Smart Buying

Satisfy Your Burning Desire

Modern wood stoves smoke the older generation with hot looks and clean combustion.

By Pat Mertz Esswein, Associate Editor

From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, October 2005

It's October. The temperature and the leaves are falling and you long to snuggle up in front of ... the heat pump? Or you build your first fire of the season in your fireplace to satisfy a primal need for flame -- but the heat goes straight up the chimney. There's a better, more satisfying and economical solution: a state-of-the-art wood stove.

Today's models are definitely not the primitive iron boxes of yesteryear, says Craig Issod, webmaster of HearthNet. Issod's romance with wood stoves started in the 1970s when he was living off the electric grid in Appalachia. After he returned to his native New England, he and his wife, Martha, tried to buy a wood stove but found a dearth of dealers. And so Issod began a 25-year career of selling -- and at one point making -- wood stoves. He recalls the black boxes spawned by the first oil crisis, when many wood-stove makers were long-haired guys working out of their garages, welding together infernal beasts that breathed as much smoke as fire.

Current stoves meet EPA standards for emissions by burning a wood fire's gases more completely. The stoves either incorporate two combustion chambers or use a catalytic combustor, which reduces the temperature necessary for better combustion. The result? Your neighbors might not even see smoke rising from your chimney. Wood stoves can also be works of art, and you can find a model to fit any décor.

We asked Issod for his top picks from among the hundreds of models on the market.

Hot stuff

Wood stoves have their utilitarian uses. They supplement your home's heat, and they can keep you warm when the power's out. But they can also be the accent piece in a den or living room, so aesthetics count. Stoves are usually built from cast iron or steel plate. The two materials run neck and neck as far as performance, but the process of casting iron allows more decorative possibilities -- molding, lettering, raised panels and the like.

The Jøtul F 3 CB ($1,300 for a matte-black finish; www.jotulflame.com) is designed with arched mullions on its front door to complement traditional American furniture. The F 3 CB also comes in a smooth, easy-to-clean porcelain-enamel finish that's available in blue/black, ivory or forest green. And Jøtul (pronounced yodel), of Norway, is the world's largest stove company, as well as one of the oldest.

For a design that would work well in either a traditional or a contemporary room, consider the Quadra-Fire 3100 Millennium ($1,300 to $1,650, depending on options; www.quadrafire.com). The stove has an arched, Shaker-style door and comes with Queen AnneÐstyle legs or a pedestal base. To spruce up its sober black color, you can add gold-plated or satin-nickel trim.

In what Issod calls the artisan category, he chooses the Woodstock Soapstone Fireview ($2,600; www.woodstocksoapstone.com), which has a cast-iron frame (available in gray, black, blue or brown) and natural-soapstone panels. Each piece of stone is unique, and after the fire dies, the stone continues to radiate heat longer than cast iron or steel.

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