Wood Stove heat & cook

A

Army Girl

Inactive
I have a few questions about wood cookstoves.

Can a cook stove be used for cooking and heat or do you have to have a separate stove for heating? Would it harm a cookstove to burn wood in it all the time?

Can a cookstove be in the middle of a room, or must it be up against a wall?

What are the best cookstoves that I should consider when making a purchase?

Can anyone recommend a good cookstove book?

I will be getting a cooking/heat stove
soon and it will be the only heat source.

Any replies or links would be most appreciated, thank you. :D
 
H

HoofTrimmer

Inactive
Todd Wood Stove

Hiya Army Girl,

I've been looking for a wood cookstove for my kitchen too. I do plan on using it to keep the room warm as well.

Here is the one that I'm probably going to go for, it is not very expensive and looks attractive, plus it has a six gallon water reservior.

Here is the link:
http://www.buffaloimport.com/stove.htm

If anyone knows of another stove or has any info on these stoves please let us know.

TIA

HoofTrimmer
 
C

CopperTopMom

Contributing Member
We have an Elmira stoveworks "Sweetheart"

It's a great little stove and we like it. I did a search and it looks like they may not make wood fired cook stoves anymore. It has an over and everything but I don't bake in the oven(haven't been brave enough yet).

It has a water jacket connected to a rangeboiler. We use it to pre-heat the water for our electric tank but you don't have to do it that way. The only drawback to the rangeboiler is you can't control the temp. If you have the stove on constantly and aren't using hot water eventually the tank will boil!!!!! :ecrz:

We have both stoves "against the wall" or at least as close as is allowed (actually the kitchen stove is a little too close and we had to have a heat shield installed) :D It could be in the middle of the room if you wanted although just about everyone we know has one and they are all to one side. You have to consider clearances which should be on a metal plate on the back of the stove. Then there is the floor underneath. There are clearances and flooring materials that are required there as well. We have a Drolet "Contrempra 1600" in the living room and it is a heat stove but has a good cooking surface as well and I have used it to process my pressure canner quite handily

We have only ever had one incident with any of our 4 children burning themselves on a wood stove and we have always had them. The children seem to feel the heat and just naturally stay away. The most danger is in spring and fall when you have a low fire just to take the chill off.

That got wordy but I hope it gave you some insight. I'm sorry I couldn't suggest places to look.

Coppertopmom
 
B

Birdlady

Membership Revoked
We would love to have a woodstove, both for heat and cooking........but alas, it's not yet time!

We have these two books tho, that are VERY informative:

"American Wood Heat Cookery" by Margaret Byrd Adams

and

"Woodstove Cookery, at home on the range" by Jane Cooper.
 
B

bobaloo

Inactive
We had a nice 100-year old wood cookstove on our farm. In the midwest we had 3 woodstoves, a barrel stove made from a kit, a Jotul and the cookstove, and ran 0-3 depending on the weather.

The cookstove really put out an amazing amount of heat. Be aware that the only drawback of a cookstove is that they have small fireboxes, so the wood needs to be smaller than 1.5" or so, takes a lot of splitting. The hotter you want the stove the smaller you split it, used to make piles of "biscuit wood", 1/2" to 3/4" to get the stove up to 450-500 to get great biscuits.

One big advantage of a wood cookstove is that the oven is airtight, which means that what you cook doesn't dry out the way it does in gas or electric stoves. Sometimes you need to adjust your recipes a little to alllow for that by reducing the liquids a little.

The other "drawback" of a wood cookstove is that all winter when you have it going for heat you find yourself thinking, "hmmm, have a warm oven, might as welll bake something..." Can be hard on the waistline ;-)

I miss ours, would love to have one in this house. Here in Oregon it would pretty much heat the house. Unfortunately just don't have the room in the kitchen.
 
F

Freeholdfarm

Inactive
A few makes of wood cookstove *do* have airtight fireboxes large enough to hold a fire all night. One is the Pioneer Maid. I'm looking at a used Schrader wood cook stove that does, also -- though I'm trying to find information on how well the oven on that stove actually works before I definitely commit to buying it. In the archives at Homesteading Today there is a lot of wood cook stove information, and a couple other brands were mentioned as having the larger fireboxes.

