Anyone use a wood cook stove?

[annmarie]

DH and I are planning on purchasing a woodstove hopefully within the next year. I recently saw some advertisements for wood cook stoves and it got me wondering if that wouldn't be a good idea. Do any of you use a wood cook stove? Of course we'd keep our electric stove for the warm months, but since we live in VT, we'd pretty much have the woodstove going constantly from November through March, so it seems logical that a wood cook stove might be the way to go. Or is it really difficult to cook/bake on one of these things? This is the one that caught my eye, we have a small house and so I like that this one seems more compact than most.
http://www.fireplacesandwoodstoves.com/product-directory/bakers-oven.aspx

 

[the simple life]

If I was going to get a woodstove anyway then a cookstove wood be a great idea.
If you plan on having it running, then you might as well save the energy by not using your regular stove and cooking on this.
I think it looks nice, its compact too, so it won't take up alot of room.
I don't see why it would be that hard to cook on it.
It may do better with some things than others, but like you said, you always have the other stove for backup.

 

[Zenbirder]

annmarie,
I have a regular quadrafire wood stove that is our only source of house heat. I cook on the top of it in the winter a lot. I use enameled cast iron, and different spots on the top are hotter than others, that is how I have some degree of control over the temp. I can also add wood or damp back the fire. It works for me and is a really efficient stove. The only wood cookstoves I have had experience with are older and not a stove I would even try to heat my house with. I have not looked at new models.

 

[roosmom]

Annmarie, I think it looks real good. I think it would work well for you as long as you can learn to finesse it. Cooking on top of stove like Zenbirder says is a matter of moving your food to different spots on top. Yours looks like it would work like an oven AND you would be the one to regulate the heat. Maybe it would help if you bought one of those stainless steel thermometers you can put inside your oven, use it at least until you got an idea for the baking part. Also buy some of the old, old cookbooks that talk about cooking with wood. Looks good to me, I might buy one if I were you. Maybe in our last house, lol. Good luck.

 

[TanksHill]

That is a great looking stove. I have been rolling the same idea around the back of my head for a while now. I think like the above answers it will just take getting used to. Good luck.

 

[FarmerChick]

very nice---I love things like this

but it said the efficiency was only 70%

now not knowing wood stoves great, is that a sufficient source of heating for your home only??? Is this the only heat source then??

just that the efficiency number jumped out at me cause I would think you would want higher than that????

any woodstove people out there to help me with that??? LOL-LOL

 

[annmarie]

Thanks for all your responses. I agree FarmerChick, 70% doesn't sound like the greatest efficiency. Perhaps I'm just beind seduced by that loaf of bread baking in the oven in the advertisement! I believe some of the regular woodstoves (not cook stoves) were around 80 and 90%. I've only begun looking around at these and this one caught my eye, but perhaps there's something better out there. I'll keep my eyes open and if I decide on something, I'll be sure to post it here. First though, I need to have someone come and take a look at our house to see if it's even possible to do a woodstove (without it costing an arm and leg). We do have a chimney but our propane furnace is hooked up to it now.

 

[FarmerChick]

Yea, the old "arm and a leg"---I hear ya there....the pic of the nice stove you posted said "starting at $1800"---I just hate prices like that..LOL-LOL


Well, I think when deciding what you want, ya gotta truly think of what you are needing it for---is heat the #1 priority, or is it OK to compromise some efficiency for the cooking and oven part????

I am looking into buying a convection oven/toaster oven combo thingy...LOL----I know I can use that little convection oven vs. turning on the big oven to make fish sticks for Nicole when she yells for them...HA HA----so I also am looking for ways to "turn off the big oven" and save some power!!

When you think about it over time, the right combination of wood stove/cooking etc. will hit ya and you will know what you want to buy.....

 

[roosmom]

Any woodstove you use is not going to compare to the EFFICIENCY of say....a gas furnace or forced hot air system. You lose a lot of heat out the chimney. BUT, that being said, wood heat is so much.......HOTTER, than gas forced air. I cannot explain it, it just is. OMG, flashback to mother saying "because I said so". LOL

 

[MorelCabin]

We heat by wood only, have for over 5 years now. What we bought is an Irish soapstone stove. It never gets so hot to the touch so that you burn yourself, but it radiates heat through the whole house even 4 hours after the fire has burned out. I love it for heating...but buy the biggest one you can...we have amedium sized one and would by the big one if we had the choice now...holds more wood. The soapstone stoves don't have to be filled in the middle of the night, you can fill it before bed and wake up to coals to throw wood on in the morning and the stove it still radiating heat because the soapstone is 3 inches thick and takes a long time to cool after the fire is out.