I forgot how well this old cast iron potbelly stove performs firing wood. I have been getting about 4 to 6 hour burn times at 600+ degree stove temperatures. At around 8 hours, it is nothing but hot ash and a few glowing embers which quickly have been igniting the next recharge of hard wood. This has all been done with a barometric reading of .05 and the manual stovepipe damper completely closed.
So to my forgotten surprise, it has actually been doing similar job heating my house as my Clayton furnace, but using less wood. As for comparing the performance with firing anthracite coal, the Chubby wins hands down, mainly because of the Chubby's far suprior grate system. I think that if the Chubby could be a little taller, it would be the ultimate in inexpensive parlor stove heating. Not to say that it isn't great, but it would be nice to be able to fire larger pieces of hard wood in it too.
Now as for the Vogelzang potbelly stove as a wood fired stove, I'm quite impressed with it's performance and fuel efficiency. Even though the Vogelzang potbelly is not an air tight stove, I really don't think that the performance would be much better if it were air tight. Once I get it going, I just shut down all of the drafts and the air leaking into the stove appears to be just the right amount for a relatively adaquate burn time and heat output.
I now remember why I liked this Vogelzang potbelly so much. Even though it is made in China, it is a sturdy built unit and has taken a lot of abuse that I have given it the past four years, with providing household heating comfort. So, from my experience using the Vogelzang potbelly stove, it is a wood stove that I would recommend before shelling out big dollars on a similar sized steel model.
