Using a Wood Cook Stove for Heating

[CREATIVE1]

Since we aren't going to be able to start building until spring, I have time to go down every untraveled road and look at inventive approaches to building.  So, here goes.

I understand that wood cook stoves built before 1940 don't have to meet EPA standards.  I have access to two KILLER stoves in great condition.  How efficient would they be as a main heat source?  We will have a code-approved full house heating system too, either electric or propane. 

FYI, The wood stove is located right next to the kitchen on the plans, in the very center of the house.  A natural!

[cordwood]

 By cook stove are meaning the smaller ones with the lift out lids or the full blown upright stove with oven?
I would love to have a huge porcelin cook stove buy have yet to find one I could afford. but they don't heat well.
But the general rule of thumb is that the older stoves put out heat but use more wood to get you the heat and they have to be tended to durring the night if you want heat at 3am. ( On real cold nights I tend our stove usually 2-3 times a night.

[glenn kangiser]

We have a wood section on the side of our Wedgewood-- rest is propane 1935.  It was only for heating the right two positions .  It took relatively small wood.  We have a completely wood one at the other house -- in the garage not hooked up.. 

Sorry, but all I can say is the small one would work as supplemental and I don't know how the big one would do.

[cordwood]

 The first house the wife and I rented when we first moved to Ar. had a Wedgewood wood cook stove and it only heated the side and the cooktop and was little use heating the house except when you tried to cook on it in the summer

[glenn kangiser]

That sounds reasonable...like ours.

Our oven and 4 burners are propane - oven heats the house a lot in the summer, so we are thinking of making a summer kitchen up by the pool.  Then we can cook with no heat building up underground.

[CREATIVE1]

By cook stove are meaning the smaller ones with the lift out lids or the full blown upright stove with oven?
I would love to have a huge porcelin cook stove buy have yet to find one I could afford. but they don't heat well.
But the general rule of thumb is that the older stoves put out heat but use more wood to get you the heat and they have to be tended to durring the night if you want heat at 3am. ( On real cold nights I tend our stove usually 2-3 times a night.

I mean a multi-oven, warming oven, totally gigantic stove.  One is a Beechwood Superb.

[cordwood]

 Not much good for house heating, Wood box is to small and they were designed for heating the oven area to no more than around 400 degrees max.
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.
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BUT I WOULD STILL LOVE TO HAVE ONE!!!!!!!!!

[CREATIVE1]

Me, too.   

[cordwood]

 The Fisher stove we use now is a straight exhausting stove (no reburn chamber or plate) and it cooks real well. Every winter I make everything from bacon & eggs (w/bizkits) in the morning to beans or stew in the evening and it shares a wall with the kitchen so cooking is only a few steps farther from the conventional stove. And because I always have a pot of water on the stove I always have hot water for my tea (that I have right now ) Sometimes tea works better with octane booster than coffee

[ScottA]

I wouldn't worry too much about epa standards. The better designed stoves already met the standard. Efficency is the key. An efficient stove will meet the standard and use less wood.

[CREATIVE1]

The Fisher stove we use now is a straight exhausting stove (no reburn chamber or plate) and it cooks real well. Every winter I make everything from bacon & eggs (w/bizkits) in the morning to beans or stew in the evening and it shares a wall with the kitchen so cooking is only a few steps farther from the conventional stove. And because I always have a pot of water on the stove I always have hot water for my tea (that I have right now ) Sometimes tea works better with octane booster than coffee

We have an unused Fisher Mama Bear from the 1980's.  Are you talking about a wood stove or a cook stove?  We'll have to use the Mama Bear in the barn, because it doesn't meet code.

[cordwood]

The Fisher stove we use now is a straight exhausting stove (no reburn chamber or plate) and it cooks real well. Every winter I make everything from bacon & eggs (w/bizkits) in the morning to beans or stew in the evening and it shares a wall with the kitchen so cooking is only a few steps farther from the conventional stove. And because I always have a pot of water on the stove I always have hot water for my tea (that I have right now ) Sometimes tea works better with octane booster than coffee

We have an unused Fisher Mama Bear from the 1980's.  Are you talking about a wood stove or a cook stove?  We'll have to use the Mama Bear in the barn, because it doesn't meet code.

It's a very inefficient wood (heat) stove but the direct flame to the top surface makes it easy to cook on. All the EPA stoves we have had in the past  (VC & Vogelzang) didn't heat the top well enough to cook on, But the wood lasted a LOT longer in those. Not having to be code compliant is a help there but when I look at the rest of what I have from it I still have to wonder what is better

[CREATIVE1]

I would like an efficient wood stove I can also cook on, no matter what other cooking facilities I have indoors and out.  I'll have to post some of the ones I've found and see if anyone out there owns one.  Nothing substitutes for experience.  Advertisers always say they have the best whatever.

Here's one of the stoves I found:

http://www.woodstoves.net/napoleon/1150.htm

[Redoverfarm]

Great to cook off of but not as a great heat source.  The firebox is not big enough to hold enough wood to last very long.  I recently bought a Majestic wood/gas cookstove and decided that would not work for the area that I had (too large). So I am now on the hunt for just a cookstove.  I really don't intend it to be a primary heat source but in combination with fireplace it will work to keep the cold away.  And like others have stated that unless you get up in the middle of the night to load it back again it will be out by morning.

But there is something magical about eggs, sausage, coffee and smoke that brings back memories and that warm feeling.

[cordwood]

The Fisher stove we use now is a straight exhausting stove (no reburn chamber or plate) and it cooks real well. Every winter I make everything from bacon & eggs (w/bizkits) in the morning to beans or stew in the evening and it shares a wall with the kitchen so cooking is only a few steps farther from the conventional stove. And because I always have a pot of water on the stove I always have hot water for my tea (that I have right now ) Sometimes tea works better with octane booster than coffee

We have an unused Fisher Mama Bear from the 1980's.  Are you talking about a wood stove or a cook stove?  We'll have to use the Mama Bear in the barn, because it doesn't meet code.

We have a Papa Bear but basicly the same stove,( Ooops, 24" stove is the Mama Bear I think, So it's the SAME stove) I like to put the screen in front of it just watch the fire glow, Kinda makes me sleepy till the house starts cooling off then it's back to blazin and heatin