I have researched them also and would love to have one...there are wood stoves that have room on top to use to cook so if we got one for the basement that would be great...upstairs we need to put a fireplace insert in the fireplace so it doesn't pull all the warm air out of the house (it is only decorative from the 70's) but again I would love to put in a wood stove that I could also cook on.

We have a wood stove here and i love it. There are pro's and con's but its a big pro to have.
I bought a book called " wood stove cookery" to learn how to cook on it better though. I tried once and it was pretty slow but it is possible of course! I don't think the cook stove gives out much heat as far as i have heard to. I have never had one though. There are a lot of alternative cooking sources out there and a alternative heat source i think it important. I love my wood stove. =)

all those lovely replies I had earlier = poof gone due to the server update. Hopefully they will reappear! I'll be looking up that book Dandyprat - thanks!

Hi Anita. I've used a wood cookstove for the last 14 years to heat and cook on/in all fall, winter and spring. It's a Heartland Sweetheart made in Canada. I absolutely love it! It replaced an older wood stove we also cooked on top of, but I can bake and roast inside my cookstove oven too. It's the best wood stove I've ever had! Easy to load, keep going 24/7 , and it looks beautiful. My house insurance has a $50 woodstove 'Rider' -it was professionally installed folowing the specs, CSA Certified-a must for insurance or EPA- and now WETT inspected, all for house insurance. We purchased it from a wood stove dealer, I'd recommend that. 😉
I'll email you a picture if you like.

Although I don't have one now, we did have one in our country house when I was growing up.
Believe me, this thing put out some serious heat.
We used it for heat and cooking when we were there in the winter and once it was started, it would cook just as well as an electric or gas stove.
We used the cooktop for soup, coffee, frying, you name it, and the oven was great too.
Of course, getting proper oven temperatures took some practice and was often the source of frustration for my mother, it did work.
If I'm not mistaken, I think Cam Mather has a wood cookstove...try getting in touch with him and asking a few questions.
My thinking is that if my grandmother used one all year long for all her cooking and baking (she was the best bread baker I ever met) then it must have worked!

Thanks for the replies! Prepher - that is the model I love 🙂 So it does a good job of heating your home too? That is the real issue I guess. I want a cook stove but we NEED one that will do a good job heating. I'm also looking at an Esse but they are even more expensive.

Denob - Cam's wife Michelle was the one who got me thinking about NOT getting a cookstove. She has a beautiful look alike gas stove that I instantly feel in love with and I have thought about that route. They also have a wood stove and I have considered the same brand as they have because he mentioned problems with one of the "most common name brands" that ended up being crappy. Michelle cautioned me about the wood cookstove as your only stove (which I was thinking about at the time) because its rather a pain to cook on in the summer. I would use ours 7 months out of the year and use my regular stove the rest of the time. Quite honestly I'll probably us both most of the time.

We're going away this weekend and have a few places in mind to visit to see the models were interested in. Hope they are ready for the avalanche of questions that are cming!!!

Yes Anita, my cookstove also heats the one level of my 1200 ft2 'bungalow' with no trouble. We also have a wood pellet stove in the basement (another 1200 ft2), which is finished - since heat rises, not falls lol. Baking bread in the cookstove takes some learning but is quite achievable - I've done it. Mine also has a hot water reservoir on the side which I'd recommend.
Michelle Mather's propane cookstove is different than my wood version sister....to cook in/on, I feel. But they both look the same.
In the summer I usually use my propane BBQ or electric oven.

We are going to be building a house in the new year and while we would really like a woodstove we've been consistently warned about the high insurance rates by many people. A couple of people we know got rid of their woodstove because of their insurance. We live in BC so I'm not sure if there is a difference in rates between provinces. However we haven't actually talked to our insurance carrier yet but on the plus side we are only 1/2 km from a fire hall so I'm hoping that would make a difference.

I posted on the Canadian Preppers Blog about my recent trip to learn more about wood stoves and cook stoves:
http://www.canadianpreppersnetwork.com/2012/12/choosing-woodstove-cookstove.html

What do you think??

Dear Santa,
I hope you have been keeping warm up at the North Pole.
Speaking of keeping warm, I would like very much for you to bring me an ESSE IRONHEART wood stove for Christmas.
If you can overlook a few minor instances, I am sure that you will find that I have been a good boy most of the year.
Also, after talking it over with my dogs, they would also like the stove to keep their bones warm on cold winter nights.
Thank you,
Denob

Denob, what is the cost of that stove. It looks very kick ass.

According to Anita's blog post...around $7,000.00.
I hope Santa has big pockets in that red suit of his!

Wonder if I can finance that over 50 years. 🙂 By then 7k is like 50 bucks today. 🙂

Late to this thread, but I put a wood stove in my place in the fall. Best thing I ever did. Insurance barely went up, and all it costs to run is my labour. I got an osburn 2000 with a double walled chimney - straight up thru the roof. New stove, professionally installed, WETT certified and all that for insurance - I still think I could have done it but my wife wanted no part of that ;). heats 1500 square feet easily and it had a big flat top that i have used for cooking. I haven't tried baking on it, but I can cook on it quite well. Varying the wood load and damping can control the heat surprisingly well, and there are temperature variations on the top as well, so you can use the hot spots to boil water and still use the cooler spots to slow cook.

And nothing feels better than wood heat.