OSU has a really good fact sheet on cutting and burning wood. Our home is total electric and our furnace is never used. Last winter when it was -26 our house was very comfortable. My opinion is you don't have to have a catalytic stove in order to be very efficient but you do need to invest in a good stove. Ours is a Non-catalytic stove with a clean burn system. Waterford brand made in Ireland. It has an air-preheater that after the stove is going will heat the air to around 400 degrees before it is introduced to the flame. No smoke at all will be seen. We started using our stove in 2000 and had the chimney doctor inspect the chimney last year. No cresote after 10 years. All the wood we burn is good pecan or oak and is at least 2 years old with the last year being in a dry barn. The lack of moisture is the reason for the clean chimney. The fact sheet I mentioned states that the more moisture the wood has the more BTU it takes to dry the wood before it will burn which means the greener the wood the less btu you're going to feel. One more note...The wood we are burning this winter has been in my barn for 4 years and it's got to be the best we've ever used. The question was ask about the price. We bought our stove in 2000 and gave 2200.00 dollars for it. Not as nice or expensive as the soap stone stove (my opinion is the soap stone stove is the very best you can possibly buy) but our Waterford is very nice and efficient.
This is a picture of the above mentioned Waterford stove. I wanted to post this in order to pay tribute to my grand father who has been dead for many many years. He was a blacksmith by trade and setting behind the stove you can see an ax he made by hand when my dad was a teenager. If my dad were still alive today he would be 100 this year.
I need to clarify: Drier wood does burn easier and I'm sure it produces more BTUs than wet wood. However, I'm not paying for the wood, I don't care if it takes twice as much wood, it's free! My "bunk" comment was that well seasoned wood isn't needed, a catalytic stove will burn wet wood fine (albeit with less BTUs). Creosote is caused by incomplete combustion (burning) of the oils in the wood, not due to the water vapor. It's my understanding (very possibly wrong) that in a catalytic stove this isn't usually a problem due to the secondary combustion in the catalytic converter.