If you get an older cook stove, or one of the newer ones with a small firebox, and plan to heat your house with it, expect to have to sleep near the stove on really cold nights, so you can get up every hour or so to add wood.

Kathleen
 
Charlie

Charlie

Membership Revoked
We used a couple wood cookstoves in our younger years, but AC (After Children) we moved and now use a gas one. We look forward to some day being able to have one again (along with a modern alternative for summer).

One thing to look for is "malleable iron" grates. These will last forever. An old grandma told us that we did good to get a "Crown" as they had malleable iron grates. She said....those darn modern ones aren't worth a "bleep".....20-30 years, they wear out. The malleable iron ones last forever. We laughed like crazy as young kids. 20-30 years......what do you expect.....then we realized she was almost 90 and that would have meant replacing the grates 4-5 times in her lifetime. That is built to last!

Another thing......my wife loved her cookstove so long as I kept her in perfectly dry small split hard maple with cedar for kindling. If either of the two were in short supply, I heard about it. It only takes a couple of minutes to have a fire going to start a pot of coffee in the morning with good wood. It takes MUCH longer with poor fuel.

Wood cookstoves here in Northern Wisconsin are wonderful tools as they heat part of the house, dry your gloves, bake wonderful bread and seem to always be where folks gather for converstion, etc. I miss ours and you have me thinking about getting one again.
 
A

Army Girl

Inactive
Thank you to all, I followed the links and also am doing some google research. This is something where research is necessary.:)
 
H

Homestyle

Veteran Member
We have an insert in our fireplace that sticks out about 2 feet and looks like a woodstove. We use wood to heat our house in the winter. I cook on it just like a regular stove when the power goes out during ice storms. Cast iron works great. I don't fry anything though, after all it is in my living room. I use a covered dutch oven with a rack in the bottom to hold a pan to bake biscuits, bread, etc. I bake meats like roasts, ribs, chicken in covered foil lined pan. Sometimes you want the bottom of the pot to be raised off the hot surface with a trivet. You will learn when those times are and for what foods.

Are you planning on cooking with wood in the house during the summer?
 
H

HoofTrimmer

Inactive
A UL Listed Woodstove?

Don't know if this is fact or not. I talked with the Todd Woodstove folks yesterday and was informed of their UL listed status. If the wood stove you put in your house is not UL listed and it burns to the ground your insurance company will not reimburse you for your loss.

There is no way an antique will be UL listed.

Is this just BS or what?

Thanks,
HoofTrimmer
 
A

Army Girl

Inactive
Hi HoofTrimmer,

Of all the woodstoves I looked at so far, I have not seen any yet that are UL listed.



Homestyle,

I plan to have a screened harvest kitchen/non electric laundry, I will use it for canning, butchering, baking, laundry,
ect. in the hotter weather.
 
Libertarian

Libertarian

Deceased
When we were living in England in the 50's we had a coal stove in the kitchen. Mom and dad kept it going 24x7 in the cold months. Mom would cook and bake with it and it kept at least half of the house warm. Our bedrooms had some sort of gas/ceramic heaters that would burn the bejeezuz out of anyhting within a few feet of them and heated the room to bread oven temps in 15-20 minutes.
 
MaxTheKnife

MaxTheKnife

Membership Revoked
This thread got me to thinking about wood cookstoves again. I went and did a search and found one that really looks like a great deal. Read about it and see the pic here:

http://www.northdoorway.com/stoves/bakers-choice.htm

The only drawback is that the company is located in Canada so shipping charges would be a drawback. Too bad they don't have an outlet in the U.S.
 
T

Todd

Inactive
We've had a wood cookstove for over 20 years. In our case, it is actually made up of three different stoves. There was a couple that had a business rebuilding antique cookstoves and you could pick and choose what you wanted. We chose the warming oven from one stove and the base from another. The one thing we are sorry we didn't do was have the chrome redone. But the cost was already $1,200 and we couldn't afford another $200 or so at that time.

Since we also have an electric range in the kitchen, we use it mostly for heating (and usually try to do a stew at the same time). We use it on days when we need some heat but not enough to fire-up the wood heater. We probably burn a half a cord of wood in it a year. It still puts out a little heat in the morning if we put wood in before we go to bed.

Todd
 
F

Flagwaver

Membership Revoked
Max, I have a friend who got a Bakers Choice and they use it to heat their house and to cook everything through the winter. In summer she uses a propane stove and electric broiler. She loves her Bakers Choice. No complaints. She has five kids. Big family to feed.

