Wood Stove Recs

Hello all. I’m in the market for a wood stove to heat a 200sq ft, fully insulated tiny house i built this year in east alabama. I’ve never used a wood stove before, so kinda excited. I’d like to keep it under $1k, but i don’t mind spending more if it makes a big diff. Cooking/heating a kettle is nice, but not needed. I think what i care about most is long slow and efficient burns.

From what i’ve researched so far:
- burn time seems to be the big factor. You want something that burns atleast 8 hours so you don’t have to get up in the middle of the night.
- US stoves TH-100 seems widely available but does not have very good reviews
- Cubic Mini Grizzly seems popular but not rated for indoors and also short burn times making it impractical?
- I’ve been eyeballing the dwarf line but am slightly skeptical as reviews are on the manufacturer site and no negatives? Does anyone have one? Do you love it?

Feel free to share anything you think may be useful. Im open to opinions.

Hi Dan,
You're looking for a lot in a small area.
200 sq ft is pretty small.
Plenty of stoves will fit in the area, but your hope for 8 hours of good heat is a problem.
Here, we are big fans of RMH heaters; they do hold heat, but depending on the style, they have a larger footprint than you might want in a tiny home.

They can be built with a low bench suitable for sleeping.
Cost might run $500 if you buy new materials, but you do have to build it yourself.
A nice 8" J-tube with a bench, properly preheated, will easily hold heat for more than 8 hrs.

I looked at about a zillion tiny and small woodstoves for my tinyhouse..

Mine is about 8.5x28, with an extra large loft overhanging a bit at the front; it's several feet above legal road height.

It has 2x4 walls insulated with rockwool, with an additional layer of 1.5" rockwool on the outside under the siding. Ceilings are insulated in the R50-60 range.


I ended up passing on the tiny stoves due to lack of cooktop space, short burn time, and hassle factory of cutting short firewood. The cubic mini options, sardine, Salamander Hobbit, Dwarf 5Kw.. and surely some I have now forgotten, all share a cute squareish design meant for small spaces. And all have, to varying degrees, the same downside.

I bought a Jotul 602, the last version BEFORE they added a catalytic system to it, and we were really happy with it.

We installed it along a wall, wih the stove door beside the front door, so it was quite space efficient. Double heat shielding on the wall let us keep it close to the wall.
It has a rear flue option, which we used, so it has a ton of space on top for high and low temp cooking. There is a tpund insert on the front top designed for high heat transfer, which provides a serious temperature difference vs the rear. We found it quite practical to manage the heat and very rarely needed to open the windows due to overheating.


My one real complaint is creosote buildup in the chimney. Chimney is top of the line ICC Excel stainless doublewall, but the stove in my opinion should have a 5" chimney. Mine is 6", as I could not find 5" anywhere at the time. The stove includes a 5-6" adapter to use at the flu connection, and the retailer and documentation from Jotul both supported use of 6".

In practice the stove, especially if not looking to burn it hard, doesn't always make enough heat for that chimney, hence creosote..  cleaning once a year is pushing it for the level of buildup. Hell, my Pacific Energy Summit LE in the big house uses 6", and that stove has a firebox of 3 cubic feet vs the .82 of the 602...

We like the 602 so much that I bought a used one for future need, particularly given the switch to catalytic on the new model which we do not want, but next time I will strive mightily to use 5" chimney.


An option I will consider next build is the stoves from flame innovation: https://flameinnovation.com/

They look well designed to address some of the issues with the classic tiny stoves.. but I wish they had a rear flue option.

dan brier wrote:... I think what i care about most is long slow and efficient burns.

From what i’ve researched so far:
- burn time seems to be the big factor. You want something that burns atleast 8 hours so you don’t have to get up in the middle of the night. ...

I love wood stoves. But realistically, I don't think you're going to get an 8-hour efficient burn from a wood stove that fits in a small space. There are only so many BTUs in a piece of wood, even in the really dense stuff like oak.

The only true 8+ hour burn I have ever seen with solid fuel was a coal-fired chick brooder stove. My father would bank an active fire with huge lumps of solid coal and damp it way down for the night. Never lost a brood. Peep peep peep!

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

dan brier wrote:... I think what i care about most is long slow and efficient burns.

From what i’ve researched so far:
- burn time seems to be the big factor. You want something that burns atleast 8 hours so you don’t have to get up in the middle of the night. ...

I love wood stoves. But realistically, I don't think you're going to get an 8-hour efficient burn from a wood stove that fits in a small space. There are only so many BTUs in a piece of wood, even in the really dense stuff like oak.

The only true 8+ hour burn I have ever seen with solid fuel was a coal-fired chick brooder stove. My father would bank an active fire with huge lumps of solid coal and damp it way down for the night. Never lost a brood. Peep peep peep!

We could get coals at 9 hours in the Jotul 602 with careful management and decent wood..  but we did this maybe 3x in 3 years of full-time living in the tinyhouse with it. It was rarely cold enough to aim for this, just too much heat. The tinyhouse would be cool in the morning with a modest evening fire.. in cold weather we would run a morning fire and an evening fire.

I really don't think a non-catalytic stove small enought to work in a tinyhouse will do a longer burn without putting out way too much heat. The catalytic version of the 602 ought to be better at low/slow burning..  I don't know of a similarly small catalytic stove that's really aimed at long burn times. Might be something better I've never heard of, but I don't trust catalysts not to clog on alder ash, so not too informed on options.

Here’s some inspiration for you

https://permies.com/t/256489/Matt-Walker-tiny-cookstove-build

This is only a cook top stove

https://permies.com/f/55/wood-burning-stoves


Look forward to following your journey