One of the most common questions we get asked by customers at our shop, House of Warmth Stove & Fireplace Shop, is "What is the efficiency of this wood stove?" As a customer who is starting to look into purchasing a wood stove or insert, if you were to pick 4 random wood stove manufacturer brochures, what you don't know is when you are looking at the efficiencies, you may not be looking at apples to apples numbers and here is why.
There are two types of efficiencies, HHV or High Heating Value, and LHV, or Low Heating Value.
HHV is is the efficiency rate recognized by the EPA. Wood used inside when testing a wood stove needs to be between 19% and 25% moisture content, which is a real-world scenario when burning wood at your own personal house.
LHV is a theoretical number where the stove is tested using 0% wood moisture. LHV is not recognized by the EPA. Why is there a flaw in this? Where most people are burning dry wood, you are not burning wood that is 0% moisture content. Testing a wood stove with wood that has 0% moisture content boosts up efficiencies by another 19%-25%, creating an artificially high efficiency number that will never be attained at your own home. Therefore this unrealistic LHV value is not EPA recognized.
As a consumer, what you need to know is that not everyone puts the HHV value in their marketing literature. Some manufacturers include LHV, which is the theoretical number that is artificially higher efficiency. While we always tell people to burn dry wood, nobody is going to burn wood with a 0% moisture content which is why LHV is a flawed number.
How important is BTU range? A wide range in BTU range is important to make sure that you can control the heat of your wood stove and get it hot enough to warm your home. A BTU range from 15,000-25,000 is not a great range. It will be hard to get your stove hot enough and will not provide enough heat for your home. On the other hand, a BTU range from 15,000-50,000 is a great range. This is real world scenario that will be important for you for heating your home.
One of the main lines of wood stoves, wood inserts, and wood fireplaces we carry at the House of Warmth is Lopi and FireplaceX, both made by Travis Industries in Mukilteo, WA. All of these stoves have HHV numbers (real-world what you will experience in your own home) in the marketing as well as wide BTU ranges for their wood stoves and inserts. We love that they are American made and super high quality! We see a lot of customers come into our store who have purchased a Lopi stove 18-20 years ago, tell us how much they love it, and are buying typical wear parts such as door gasket and fire bricks. Our store has been carrying this line since the early 1980's.
--Blog by Nyree Pieck, Owner
The House of Warmth Stove & Fireplace Shop is a family owned business in New Milford, CT which sells wood, pellet, and gas stoves, wood and gas fire pits, outdoor kitchens, and BBQ grills. They also sell fireplace accessories, venting, and fuel. (pellets, coal, and biobricks) They sell Lopi and FireplaceX wood stoves, wood fireplaces, and wood inserts. Check out their online store: www.houseofwarmth.com Also, click on Design your fire on the top right hand side of their website to see all of their Lopi and FireplaceX models.