You guys can have all that EPA/CAT stuff. I'm gun shy on all of it since I've joined here.
Expensive, have to replace parts, have to fiddle with things.
I love my old stove. Efficient? I'm told no. For my requirements? Good enough.
I was always curious about ratios on the burns though.
For instance, last night around 9 pm I loaded the stove. I had a great bed of coals already established. The house was at 72 degrees. I placed 2 splits (5" average) of three year old ash left to right then I placed two more on top of those fore and aft with a slight angle because the box isn't deep enough and then I placed a top piece on that. My top piece is usually the split off the side of the log that is around 8/9" wide but only 2" thick.
I cracked the doors open, opened the inline flue damper to full and let her rip till I had some killer flames going. Closed the doors, shut the damper and opened the air flow dials on the doors to just over 1/4 turn and walked away.
This morning I awoke and as usual the first thing I do is check the thermostat in the hallway right outside my bedroom door. 74 degrees at 6am. (I slept in)
"Nice", I thought to myself. I went downstairs to feed the dogs and let them out and while they were doing their business I opened the doors to a still fairly decent bed of coals. I stirred them up but did not put anymore wood on it. 74 is good enough for me. The fan was still running and blowing out warm air. It is set on a snap disc thermostat control so the steel was still putting out good heat. The coals were glowing well enough that should I have put a few splits on there they would have caught fire within a few minutes. The temps went down to 9 last night with a 3 mph wind.
That is around 9 hours of heat off 5 splits.
Now tell me what would a "smart" stove have done in this instance. I know you can't nail it down but you have the temps, the wood species, the hours. The house was built in 1980, bi-level with crappy windows that I have plastic over. Average insulation.
Again I am not a hater because I can't be without experience, just skeptical is all!
Would I have had a longer burn time?
Would I have had more heat? Temp would have been 76 instead of 74?
Could I have done that with 3 splits instead of 5?