Woodstove-Who Builds The Best 

Such a great video keep up the good work💙

I bought my Mama Bear Fisher stove in Oregon in 1975 made by a friend of Bob Fisher. It heated my house for many years until I remodeled and it had to go as it was not "green-enuf".. I moved it down to my shop and it keeps me warm in the winter and a Great Place to burn wood scraps. The thing I like most about it ... the cast doors with the trees says "Patent Pending". Paid about $300 for it brand new, weighs about 350 pounds.

I looked for a Fisher stove for 2 year. This summer I happen to run upon 2, a grandpa and a grandma. Brought them home and wire wheeled them, got them painted up and they look brand new now. My neighbor comes over and says he has a stove like that in his barn that I could have if I wanted it. Sure enough, he had a baby bear in there. Never saw one like it tho. Single door but it's got a 36" deep fire box that exhausts from the top. It's probably the best one out of the 3.

I have one of these also and I've got a couple things for you and others interested in these. The Grandma Bear and Grandpa Bear models were designed with double doors for people who wanted to have the doors wide open while using a screen. Purely ascetic. What isn't ascetic is the reason only the double door Fisher stoves got the 8" exhaust vent. This was thought to be needed for open screen viewing. Now here's the good part.....if you use a 8" to 6" reducer right off the stove and use all 6" stove pipe, your heat output will be exactly the same but you'll use 20-25% less wood! These stoves really shine when set up properly.

Guys Thanks so much for the awesome comments and helping one another this is what i love about RU-vid

I just bought a Fisher Papa bear one door stove in south Dakota to replace a pellet stove that I hated because it was hard to keep lit and was expensive Buying pellets all the time. I wire wheeled it and spray painted it with stove paint and put new fire brick in it. It never smokes like people are saying, It also heats my 1700 SQ foot house to where I have to crack the windows in the dead of winter. I live in southwest Iowa so it gets very cold. my mom owns 2 kingsman wood stoves they heat very well also.

I just bought one so for those who do want measurements - the Grandpa Bear measures 29.5" across the top plate and from back of stove to the front of the "lip" on the front is 30 inches. It stands 31.5" tall with 7 inch legs. Mapping out floor space where it will go.

I wanted a Fisher and couldnt find one for a sane price. I settled for a Earth stove. I was completely blown away at how well it heats. I can load it before work, set the bimetallic damper on it to maintain 70 degrees, come back 12 hours later and my uninsulated blockhouse is still 70. Ive had may stoves in my quest to heat this tomb, catalytic, EPA, other smaller stoves and apart from a coal stove, this is the first stove that will do this. I think the EPA is just trying to cull the herd by freezing us to death 😂

By far the best ever built, the burn times are incredible, I have the Englander burns slow but no where close to the box on the fisher.

I have the exact stove and have used it for many years.

Thank you 😊

We've used our GranPa for 40 plus years and love it .

A friend of mine has one and it's been in use since 1983. Do love the big fire box. I heat my 1000 sq ft lower floor of my house with a cast iron Waterford stove made in Ireland. Been using it since 1988. Great stove, but small compared to the fisher. The Waterford has a glass door which was a big selling point as well as all cast iron construction with no bricks. The quality of construction in the Waterford is far superior to the fisher but the fisher has some definite advantages. Thanks for the review.

They are nice stoves. You can keep the epaulets. Stoves

Have a Timberline stove the same as you're Fisher. Heats my 2K sq ft house in Up-State NY. Had it for 35 years. Bought used for $500. Exact same stove as the biggest Fisher. But I do use a door gasket, makes it air tight.

I have the same stove I love it it came with my house when I brought it

Particularly hard to find because you have all of them LOL very nice stove

I have “The Boss” wood stove I bought brand new back in the 70s . Undoubtedly one of the best stoves .

Just watching made me warm.

Fisher was a great heater stove, no glass and bell dampers on the front door are what makes it stand out, it takes from the old wood cook stoves where the burn pot was designed roughly the same with low bell air dampers and a upper rear flu exhaust!

Great video thanks

up here in oklahoma we see some mean winters- -17 below zero! I got a nice sierra wood stove that does the trick but i would definitly consider the fisher!

Love my Fisher’s. Bought 2 from FB marketplace a couple years ago. Grandpa Bear with a rear exhaust and a Grandma Bear with a top exhaust. I grabbed both for $600. Couldn’t pass it up. I sanded and painted the Grandpa before putting new bricks in. I’m running it out a 6” pipe. It does a good job taking the chill off a 960 sq ft uninsulated pole barn. I’ve been trying to convince my wife to let me install the Grandma in our house.

