Hi I bought a Sedore 2000 model last year and I love it. I am gone 12 hours a day and this stove stays lit for 14. To me that makes it worth the price. No more coming home to a cold house EVERY DAMN NIGHT and getting the fire going. With the Seodre all I have to do is refill the large burn chamber and im good for 14 more hours.
The Sedore is more of a furnace than a stove throws far more heat than my previous unit that was rated for 3000 sqr ft.
Like a
RMH the Sedore is a down draft stove which has 3 big benefits. Because the fire is always at the bottom not at the top in a conventional heater you can load the entire burn chamber with wood and it produces no more heat than if you had just one stick of wood in there, in a conventional stove the flame is on the top and that leaves loads of unburnt charcoal but in the Sedore most charcoal is burnt to
ash before the next piece drops down. The third and most amazing feature is if you fill top half of burn chamber with wet or green wood and it will bake to bone dry before it gets to the flame and then it burns clean. During normal operations its burn chamber fills with smoke before being sucked through the flames and reburnt. The cresote will form on the walls of the burn chamber and it can look 'bad' but its not. Once all the wood has stopped off gassing the heat of the fire will bake the cresote and it will flake off harmlessly. Burning off
water in the wood takes
energy so its always best to burn only dry wood. But if you dont have enought like I did nt last year then why not!
Lighting the Sedore from cold takes some getting used to. I found the instructions that come with it to be no good. I finally realized that the stove being an downdraft that the best way to light it is to flip the traditional starting fire on its head. I put 3-4 medium pieces of dry wood on the bottom (instead of on top), a bunch of
kindling in the middle , followed by
cardboard and paper. Preheat your chimey then light paper. The draft draws flame down to light cardboard and kindling and then medium stuff. Once thats burnt down to red embers add big stuff.
Ive kept my Sedore running not stop for a month with only once weekly cleanings using the built in ash grate. You dont have to put fire out before cleaning. Just push embers aside with the cleaning tools provided by the manufacturer.
I did have a scare though. You are supposed to be able to fill gaps between logs with woodpellets to extend your burn time and last Christmas I decided to do just that. Well the fire took off on me and even with draft shut down entirely (Sedores are NOT airtight) my chimney pipe glowed red and my chimney thermometer 's needle buried itself past 1900F. I had to call fire department. They said if I had waited another 30 minutes I would have lost my house!
Needless to say I called the Canadian manufacturer to figure out what happened. Turns out my chimney draft is exceptionally good. Chimney is in the house, stove is in basement, house is built into a hill and chimney is at least 40 feet long, all vertical no horizontal sections. The woodpellets are so dry and so small and draft is so strong it all burnt like a blow torch. Before I burn pellets again I need to install a damper in chimney. I dont plan on burning pellets again until I get too old to cut my own
firewood so at least then I will be able to burn pellets safely. You are supposed to be able to burn a wide variety of biomass sources but Ive not done so yet.
The other downside is you dont see the flame but oh well at least my house is warm!
I looked into RMHs and while they are interesting I could find no insurer willing to cover my house with an
RMH. So I settled on the Sedore and an insured home.
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