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You also want some smaller burners. You don't cook breakfast on the stove top, you pull the burner cover and cook with cast iron directly over the fire. If you have a 12" burner you are out of luck for using a 10" skillet. The same is true for popcorn. I used a 10" cast iron kettle for popcorn for years, over a 7" burner. It gave room to shake the pot without uncovering the fire.
My wife does a lot of canning in the summer. That is most of her indoor 'cooking' in the summer. Otherwise we do need to shift to an outdoor kitchen, we have discussed doing such.
With all of our windows open and 2400 sq ft our gas stove does not seem to heat the house much in summer.
Since you are in Maine definitely consider coal for this. You'll thank me for this suggestion when you wake up in the morning after a 8 hour sleep when it's 0 out and your stove is still making huge amounts of heat.
The heat is also much more controllable for cooking purposes. With a coal stove you fill it up to the max and then control the burn rate with the air. Most people get on a 12 hour cycle of filling it but they can go go longer if you don't need that much heat or shorter if you want more heat.
If you are looking at antiques they make ones that are dual coal/gas. the gas is specifically for the reason you have outlined, it's for the summer. They also have them with water jackets.
I've not heard of many issues with warping and cracking with coal stoves but I'd imagine that has lot to do with the steady heat coal provides. It's not going through that cycle of wide swings in the heat output.
The only problem is these stoves can be pretty expensive. They don't make new ones. Here is two sites.
I like the idea that some of these have glass to allow you to see the fire and inside the oven.
My wife is concerned that these glass windows will need to be cleaned daily.
Any thoughts?
I know with the coal stoves if you keep after it the glass will stay nice. I think the one person on my forum was using newspaper and baking soda solution to clean it. To be 100% honest it's not a feature I'd want, I hate unnecessary work and that would be right at the top of the list.
Coal has a distinct odor but not the telltale smoke that is visible for miles.
Soft coal has a very sulfury smell and will produce a lot soot when burned, anthracite is completely different animal. A properly installed and operated coal stove using anthracite should be putting little to no odor into the house. If you can smell anything it's time to find out why.
It is supposed to weigh around 400 pounds, I thought, so I was surprised when the shipping document says it weighs 1,095 pounds. I called one of my neighbors and the two of us spent the morning moving it into our house. I got it all together, and I finished with the stove pipe.
Very pretty! I hope she has a long and lasting relationship with it!
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