll go thru some wood though. it will also sweat you outta the room if you dont ciculate the air with your central air fan

 

I had made up a larger hopper for for my pellet stove, holds about bag and a have more now, one foot taller off the top of the stove, works great. I burn the fur pellets good and hot long burn time too, I buy my pellets in the summer and I take my father with me, cheeper to buy in the summer, over 60 gets a discount.

03 3500 Qcab Sbox full gauges

 

I Love my LOPI it will keep ya warm.

 

My dad recently built a new home that has 25ft ceiling's and is about 4000 sqft, he put a Napolean I think in and had to order it out of Canada I heard it was the largest production wood burning stove made. I know that it weighed 1100 pounds because me and my dad moved it into the house, it is really nice because it is plumbed to the entire house so it will heat it nicely. But I think he paid like 6k or 7k for it