They put it near a window so they can pile firewood outside. Just pull it in the window when its cold.

I have not visited her in winter to see how she works it, but she really likes it a lot.
 
S

Sarrah

Contributing Member
MaxTheKnife said:
This thread got me to thinking about wood cookstoves again. I went and did a search and found one that really looks like a great deal. Read about it and see the pic here:

http://www.northdoorway.com/stoves/bakers-choice.htm

The only drawback is that the company is located in Canada so shipping charges would be a drawback. Too bad they don't have an outlet in the U.S.
Click to expand...

Great find Max
I have almost enough saved to buy that one. We've been discussing the bakers choice instead of the pioneer maid as it is same quality just a bit smaller. It is rated to heat 2000 sq ft and that is more than we need here.
I've sent them an email enquiring about shipping and a few questions on the unit. I'm telling my chickens to pick up egg production just a tad so we can buy Mumma a new stove.
:chkn: :chkn: :chkn: :chkn:
If you locate any better prices I'd sure be interested.
I'm also saving for one of those fans that are powered by heat alone. Best price I've seen is $100 plus shipping. Seems high to me but then again they are probably not mass produced. I forget what they are called.
 
C

Camasjune

Veteran Member
You do NOT want a wood stove rated to heat more living space than what you have unless you like a large portion of your home to be "Death Valley in Summer" conditions while trying to cook a meal. A lot of people make this mistake and this is why you can purchase large stoves second hand real cheap.

You can cook on any woodstove that either has a flat surface or doors that open wide enough to cook directly over the fire or in the coals. Lehman's sells 2 different stove top ovens that can be used on any appliance that puts out heat:

http://www.lehmans.com/jump.jsp?ite...Cat=809&i3Cat=0&i4Cat=0&page=3&defaultDisplay

My house is small and well insulated. During power outages, it gets quite warm just from a few kero lamps. We have a small addition on the drawing board and a small Enterprise cookstove to go in there.

Here is a thread about my stove with a picture:

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=94313&highlight=wood+cookstove

One of the things blatantly missing from many books about cooking and heating with wood stoves is "drafting" a house to distribute heat to all the rooms. I've met quite a few inexperienced woodstove users give up and add additional heat sources because their books did not have drafting instructions.

Here is the heat powered fan. They may help move warm air a bit faster when used with other passive methods of air movement.

http://www.lehmans.com/shopping/pro...ODUCT&iMainCat=671&iSubCat=886&iProductID=306
 
Christian for Israel

Christian for Israel

Knight of Jerusalem
to answer one of the first questions, yes you can put your stove in the middle of the room, but i don't know why you'd want to. stoves are large and people put them against the wall so they can get around the room.

max, that bakers choice looks perfect! and it's half the price of many others.

if you're planning on cooking on the wood stove year round, you may want to consider putting the stove on a back porch with walls that are screened in on top and have wood walls on bottom. in the winter you can put plywood panels over the screen and open vents into the house to let the heat in. in summer, the screen will let excess heat out.
 
S

Sarrah

Contributing Member
Flagwaver said:
What fan powered by heat alone?

Tell us more please.
Click to expand...

Flagwaver there is a link to the one in Lehmans that Camasjune posted. There are several sites on the web that sell them all around the same price.
I'd think they are not overpriced as they appear to have quality materials and a certain amount of expertise must be required to assemble them. It just seems like a lot. But, quality counts in my opinion.


On this little homestead we take each purchase into consideration before we make it. Even with a lot of thought and planning, sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we turn our mistakes into something other than what we originally planned.
I like that old saying about if you aren't making mistakes you aren't trying.
 
MaxTheKnife

MaxTheKnife

Membership Revoked
I have one of those $100 woodstove fans. It's not very effective at moving air but it sure is purty to look at! Now that big one that Lehmans's sells seems like it would be just the ticket. It's a serious fan with a serious pricetag at $275!!! I sure do want me one of them though. :D
 
A

Army Girl

Inactive
I kinda like the Waterford Stanley, anyone have one of those? My DH said to get what I like and don't worry about heating the house with the cookstove, he wants to get a small heatstove for the other side of the house. What do ya'll think about those soapstone stoves?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top