bert the turtle
ArboristSite Operative
I was actually responding to the initial post, but I'll try to help you out. I have a Fisher stove that I took out of a house I tore down. I have no need for it. It appears to be in good shape other than some surface rust that will come off with a wire wheel in a few minutes. It is yours free if you want to pick it up (not sure how long a drive it is for you to central NC) and I have a tractor to load it in your truck. It is a heavy SOB. I was planning to sell it on Craigslist, but I haven't gotten around to it in the last 3 years, so I'm guessing I never will. I'm also a bit torn about putting it back into service when there are more efficient and less polluting stoves available. I have a neighbor (thankfully downwind from me) who burns an old smoke dragon and from the looks of it burns freshly cut wood and perhaps old tires, so I'm sensitive about the pollution issue.
Since you are using it for occasional power failure use, in my opinion the best stove for you is one that doesn't cost you a lot. Return on investment just isn't there for a high dollar modern stove. It need not be efficient since it will rarely get used. If it smokes more than a modern stove, it won't be a month-in, month-out kind of thing and you will probably be burning decently dry wood since it will have time to dry between power failures. From all I've read, the Fisher is a good stove even if not up to todays standards.
With regard to the OP, I should have tried to be more helpful and less of a smart-ass. "Best" is determined by function. Yes, you can figure out what stove is most efficient, but it may not be the appropriate stove for you. For example, To determine what stove would be best for you, you will need at a minimum to specify how big your house is and how well insulated it is. That is a VERY rough beginning point, but it is at least some information to work from.
As an example of how I chose my stove, I had an engineer evaluate my house and determine how many BTU/hour it should take to heat it at particular inside to outside temperature differentials. That gave me a starting point so that I would at least have a reasonable idea of how big or small a stove I need.
Then I had to make choices taking into consideration that my house has extremely high thermal mass, how warm I want the house to be, how often I would like to fire the stove, etc.
I was very intrigued by the Twin-fire stove as it is extremely efficient and the aesthetics would work well with my modern house. After figuring out what the actual energy needs of my house are, and how I anticipated using the stove, I ended up with a Pacific Energy Fusion and it works extremely well in my house.
