Wow.. I hate to get people angry for reopening a six month old thread, but I'm going to be laying out a lot of cash for a new stove, and I have found this banter very interesting. The one thing about the Woodstock stove that concerns me is weight. It, like the much more expensive, but lower emission Lopi Cape Cod, is a very heavy stove. Even the Blaze King Sirocco 30 is quite a bit lighter, and I have been considering the 20 for being lighter and smaller. For me, length of burn is much more important than getting my house 100% to an ideal temperature. I have no problem with the house being 58 degrees at night and mid 60's during the day, and if it's 62 in the kitchen and 66 in the living (stove) room and I'm chilly, I can sit by the stove for a bit. I just don't want to wake up to a dead cold stove, like with our old Franklin and have to start from scratch every morning. I go through tons of kindling and lighters every year. If the stove is only giving out 10,000 btu's at 9 am and it's 4 degrees out, I have no problem with the furnace kicking in a little bit. Now, the old Franklin, when it's fired up and really running hot, probably puts out about 150,000 btus or so, and that's nice if you need it, but I don't. The ~ three hour burn time is also unsatisfactory. The advantage to the Woodstock appears to be price. The advantages to the blaze kings, to me, is that they are better looking (not the king and queen, mind you,) lighter, and require only ember protection. Since my father put down slate in this house under the franklin, the blaze king makes more sense to me on that score because a hearth pad on top of the slate will look funny, be expensive, and removing the slate would be - OMG - WORK! - which is out of the question. I just ran across the Woodstock steel stove for the first time this evening, and it's an interesting contrast with the BK, and significantly less money. I don't think our floor is up the the challenge of a 600 pound stove, though. I keep a 42" firewood ring, the stove and my electronic pianer across the 12 foot width of our living room (parallel to 2x8@16 joists.) That's about 200+ pounds of wood, stove and my butt on the piano bench all sitting on the same joists. Food for thought. Anyone else out there, maybe with a production model of the Woodstock, that can chime in here?
BTW, I have a used old VC Dutchwest Catalytic stove in my house next door that I'm fixing up for eventual possible habitation. It's a nice stove. Even though it's an older one with the grates/shaker setup, the only complaint I have is that when you open it, you get ashes and embers on the pad, which are a pain to clean. The BK 30's have a very deep well for ash in the box and that's a big plus. The 20's have a pretty good sized one, but not as big as the 30's. I have to do some thinkin' for sure. Even with the annoyance of a hearth pad, the Woodstock comes in better than $1000 under BK.