Holy shit my parents used to have that exact model in my basement before we renovated the house it would make the house cozy in winters and save money on heating, as of 2023 my dad regrets sellin it lol we even cooked atop of it once or twice lol.

We use our Fisher wood stove fireplace insert all the time and love it. Also saves some money on buying tons of propane to get thru the winter.

Good vid ! Just got me a Grandpa can’t wait to hook it up

I have had experience with most of the stoves mentioned in the comments and none of them compare to the Jotul Oslo. I live in northern Minnesota and only need about 2 cord of seasoned firewood per burning season. They are expensive but well worth the money.

I bought a glacier bay that is identical to the papa bear for 200 bucks. Love it.

I just got one if these for really cheap! Although it has a small crack in the back that's about 6 inches long, im going to either weld it or use hi- temp JB weld. It needs a good painting and itll be good to go. I love these old stoves

Add some chimney height and it will draft better with the door open

One night it got to 25 below zero just for kicks and giggles I decided to see how warm I could get my 2500 SQ feet to, at 90 degrees I opened the door to the garage 3 car and heated it also, about that time my kids started yelling from there bed rooms turn that heat down dad, 8 inch adapter feeding a 6 inch pipe.

I have that exact stove , love it👍

We have a Better 'N Bens cast iron wood stove from about 1980. Solid citizen. Has an interior cast-iron baffle and a flue damper, and two air intake controls on the front. We decided to replace it this year because the damper control has finally failed. It does have a huge firebox. We use it for ambiance and as auxiliary heat source to our oil-fired furnace when it gets below 20 degrees outside (we live in Massachusetts.) We will miss it.

Install a baffle in that bad boy and you’ll really have something!

My grandpa had one in the 80s

The top plate on all fisher free standing wood stoves is 5/ 16 and sides are 1/4'' friend gave me a baby bear, it had rust and I'm striping it with muriatic acid and painting it.

Fisher stove seems to be missing the bafle just below the 6" outlet. Reduces smoke. I love my lopi dual glass door insert converted to a free standing heater. A 2001 chevrolet rear parking brake shoe fits in the 8" hole so as to fit up the 8" to 6" reducer pipe. Just refractory cement the connection to make it air tite. I also created a outside air feed to the stove intake air so i keep every btu of heat the stove makes. A dryer hose and sheet metal pipe of correct size neutral balances the firebox. Hot chimney gasses leaving the stove does not draw air thru cracks in the wall floor or ceiling. It draws thru the dryer hose, a cool expansive outside air.

Fisher wood stoves are The Best. Been using one since 1975.

Excellent Fisher stove. Have you tried cooking on top of it?

I have one of these Fisher stoves in the UK, I’m keeping it in a shed until I can get my house ready but it was going to go for recycling because it was replaced for no good reason on insurance after it went rusty with a chimney leak

also noticed you ran insulated chimney to the stove, you should transition to black double walled chimney from the stove to wall/ceiling, this will allow additional radiant heat and allow the flu to heat up quicker on starts! Plus it makes it easy to service and clean! As for wood, hard wood get longer burn time, the dampers help but the wood type makes all the difference, for example a 1/4 split of a 8" dia 18" pine gives off 18k btu where the same cut of Birch gives 28k btu!

Love mine 👍

I have sold a few of these and scrapped many tons. We call this a smoke-dragon and I would not put one of these in my home or anyone elses. They had their day but they are terrifically inefficient by today's standard.

I have one of those stove those stove is awesome I'm using it right now I got a five bedroom brick house and it heats it up

Does anyone have thoughts on a Timberline? How does it compare to a Fisher...

Some of the older Fisher stoves have a flue collar that is actually 6" outside diameter. As it is recommended to run the male end of the connector pipe inside the stove's flue collar, this sizing makes it difficult to do so. Our Fisher stove adapter is sized to go over the flue collar. Then the male end of the connector pipe fits inside of this adapter, allowing for a drip free connection. In addition, it has a formed bead to further insure that the creosote formed from combustion remains inside the pipe.

