The last one is The cast iron I like, but reviews are saying smoke.
The middle one is ugly but has good reviews for the price.
The first one has really good reviews, but costs a little more
Dress real poor, only take cash and nothing larger than a $ 5.00 bill to look even poorer and talk them down. Park around the corner, get a dolly and let them believe you have to push it all the way home since you do not own a car...GP
It is very common for a stove of any kind to smoke when you first "fire it up". This is the oil and chemicals burning off. It will go away after a couple hot fires. I would try to burn it a couple times outdoors before moving it in, to burn off as much as this as possible. If you do install it directly in the house, open some windows before lighting the fires. Maybe even have a fan in the window to draw out the smoke and smell. It will clear out fairly quickly. This is very common with a number of wood/coal burning stoves.
I put a wood stove in my prefab fireplace for a while and had no problems with it venting properly. The top of the stove just needs to be low enough to get the flu pipe into the fireplace flu without too sharp a bend. I don’t want anything greater than a 45deg bend, no 90’s. With a good vent you reduce the chance of the stove smoking on the startup.The tricky part is having room for the amount of pipe needed to have an upward draft. Not too many inches to play with.
I put a wood stove in my prefab fireplace for a while and had no problems with it venting properly. The top of the stove just needs to be low enough to get the flu pipe into the fireplace flu without too sharp a bend. I don’t want anything greater than a 45deg bend, no 90’s. With a good vent you reduce the chance of the stove smoking on the startup.
Robin, I'd go with the cast iron stove. The sheet metal one is less than an 1/8" thick. It wouldn't take long for it to burn through.
The cast iron stove that I put in my cabin smoked at first too. Turns out my stove didn't have a door gasket. I bought a length of door gasket material at the hardware store and some high temp glue. I glued the gasket around the inside of the door and the smoke problem was solved. The down side of the cast iron stove is that it will only hold heat for about 3 hours.
The stove that I put in the house is made from 1/4" to 3/8" steel plate and is lined with fire brick, and weighed about 500 pounds. This stove is much more efficient and will hold hot coals over night.
I think my cast iron stove was around $250. The stove for the house was over $4500 and has nickel legs and door with a glass window.
I've seen a few people in Hungary who have take the original pipe up about 3 ft. then moved to a larger pipe. I think they wanted the gases to expand and rise faster. The big problem if a chimney is too high or does not get hot enough, it will cause a problem with the drawing up and out of the gases since the air pressure above it is too heavy to let the hot gases out and causes the smoke to stay in the stove/house.The tricky part is having room for the amount of pipe needed to have an upward draft. Not too many inches to play with.
Turns out my stove didn't have a door gasket. I bought a length of door gasket material at the hardware store and some high temp glue. I glued the gasket around the inside of the door and the smoke problem was solved.
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