# Wood Cook Stove Experiences?



## Nina9mm

Sorry if this has been a frequently discussed topic on here – I did a search and didn’t find much, but I’m a noob, so may have missed it.

Anyway, I am about to be the proud owner of a new wood cook stove, and I would love to get feedback from those of you who use one to heat your home and to cook with. 

We bought our property a year ago and had squirreled away some extra funds for our original plan of buying an outdoor wood boiler this fall. The more we thought about it, we decided we wanted a heat source that would operate totally off grid, not reliant whatsoever on electricity. A wood cook stove would meet the need of providing heat, and meet off-grid cooking needs, so we changed our focus. The next step was researching what kind of wood cook stove to purchase. I watched lots of YouTube videos and did a ton of Google searches, but ultimately found that the best source of information was coming from Obadiah's. Woody, the owner of this business, seems to have the most complete knowledge of the currently-produced wood cookstoves like Elmira, Flameview, Kitchen Queen, etc. I personally learned a lot by watching his YouTube channel, and had decided to buy the Kitchen Queen 480 based on several features it had that the others did not. Unfortunately, I then learned that Obadiah’s has just recently discontinued the sales of this brand due to what they describe as a decline in the quality of manufacturing in the past couple of years, and issues with safety. They instead directed me to an Amish-build stove line called Heco, of which there are three models. Without boring you about each of three model’s specifications, I’ll just say I’m learning towards the top model, the 520. This burns wood as well as coal, not that I’d have any idea where to locate coal, especially in SHTF situation. The reason I haven’t officially placed the order and sent payment is that I can find no one who owns one and who can vouch for it! Obadiah’s says they have been in production for 4 years and the prototypes have been largely in use by the Amish community in Lancaster, PA. They obviously aren’t writing a lot of reviews online. If I didn’t trust Woody as being the expert I believe him to be, I wouldn’t consider buying it at all, and he’s staking his company’s reputation on these stoves! 

So, I am hopefully awaiting some responses from those of you in Prepper World. Even if you don’t know anything about my particular Heco brand questions, I’d love to know anything you want to share about wood cook stove cooking, baking, cleaning, maintenance, etc.


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## rstanek

Welcome from Wisconsin, we have been heating with wood for four years now, but I grew up in a home that heated and cooked with wood, my parents as well as my grandparents heated ,cooked and baked with wood. About all I can say is to look at the quality, meaning, the metal is not just sheet metal, but good thick steel or cast iron, install a quality chimney, make sure you have proper clearances to combustible materials, burn only well seasoned hardwood, and keep your chimney clean, as you use it you will learn how to manage the heat, every stove burns different, ours is vented to the outside for combustible air so there is minimal heat lost. Before every heating season check the firebrick , grates, and the door seal to make sure they are in good shape.


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## Chipper

We use a simple barrel stove, barrel is heavy duty stainless. Been using it to heat the WHOLE house, it's a small house. Since the early 70's and have cooked on it and heated water while power is out. Keeps the house nice and warm even at -20. No power needed. KISS method for this one.


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## Hemi45

Nina9mm said:


> The reason I haven't officially placed the order and sent payment is that I can find no one who owns one and who can vouch for it! Obadiah's says they have been in production for 4 years and the prototypes have been largely in use by the Amish community in Lancaster, PA. They obviously aren't writing a lot of reviews online.


Now that there is a damn funny observation!!!

I'll be following this thread since a wood burning stove is on my want list as well.


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## SOCOM42

I use my wood stove during the winter for making stews, pot roast other assorted stuff like baked beans, all as a side benefit.

I use Griswold dutch ovens set inside the fire ring opening, you IMO, need the opening so that is not sitting on top..

I also have an oven unit that sits on top if I want to bake anything.

The trick is to control the burn, you will need to learn that on your own.

I burn seasoned oak and maple which I cut myself off my land.

My stove is homemade from 3/16" and 1/4" hot rolled plate with a refractory bed, can burn 36" logs.

I run the stove roughly from December into march to reduce oil consumption and as a hedge against a power outage.

Here is a great place to find a lot of needed items, not cheap but not a fly by night place either.

https://www.lehmans.com/category/cookstoves

This is the oven top type I spoke of, mine is over twice the size.

Mine is home made, uses a bi metallic coil system damper to regulate some of the cabinet heat

https://www.lehmans.com/product/stove-top-portable-oven/


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## Camel923

Personally I like wood stoves that can handle coal too but coal is readily available where I am. There are also models that have a hot water tank attached for showers, dishes and such. Woodstove Water-Heater Coil by Thermo-Bilt, stainless steel, for wood stove, corn stove, coal stove.

As an alternative have you thought any about a Russian oven? Building a Russian Masonry Heater From Bricks - Do-It-Yourself - MOTHER EARTH NEWS
https://www.pinterest.com/danieleduardof/russian-ovens/


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## Nina9mm

Sorry again about being a noob. I started posting in the wrong spot and for the life of me can't figure out how to delete this post. Bear with me...


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## Brettny

You dont need to delete it. 
Your looking for a wood cooking stove thats more of a cooking stove than a wood stove? 
The problem with heating a whole house with those is the fire box is usualy quite small. This means your waking up in the night to put more wood in or starting a new fire every day.
If you want a real wood stove for heat get a used vermont castings. They have been around for a very long time and you can still buy new parts for old stoves. We cook on ours at least once a week in the winter. Something that takes 24in long logs is going to be alot easier on you than something that only takes 16in.


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## tango

It takes a lot of trial and error to cook well on a woodstove


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## bigdogmom

I use my regular woodstove to cook. Cast iron pans and Dutch ovens work great. Everything from bread to breakfast, stews to burgers. 

