firebrick43
Life is all about big saws
First I used the word "may" because there are older designs that do have refinements that may of put them in the same league as modern stove. Very small differences have huge effects.
For example, efi cars actually came out in the mid fifties but was not ready. By the mid/late 80's it had been reintroduced and had a small advancement over the carbureted predecessors but still under 200 hp for a v8. Fast forward 25 years, we have 300 hp v6 engines. The engine uses the same quality of fuel and has the same basic mechanical design. There was no special leap forward in the mechanical side of things, it was very small tweaks invisible to the end user and more computing power available both in the design phase with computer modeling of air and fuel flow and in the ecu to more finely control the engine
Look at fire places. Count rumford developed an efficient fire place in the 1700's. Yet I have never seen one in a modern house.(doesn't mean there are not some out there, just none in the houses I have been in. The differences in many items are small , maybe imperceivable but makes a huge difference in performance.
This applies to to EPA stoves because the EPA regulations demanded that the design was sound and forced the companies to tweak the stove to meet emissions. This does not mean that old stoves didn't happen to be designed to be the most efficient possible, it just means it was somewhat unlikely as the was no need to actually test the results, but now there is. One example I have noticed in EPA stoves is the cleanliness of the glass. Not to say that there were not stove that kept the glass clean, I just can't recall seeing one. Most of the better EPA stove no don't blacken the glass. My jotul will blacken the glass if a piece of wood is against it but will actually self clean(burn it off) once the piece is push away.
For example, efi cars actually came out in the mid fifties but was not ready. By the mid/late 80's it had been reintroduced and had a small advancement over the carbureted predecessors but still under 200 hp for a v8. Fast forward 25 years, we have 300 hp v6 engines. The engine uses the same quality of fuel and has the same basic mechanical design. There was no special leap forward in the mechanical side of things, it was very small tweaks invisible to the end user and more computing power available both in the design phase with computer modeling of air and fuel flow and in the ecu to more finely control the engine
Look at fire places. Count rumford developed an efficient fire place in the 1700's. Yet I have never seen one in a modern house.(doesn't mean there are not some out there, just none in the houses I have been in. The differences in many items are small , maybe imperceivable but makes a huge difference in performance.
This applies to to EPA stoves because the EPA regulations demanded that the design was sound and forced the companies to tweak the stove to meet emissions. This does not mean that old stoves didn't happen to be designed to be the most efficient possible, it just means it was somewhat unlikely as the was no need to actually test the results, but now there is. One example I have noticed in EPA stoves is the cleanliness of the glass. Not to say that there were not stove that kept the glass clean, I just can't recall seeing one. Most of the better EPA stove no don't blacken the glass. My jotul will blacken the glass if a piece of wood is against it but will actually self clean(burn it off) once the piece is push away.