good stuff we love our Blaze King 302

I just picked up a glacier bay stove looks exactly the same

I have a Kanyon freestanding. My dad has 2 Kanyon inserts. My stove is my main source of heat and eats 3-4 cords a year. They were made in Spokane, WA until the new EPA regs killed them in the 80's. They are built like a tank! I refurbished mine 4 years ago with new brick, paint, and I welded a small crack near the flue. I would not trade this stove for any EPA stove. My stove holds a fire longer, starts up faster, and requires less babysitting. I stoke it before I go to bed and it holds a fire all night and keeps the house warm and furnace from kicking on. A friend of mine has a Quadrafire and he has to get up once at night to stoke it. Yes, my stove will pollute if not burned properly. Yes it will creosote the chimney faster. Burn dry seasoned wood, give the fire some air, and dont overload the fire box too much and it can burn just as clean as an EPA stove. My chimney stays very clean as long as I dont choke the air down all the way. Class A double wall insulated (which I have.....even inside the house) retains a lot more heat inside which also helps to keep the creosote from forming. One of the worst stoves in my opinion is Schrader. I would not pay for one. They are very lightly built....doors warp, cracks form, etc. I have burned out a couple of those heating the shop.

I have a Fisher and was wondering how and where to get fire bricks

I have the baby bear in my little shop. It is an amazing stove . Not 2020 compliant but who cares what the tree huggers think ??? I have an old Sierra in our other house and that thing can drive you right out . Plus after I cleaned the liner after my mom and dad burned it part time for 10-15 years there was not a gallon of ash etc in the flue. We always burned them hot and with dry wood. Leave as much ash as possible in your stove because it is not only your heat sink plus it increases the burn times. I sold stoves and chimney systems for years to add another income to my masonry and plastering business. Loved the Hearth industry . Great video Katyhillfarmer . These are probably the best stoves ever built as far as I am concerned too. You will not find a stove made today that will give you 30-40 years of good service like these old stoves !

I've watched this video a few times in the last year,and I just noticed something. Mine is identical except it's a top draft ,and mine has 2 rows of fire brick on the sides whereas yours has one row. On mine towards the back,but on the sides it's got one fire brick standing upright and two more laying on their sides going from front to back. It doesnt have any extra across the back.

Great video, just got one and i am happy to hear they are good stoves, i do have a issue with the doors latching was wondering if you would contact me, i believe the latch is bent or the catch inside is bent ? need a reference picture to see what my issue is ?

I just bought a All Nighter Big Moe wood stove. Was wondering what you thought of them?

I have one of these I bought from my mom after my dad died. I have a double wide mobile home but someday I will have the right home built for it. I also bought her restored cook stove. I am using Ashley Warm Morning type stove in house now but Fisher doesn’t have 6 months of use on it and my dad bought 2 of them new in 1976.

A ll I can tell you is I heated my 1100 sq ft house with a Napoleon wood stove for years, " in Manitoba " I would buy another without hesitation.

Do these fishers require gaskets on the front doors? I didn’t see any on this video?

Little bit of spray paint will cover that rust right up

I have a fisher in my living room is HUGE and really old it’s about twice maybe 3 times the size of that one and my granddaddy has another at his house but it’s a smaller one

You're right. I bought a new grandpa bear in the 70's. There was no gasket.

Does this have a baffle or is the smoke / gasses going straight out the back?

I have a 1978 Frontier with the same design. I can't get very long burn times at all. The doors are sagging and the firebox is pulling in way too much air. I am going to clean it up and put new door hinge pins in it to get things lined back up. If that doesn't seal up the doors I will add a gasket. Have you read about adding any kind of baffle to extend your burn times? I may try it on mine. Looks interesting.

Did you put a damper on the stove pipe?

We have this stove. Having trouble with back draft

I have a MamaBear heater and love it but would love to have a glass in my piece that you put in the door ways so I could see the fire but not lose the heat Is there any thing like this I could purchase for my heater.

We have found a Nickerson grandad stove that looks exactly like this one just without the ornamentals on the doors. I cant find ANY information on it though. does anyone know anything about them? The seller did mention it has been in a fire which has me concerned. Thanks

Can u do a outside dimension please

lets see you make a viedo of you packing full the stove with wood

Old school AWSOME BIG OLD STOVE. CHUCK SOMENICE LOGS ON THERE!!!!

With the price of heating oil, it's time to break out the wood stove again!

Get rid of epa

My Alaskan Kodak stove looks be almost the same as the Fisher.

Nashua Model NFP-2 made by Ohio Steel Fabricators. I bought it new in 1982. Made of 5/16" high carbon steel, fire brick lined bottom and lower sides. Has a thermostatically controlled fan that blows room air from the back thru a channel iron chamber that enters in the center back of the stove to the top center of the firebox and then T's out to the top center of each side. The fire burns under this T chanber and the smoke has to go up around the front of that chamber and then over the top to get back to the flu which exits horizontally out the back. Rated for a 2000 sq ft home if I remember right. Really cranks out the heat at 700 to 900 degrees. Can e-mail you pics.

