Many of our readers are dreaming of building a small, efficient, sustainable home that requires some sort of heating. A wood-fired cookstove is a good multi-functional option for heating, cooking and water heating. You may be able to save money by buying a smaller cookstove. Or consider a used stove of good quality because they can last for many decades. Lehman’s cookstoves seem to be popular. From their website: “nearly one out of every two households in Ireland uses a Waterford stove. Proven in over 100 years of continuous use.” The Waterford Stanley model shown above is $5,895 plus $295 for the waterjacket for heating hot water.
Here’s what Cliff, one of our readers has to say:
“Getting the right stove for the job is based on want versus need. People often look to aesthetics and not function (form over function) as a deciding factor. Knowing how many kilowatts of heat you need will help make a short list of appropriately sized cookstoves. Then pick one from the list.
I did some research on wood cookstoves a while back. Here is some of what I found. I looked mostly in New Zealand and Australia. The freight from the USA is just too expensive.
From NZ: If you want to see what I would really like, take a look at Homewood Stoves. It’s $8,348 US $, low tech but built like a brick.
This is the smallest I know of but it is intended for a caravan (travel trailer).
Little Cracker Mobile Home Heat
Shacklock’s can be 100 years old and used to burn coal. A wetback is used to heat water.
Shacklock 501
Shacklock Orion
These are new and mostly from Oz (Australia) but wanted you to see what is out there.
Baker’s Oven
Nectre
Various cooking stoves
I guess theyre nice if you have a lot of money.I like the homebuilt rocket stoves that you can see on utube,the one with the long bench with an exhaust pipe in it looks good.The rocket stove burns cleaner and uses less fuel.
Yeah, they are pricey, but maybe you could get a used one. They last a really long time. Rocket stoves are good, too.