We were actually deciding between the two as well. My friend bought the Kitchen Queen and we bought the Heco. Part of why we bought the Heco was we could get it right away. I have been meaning to do a video update on our stove, as well as a comparison between our friend's Kitchen Queen and our Heco. I was impressed with the Kitchen Queen when I saw it in person but it wasn't in use yet, so I would like to go back and see it working, and get their report of the good and bad. I will say the one thing I don't like so far about the Heco is, we were used to leaving our oven open to increase the heat coming from the stove into the house with our flame view but when we did this with this stove the spring that holds the door shut, stretched and the oven wouldn't stay shut any more. We found a solution by using a hook but it is definitely a design flaw in my books. Not sure how the Kitchen Queen deals with this. How soon do you need your stove?
Your stove fire box is huge! Lucky you! I’m in my first winter season with a wood cook stove in addition to a regular wood stove. Drolet, made in Canada. What a huge difference in the ability to heat the cabin and a pleasure to cook on! Still learning to regulate the heat but it’s pretty straight forward. A wood cook stove adds a special magic. Stay warm and I hope you finally get caught up with your wood supply this summer!
Thanks for watching. For well over the last 10 years we have been heating and cooking almost exclusively with a wood cook stove (first our flame view and now this Heco) and I just love the freedom it gives. It will be nice to get caught up on the wood but I am happy to know we can make it through a winter if we ever have to again. Enjoy your stove, you will get the hang of it ;)
I have actually really been wanting to do an update video, just haven't found the time just yet. We are pretty tough on our stoves, they are work horses that have to heat our house, cook our food, and we definitely don't pamper them, although maybe we should be a little nicer. So there are a few things a year later. The knobs are wood, so one got stripped, my son fixed it, we leave the oven door open and you're not supposed to and the spring stretched, again fixable. We owned a flame view before this stove and they are made to leave the door propped open to heat more efficiently and old habits die hard. I will do an update, hopefully soon and show all of the things I love and don't a year later, but if you are shopping for a stove I wanted you to know that there are some flaws. My friend owns a Kitchen Queen which I almost bought, the waiting list tilted the scale in favour of the Heco, but now I am wondering if I should have went the other way. They are both great stoves, and I have not cooked and heated with the Kitchen Queen (two things the Heco does very well), but the quality of the Kitchen Queen I think is superior knobs are metal etc. Also one thing I liked was the damper is on the side with the kitchen Queen, not the back like the Heco, so it's easier to reach. I am hoping to get a chance to do a on camera comparison some time and maybe get to cook on it. It is so hard to know exactly unless you live with it. I love that I can throw anything at this stove if I have to, and it keeps my house warm, green wood, dry wood, split, not split. We stuff it full before bed, damp it down to somewhere in the middle and in the morning a nice bed of coals, open her up and throw in some more and keep going. If the Kitchen Queen is the same then I'd go that way, but I haven't got first hand experience to know. Thanks for watching.
We got it from Canadian tire, it's a Yardworks 4-ft Steel Frame Firewood/Log Rack/Holder, but unfortunately it has been discontinued when I checked today. To be honest, we had to modify it to make it easier to stack wood on it, by putting steel on the sides and bottom. So I'm not sure I wood buy another one, but it was cheap.We run through that much wood in about 3 days, so in the future I might do something like this lakeandlumber.com/diy-firewood-rack/ but I would use a 5' fire ring instead of the smaller 3' one so I could store more wood. Amazon has some right now for under $100. There are even some more decorative fire rings with wire mesh etc.
Thanks for watching, in the past we have done that but sometimes with the freezing rain we get here and then the snow on top it can be heavy to remove. If we piled it high and round it might work better. Thankfully this year we are piling it up against the house in long high piles and then we put a long piece of scrap metal roofing over to keep it dry. So far so good we will see how it works through the winter. Hopefully by next year we will have time to build a woodshed
I just purchase this unit except I got the one with the porcelain top and just fired it up for the winter season. Can you tell me how you clean your top when you spill something and you have the thing running all winter? I wasnt sure how to clean it when its hot??
I am not sure but I think this would be the same with the porcelain top, I just use water and wipe it, be careful it will get very hot, use a silicone glove or something like that. Honestly I find most things burn off so to speak, they get dried out and flake off, and I just wipe them off. Hope this helps, I don't have the porcelain top so not sure if it will be the same.
I apologize, I was sure I answered your comment and then saw it was no where, too bad because I believe I went into great detail. I will try to remember... The stove itself heats our home well and bakes well, we are very happy with that. We are noticing some things though. The handles are wooden and so the tread on the one wore out and now it slips off. Inside the oven below the slide out tray the paint has peeled up, there is still the bottom tray covering it except when we pull it out to clean it, so not a huge deal I guess. The way the fire brick is kept in, the wood can sometimes nock it over, not often but it has happened more than once, but on the other hand, the same design makes it extremely easy to remove and replace the firebrick, which was difficult in our old stove. I think that is it?? I find the stove extremely easy to clean and we burn really hot fires in it so maybe some of these things are because of that. Since purchasing ours, my friend bought a Kitchen Queen and I have to admit if I could do it again I would likely go that route, except I like the look of our better. The things I like about hers, metal handles, looks a bit more solidly built, the thermostat is on the left side instead of the back, so it's easier to reach, I like her top rail around the stove-top because you can hang a screen in front of the fire box glass door, it can get really hot standing in front of it, and this would shield you from some of the heat. So there you have it, again sorry for the late reply.
