Wood Stove Size Calculator

One matched to the room's heat loss, not the whole house. A stove heats by radiation from one point, so it warms the room it is in far more than the rooms beyond.

Because it gets run with the air closed to avoid overheating the room. That produces incomplete combustion, which deposits creosote and tar in the flue — and that is what chimney fires burn.

Because the usual error with stoves runs the other way. Every other piece of heating equipment is habitually oversized; a stove is the one where the correct answer is the honest one.

Under about 20% moisture content. Wet wood wastes a large share of its energy boiling off water, burns cool, and produces the smoke and tar that line a flue. A moisture meter is inexpensive.

Rarely well. Radiant heat does not travel around corners, and heat rises rather than spreading sideways. Whole-house heating from a stove needs a back boiler or ducting, which is a different system.

At least annually for regular use, and more often for softwood or where the stove is run at low output. The sweep also inspects the liner, which is where a developing problem shows first.

A moisture meter on a freshly split face, reading under about 20%. Seasoned-looking wood stacked outside for a year can still be well above that if it was never covered.

Tar deposited in the flue by incomplete combustion, which is flammable. It builds up fastest when a stove is run damped down or on wet wood, and it is what chimney fires burn.

It burns fine when properly dry and gives less heat per volume than hardwood. The old advice against it mostly reflects that softwood is often burned insufficiently seasoned.

It gives the correct flue size and a smooth gas-tight path, which most old masonry chimneys do not. An oversized cold flue draws poorly and condenses tar.

Yes, and modern airtight houses often cannot supply enough by infiltration. Many jurisdictions require a dedicated air vent above a given stove output, and a starved stove burns dirtily.

A modern clean-burning stove is far more efficient than an open fire, which loses most of its heat up the chimney. The gap between a good stove and an open fire is very large.