Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - Gas Stove for Heating

I live in the North East and am remodeling a room that was originally a porch that had been converted into living space. The room is north facing, roughly 8’x 20’ and has 5 large windows. I removed an old wall natural gas heater installed in the mid 60’s. I have removed the old ceiling plaster, damaged by roof leaks, and plaster walls. Walls will be extended to accept R19 and the ceiling will get R25 insulation.

I would like to install additional heating to this room so it is comfortable during the winter months. I have been looking at gas stoves and they seem to be aesthetic and efficient. Seems like the air blower options would help to heat the room more efficiently.

Does anyone have experience using this type of heating? Any recommendations of particular stoves, types of venting or BTU rating would be greatly appreciated.

Visited a local stove dealer and found that vent-free would not be an option because of the moisture generated from combustion. This moisture would condense on the windows. That leaves B-Vent and Direct Vent. B-Vent is not an option because I will place the stove next to a brick wall and I’m not interested in knocking a hole in the brick wall. Direct vent will require a hole in the roof but the roof must be replaced anyway.

As for the sizing, I was told a rule of thumb would be the volume of the room in cubic feet multiplied by 8. The room is roughly 8’x20’x8’ for 1280 ft^3. And the estimated BTU requirement would be 1280 x 8= 10,240 BTU. I assume this value would then be divided by the stove’s efficiency rating to get the final BTU requirement. A 80% efficient stove would then be rated at 10,240 BTU/0.8= 12800 BTU’s.

Sounds like you,ve got it pretty much figured out. I think you may have the venting backwards though. The B-vent can go through the roof and the direct vent will go through the side wall. I'm not the venting pro her though but some of the other guys here have gave some great ideas on venting.