I found your channel through looking at cook woodstoves. we are trying to decide between the kitchen queen and the heco. love all the snow too :)
We were actually deciding between the two as well. My friend bought the Kitchen Queen and we bought the Heco. Part of why we bought the Heco was we could get it right away. I have been meaning to do a video update on our stove, as well as a comparison between our friend's Kitchen Queen and our Heco. I was impressed with the Kitchen Queen when I saw it in person but it wasn't in use yet, so I would like to go back and see it working, and get their report of the good and bad. I will say the one thing I don't like so far about the Heco is, we were used to leaving our oven open to increase the heat coming from the stove into the house with our flame view but when we did this with this stove the spring that holds the door shut, stretched and the oven wouldn't stay shut any more. We found a solution by using a hook but it is definitely a design flaw in my books. Not sure how the Kitchen Queen deals with this. How soon do you need your stove?
Your stove fire box is huge! Lucky you! I’m in my first winter season with a wood cook stove in addition to a regular wood stove. Drolet, made in Canada. What a huge difference in the ability to heat the cabin and a pleasure to cook on! Still learning to regulate the heat but it’s pretty straight forward. A wood cook stove adds a special magic. Stay warm and I hope you finally get caught up with your wood supply this summer!
Thanks for watching. For well over the last 10 years we have been heating and cooking almost exclusively with a wood cook stove (first our flame view and now this Heco) and I just love the freedom it gives. It will be nice to get caught up on the wood but I am happy to know we can make it through a winter if we ever have to again. Enjoy your stove, you will get the hang of it ;)
I have actually really been wanting to do an update video, just haven't found the time just yet. We are pretty tough on our stoves, they are work horses that have to heat our house, cook our food, and we definitely don't pamper them, although maybe we should be a little nicer. So there are a few things a year later. The knobs are wood, so one got stripped, my son fixed it, we leave the oven door open and you're not supposed to and the spring stretched, again fixable. We owned a flame view before this stove and they are made to leave the door propped open to heat more efficiently and old habits die hard. I will do an update, hopefully soon and show all of the things I love and don't a year later, but if you are shopping for a stove I wanted you to know that there are some flaws. My friend owns a Kitchen Queen which I almost bought, the waiting list tilted the scale in favour of the Heco, but now I am wondering if I should have went the other way. They are both great stoves, and I have not cooked and heated with the Kitchen Queen (two things the Heco does very well), but the quality of the Kitchen Queen I think is superior knobs are metal etc. Also one thing I liked was the damper is on the side with the kitchen Queen, not the back like the Heco, so it's easier to reach. I am hoping to get a chance to do a on camera comparison some time and maybe get to cook on it. It is so hard to know exactly unless you live with it. I love that I can throw anything at this stove if I have to, and it keeps my house warm, green wood, dry wood, split, not split. We stuff it full before bed, damp it down to somewhere in the middle and in the morning a nice bed of coals, open her up and throw in some more and keep going. If the Kitchen Queen is the same then I'd go that way, but I haven't got first hand experience to know. Thanks for watching.
Curious where you got that wood rack by the stove. Great video. Thanks.
We got it from Canadian tire, it's a Yardworks 4-ft Steel Frame Firewood/Log Rack/Holder, but unfortunately it has been discontinued when I checked today. To be honest, we had to modify it to make it easier to stack wood on it, by putting steel on the sides and bottom. So I'm not sure I wood buy another one, but it was cheap.We run through that much wood in about 3 days, so in the future I might do something like this lakeandlumber.com/diy-firewood-rack/ but I would use a 5' fire ring instead of the smaller 3' one so I could store more wood. Amazon has some right now for under $100. There are even some more decorative fire rings with wire mesh etc.
Throw a cheap tarp on top of wooDpile. Helps keep it dry.
Thanks for watching, in the past we have done that but sometimes with the freezing rain we get here and then the snow on top it can be heavy to remove. If we piled it high and round it might work better. Thankfully this year we are piling it up against the house in long high piles and then we put a long piece of scrap metal roofing over to keep it dry. So far so good we will see how it works through the winter. Hopefully by next year we will have time to build a woodshed
I just purchase this unit except I got the one with the porcelain top and just fired it up for the winter season. Can you tell me how you clean your top when you spill something and you have the thing running all winter? I wasnt sure how to clean it when its hot??
I am not sure but I think this would be the same with the porcelain top, I just use water and wipe it, be careful it will get very hot, use a silicone glove or something like that. Honestly I find most things burn off so to speak, they get dried out and flake off, and I just wipe them off. Hope this helps, I don't have the porcelain top so not sure if it will be the same.
does the stove have a lever to switch heat to the room or to the oven?
Yes on the right side of the stove, there is a lever to heat the oven or avoid it and go out the chimney.
How's the stove holding up?
I apologize, I was sure I answered your comment and then saw it was no where, too bad because I believe I went into great detail. I will try to remember... The stove itself heats our home well and bakes well, we are very happy with that. We are noticing some things though. The handles are wooden and so the tread on the one wore out and now it slips off. Inside the oven below the slide out tray the paint has peeled up, there is still the bottom tray covering it except when we pull it out to clean it, so not a huge deal I guess. The way the fire brick is kept in, the wood can sometimes nock it over, not often but it has happened more than once, but on the other hand, the same design makes it extremely easy to remove and replace the firebrick, which was difficult in our old stove. I think that is it?? I find the stove extremely easy to clean and we burn really hot fires in it so maybe some of these things are because of that. Since purchasing ours, my friend bought a Kitchen Queen and I have to admit if I could do it again I would likely go that route, except I like the look of our better. The things I like about hers, metal handles, looks a bit more solidly built, the thermostat is on the left side instead of the back, so it's easier to reach, I like her top rail around the stove-top because you can hang a screen in front of the fire box glass door, it can get really hot standing in front of it, and this would shield you from some of the heat. So there you have it, again sorry for the late reply.
Should have renamed this " how we supply our wood stove".
Maybe, but that is what I like the most about it ;) That and the even temps it holds. Over all an awesome stove, very happy.