Trying to decide on size of woodstove for this winter. House is 2500 square feet. Should I get a large stove to operate at a "moderate" potential or should I get a medium stove and have that "working" to keep house warm. What works better? Stove will be on first floor of house and there are no interior walls. Complete open air.

Thanks for any responses.

 

I vote for medium.

 

I'd just get one rated for the sq ft. u have or maybe alittle more.

 

When they rate for heating square footage, is that the entire house or for the area on the floor for which it is on?

 

It is the area they are capable of heating. If there is nothing else providing heat, it is the entire house.

 

Bigger just means that you can stack more wood in it at any one time. If you get a smaller stove, and have it blasting to make heat, you will have to get up more often to fill it through the night. I'd prefer a lager stove, so I can fill it with cold wood, on top of the evening's coals, and seal it up to bank the fire, so it burns all night.
also, WHAT you burn makes a huge difference. Out here in Oregon, Lodgepole is common, and while it is light to load on the truck, it burns like balsa.
Juniper is available, but not prefered, and rarely can oak be obtained. Mountain Mahogany is sometimes gotten, but it's not an easy wood to get.
Harder woods make nice long lasting coals, like mesquite, and mahogany and oak. Stacks of wood that have a mix, oak on one stack, and lodgepole on another make for flexibility.
Mesquite burns hot enough to run you out of the room.
Bigger is better in this case.
Learn to pace your fires by "damping".
good luck.

 

I have a Harmon Mark II that I burn in the fall and spring and when it is really cold I fire up the AHS multi fuel boiler out in the garage.

The harman is a wood coal stove. You will ALWAYS get a longer burn with coal so, since you are in coal country you might want to consider that. ( no, it does not smell when burnt in an airtight stove) But If you are just going with a wood stove I would say bigger is always better. It is all about burn times and you need plenty of room in the firebox to stuff wood in order to get a 8-9 hour burn time. Unless you like waking up at 3am to reload the stove.
If you are trying to heat your whole house with just this stove it really depends on the layout of your house. If you can't get the heat to circulate upstairs and have return air back, then it really doesn't matter what size stove you have.
You can always turn down the draft on the bigger stove if it gets too hot...

 

I replaced my wood stove with a pellet stove and will be installing the wood stove in the garage just incase we lose electricity.

I say go for a large stove that can burn coal. With my wood stove, I was having to add wood every 3-5 hours. That gets old after awhile.

 

When I was a kid, we had a wood stove in the basement in the centre of the house. The chimny ran up through the middle of the house.
upstairs, my father had cut cold air returns in the drywall on the three sides of the walls where the chimny ran up. the heat would rise up from the stove and through the "cold air returns" All the cold air would flow down the stairs and into the basement that way.

At night with a cold stove I would stand the logs up on end inside (~16-18" tall by ~24" deep by ~14 wide) and start my fire in the few inches that were left that I could not pack with wood. I would let it roar for a couple minutes then damp it down. In the morning I would go back down and load the stove up again before heading off to school....

 

I'd say you need the larger one. Our house is smaller, only about 1900 square feet, and we have a smaller woodstove -- firebox takes about 3 pieces of 16" split cordwood at a time. We burn oak and it puts out plenty of heat for this home, but the extra square footage might need more. Our stove is a Regency, which is a fairly high quality AirTight built in British Columbia, and it'll hold a fire all night with no problem. Just stir the coals in the morning and throw on a couple of fresh chunks and it's on it's way in just a few minutes.

 

Get yourself a small generator and plug the pellet stove into it if you lose power. The pellet stove takes very little electricity to function.

Vote for a larger than necessary stove. You can stoke it up for the evening. Also suggest some room fans, set on low, to move the heat around.

Yep, been there, done that, and got the t-shirt.

Up here we burn fir and alder mostly.

Got gas and love it.

~Dave

 

Get the largest stove you can fit/afford.
It's easier to put larger logs into the stove. Don't want to cut/split all your wood down to "kindling" size.
You have a 2500sf house in snow country. It gets very cold and you'll appreciate the extra heat that a bigger stove puts out.
Try to find yourself a sealed stove that reburns the gasses, and one w/ provisions for a circulation fan. The attached fan will kick out much more heat.
We had a stove that was rated for, I think, 2000sf, that was heating the upper level, about 900sf of our house in CO. It was never "too much" if it got too warm, we turned down the fan, or choked the fire down a bit.

 

I also had a pellet stove, before i got my Harman. It worked o.k. I guess but you are at the mercy of the power company AND the pellet makers. When I got mine a bag of pellets were $1.50 now they are in the $3.00 + range.

 

If one is good, then two is better. Get the biggun!