Best place to buy a used wood stove? (sale, storage)

[namder1]

Besides uncle henry and CL......

[Submariner]

You ask for the 'best' place, and then you rule out Uncle Henry?

After that it only leaves yard sales.

Some towns have an annual municipal swap meet to raise funds for the dog pound, that might be a place to look. You might find a good deal on a woman with a tractor [assuming the tractor is in good shape].

[namder1]

Didn't rule out Unc Hens, just looking around, doncha know?!

[tcrackly]

With new air quality regulations looming on the horizon, the best place to buy a used woodstove is a stove shop. Most stove shops sell reconditioned units thereby giving you some sort of guarantee of safety and efficiency. Unless you're 99% confident of your ability to assess the combustion values of woodstoves you could be spending money on a big piece of heavy scrap metal.

[AustinB]

Originally Posted by tcrackly

With new air quality regulations looming on the horizon, the best place to buy a used woodstove is a stove shop. Most stove shops sell reconditioned units thereby giving you some sort of guarantee of safety and efficiency. Unless you're 99% confident of your ability to assess the combustion values of woodstoves you could be spending money on a big piece of heavy scrap metal.

Air quality regs are for the manufacture and sale of new stoves , not for you selling a stove to me as a private sale.

[Submariner]

The bestest of all old stove shops in Maine is Bryants in Thorndyke. We have gone there many times to drool over their stoves, and I have gotten a few spare parts from them.

They have a wide selection. They have the short cookstoves where the grilltop is about 14 inches off the floor [made for heating stockpots and drums, so you stand up-right as you stir the canoe-paddle to boil your laundry]. They have big parlor stoves with mica domes, that look like old-tyme divers helmets [ so the fire can light up the entire room]. They have cookstoves that heat a water tank, and potbellies, regular height cookstoves from many manufacturers, and enameled bread ovens.

[tcrackly]

Originally Posted by AustinB

Air quality regs are for the manufacture and sale of new stoves , not for you selling a stove to me as a private sale.

True, but in my experience, very old (30 years old and older) stoves do not heat as efficiently as the later, airtight one.

Maine News

[AustinB]

Originally Posted by tcrackly

True, but in my experience, very old (30 years old and older) stoves do not heat as efficiently as the later, airtight one.

Maine News

All depends on what some one wants and is able to afford.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by tcrackly

True, but in my experience, very old (30 years old and older) stoves do not heat as efficiently as the later, airtight one.

With all due respect, "efficiency" varies depending on how you look at it.

Technically efficiency is rated by how oxygen and fuel mix to combust. Any oil furnace can be tweaked into being 99.995% efficient [for a month or two]. And so it goes with any other fuel.

If you want a stove that you can shut down and totally control via air intake then an airtight stove may be your goal. However consider outdoor furnaces, they are air-tight, and their problem is that when not enough oxygen enters they make soot. Which is an inefficient waste of fuel.

It could be argued that efficiency is achieved when the fuel burns at 99.95% and all therms are removed and stored in a thermal-bank storage unit and used as needed.

[Zymer]

Originally Posted by tcrackly

True, but in my experience, very old (30 years old and older) stoves do not heat as efficiently as the later, airtight one.

Maine News

I suppose it depends on your criteria for efficiency. I have a Glenwood Oak parlor stove that's over 100 years old and it heats pretty good- once it gets up to temp and you kick the diverter in, you can get the body up to about 800 degrees while the pipe stays at a relatively cool 300-350.