When we replaced our woodstove a few years ago we considered a wood cook stove but our chimney guy steered us away because our woodstove is our primary heat source. He said we wouldn't be able to heat the house with a wood cook stove, so I learned to cook on my woodstove.

Droid did it!


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## Knotacare

Bought one of these a few years ago for my retreat location Five Dog DX Camp Wood Stove is a great camp stove for your wall or canvas tent. Stay warm on the trail . Easy to use & portable plus it's very well made


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## Annie

Knotacare said:


> Bought one of these a few years ago for my retreat location Five Dog DX Camp Wood Stove is a great camp stove for your wall or canvas tent. Stay warm on the trail . Easy to use & portable plus it's very well made


This looks like a really great idea. I like that it's portable. How did you vent it? Edit to add: how often do you need to feed it?

I need to figure out something for our new home. It's an old house. A previous owner filled the coal fireplace with cement in the dining room. You can see where the exhaust pipe for the cook stove was filled in on the other side of the chimney in the kitchen. I really want to get it fixed, but I can see big dollar signs there.


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## Smitty901

Don't delete . If a post needs to be moved we have Mods that can take care of it and keep a good thread around.
Been around wood?coal cast iron stoves for a good part of my life. Trick is not over doing the fire getting a good steady pile of coals going to keep heat even. Takes a while to heat up but holds the heat long after.
Get it warmed up before it is time to cook the meal. Most stoves have spots that are hotter or cooler than others to cook different things or to keep them warm.


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## Knotacare

It vents with regular stove pipe and as far as keeping it going it depends on type of wood and how many hot coals you can keep going. I wouldn't use this as a main stove maybe there titanium model. If you can call them they are great. Even emailing them is fine. In my home I have a very heavy duty wood stove in the basement that will heat 3000sqft easily & go almost 14 hrs once you get it going. Don't like to go that long as the stack temp doesn't stay hot enough which is a bad thing. Don't use it to much anymore, but it's there if I need heat if SHTF.


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## Nina9mm

Brettny said:


> You dont need to delete it.
> Your looking for a wood cooking stove thats more of a cooking stove than a wood stove?
> The problem with heating a whole house with those is the fire box is usualy quite small. This means your waking up in the night to put more wood in or starting a new fire every day.
> If you want a real wood stove for heat get a used vermont castings. They have been around for a very long time and you can still buy new parts for old stoves. We cook on ours at least once a week in the winter. Something that takes 24in long logs is going to be alot easier on you than something that only takes 16in.


The model stove I'm looking at is capable of heating 2500 square feet and has a 13+hour burn time. It takes logs 18.5 inches and has a very large fire box. I do love the look of old stoves like the Vermont Castings, and could see one of those going in Husband's shop. 
http://https://woodstoves.net/heco-wood-coal-cook-stoves.htm/520-heco-wood-coal-cookstove.htm


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## Brettny

Your link dosnt work.
13hrs is the lowest setting. Its not producing much heat at this setting. But it sounds like you have your mind made upbon what your buying so good luck.


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## 7052

We bought a woodstove several years ago, and absolutely love it! We have used it as a heat source several times (by choice, not necessity) but since our sun loves downstairs, we don't use it often to heat the house or it can get uncomfortably cool downstairs (in his opinion). However, it can, and will, heat the entire house (1300 sq/ft upstairs) quite easily.

We have cooked on it several times to "try it out" (you know, "just in case" lol) and it works well. We only use cast iron cookware, and if the stove is too hot, I use some ceramic spacers (small 1" tiles that we stack to the desired height) to control the heat going into the pan. The only real issue we have is that it can get damned hot standing directly in front of our wood stove to cook. Uncomfortably so. But then, we have a larger unit.


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## hugho

Hi Nina. I can't vouch for the 520 but I can vouch for Woody and Annette his wife, and Woody knows his business and is diligent and honest and can be trusted. I don't think he would steer you to products he doesn't trust and his advice is spot on. I have a kitchen Queen 380 I bought from Woody and it is an amazing stove especially after my firebrick added mods which improved the oven performance. The glass door I added is a big plus. I am looking at the 520 because I need a bigger cook top and oven and would like cleaner burning and secondary combustion. I may order soon. The KQ folks in Knoxville are great folks as well. I have cooked on wood cook stoves most of my life(I am 72) and it is an essential tool to own. Keeping the oven temp even and steady takes some practice with wood feeding, draft regulating. They are not propane or electric stoves, click and forget. The Heco has improvements over the KQ but you can't go wrong with either. You can see woody's videos and decide but I see no reason to doubt that the Heco for me holds a slight edge and woodys own brand the Obadiah 2000 looks like a winner especially if price is a dominant factor. On the basis of his videos I would say woodys stove is a best buy and the Heco is a flagship Mercedes. You decide.


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## RJAMES

I do not know the brand sorry . As long as the metal is thick and the welds are solid you should be good they can look a little ugly as long as no gaps. 

I have seen many Amish made stoves and they do very in quality as I have seen one made by a guy who just made his own to someone that makes 5 or 6 a year as a side or winter time job. 

I have found coal along a rail road where it was piled years ago when trains ran on coal. Also have seen small coal seams on farmsteads in Kentucky where they still mine a small amount just for their own use. Got a coal fired power plant nearby? Several trash cans full would last you a season.


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## 8301

As Smitty said it takes lots of practice to cook using wood. We use a wood fired dome oven (outside) about once a week, even during the winter. We cook on the large woodstove in the house once or twice a year for the novelty of it. 

Keeping some well dried small wood around makes it easier to maintain consistent heat. Having woods of different moisture content and sizes can make it harder to control. A solid coal bed takes time to develop but really makes an even heat with practice.

By keeping some wood close to the indoor wood stove it helps to assure it is well seasoned (evenly dried).


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