Beautiful stove, where are they made??

According to the realtor the previous owners had this fireplace since 1991 i wonder when this model came out? It was old and discolored before my dad restored it back in 2014 and we got rid of ours in 2017 when we did a full renovation to our house

Does this compare to a woodsman stove? Do you have a draft on the rear pipe. Thanks

An other question my is going in my shop. Shop has 16ft walls. Can run single wall pipe in side for about 13ft before taking the piping outside. Tha I you for your input. Great video

I just got a papa stove. Do it need fire bricks on the inside bottom of the fire box

you should do like me make a kndling roring fire let burn for while than fill up with dry logs for very long hot burn my house gets up to 90 degrees

I have a question about the firebricks... do you need to put them on the floor of the granpa bear, or can you light the fire directly onto the bare metal base with just firebricks around the interior walls? Thanks Connor

Restoring one now, any chance you have the screen that Fisher made for that stove?

Did they make models with stove pipe holes in different locations? I’ve seen some at the top verses out the back.

EPA's a joke, it's put some of the very good wood stove company's out of business.

You need a grate. Ash limits the fire. Sweet stove!

I enjoyed your video and agree that this is great older stove. One of the best if not the best from that era. There are two more stoves that I would rate really high also. Vermont Castings, Encore, and Defiant built between 1990- 2008 also Consolidated Dutch West. From the 1990s. Currently using the Vermont Castings Encore. 15 years and going strong. Two features of our stove that makes it my favorite after 50 years of heating my homes with wood. Is top loading and the removable ash pan that you can remove, dump, and replace in seconds. No large chunks of charcoal like most other stoves. Full fire box with dry oak ande hickory 12 hours burn time. Has been a great stove. It's now in a smaller house than when we first purchased it in 2005. We rarely put more than 3 small small pieces of wood in it at a time because it's so efficient. The newer ones have issues with drafting do to EPA GUIDELINES and emissions limits. Your Fisher is not UL listed and probably voids being used in any home and would be in violation for most insurance companies. All wood and pellet stoves are already illegal in many States. Soon it will be in every State. Yet we send millions of tons of wood pellets all over the world every year and the demand for more increases every year. If anyone wants me to quit burning my wood stove for heat.....I think we're going to have a problem a big problem! That Papa Bear is a beast of a stove and a great find. Hear in Indiana I've seen those go for over $1000 on Craigslist reconditioned.

I have an old stove it's the earth stove is what its cald

Do you have a damper in the chimney? I just installed one of these and the chimney pipe in the room gets super hot even with the damper on the doors closed. I feel like I'm losing a lot of heat. I also have a big fan behind it blowing air, but when i look out at my chimney i have no smoke but you can see the heat waves. This may be correct, but I'm not sure. Comments appreciated. Also i just ordered the magnet thermometer so i can know the actual temperature.

The old Woodsman Stove with the oak leaves on the doors were far superior to Fisher.

how thick and how long of a log will fir your wood stove

I would love to get a Homewood cook stove. You should go check out their videos.

I know yours is in the basement on concrete,but mine is getting put in my living room over an oak floor. I wanted to put ceramic tile over backerboard,but the guy putting my chimney in says that's not enough. He said it would make my floor to hot. Could you let me know about how hot yours is underneath. I can buy a metal hearth pad if need be. I just wanna do it right the first time.

No door gasket?

Do you know anything about the grandma bear fisher stove? My question is, it has a screen that fits in the front with the door open. Is that for leaving open to watch the flames?

Does anyone know how to get the insurance company to approve the use of this stove? It is not UL listed so they won't approve it

is the flue 6 inches on yours?? i heard the mama bears with the 6 inch flue and the single door is more efficient than the 2 door models with the 8 inch flu.. (obviously the bigger it is the more space it will heat regardless) Im currently looking at a grandma bear with the 2 doors and a mama bear with the single door and 6 inch flue.. any advice appreciated.. watched your video atleast 5 times in the last 24 hours lol.. thx in advance for any reply. Only mod I wanna make is adding a baffle.. ps. love the fact that they dont need gaskets on the solid door models.

What take for other dishes stove

How many square feet will this stove heat

I have a chance to get a fisher mama bear for 200. Has surface rust and the left knob doesn't work right. Is this worth getting a restoring?

I've used a half dozen old "non EPA" wood burning stoves. I have neighbors who still use these old "air-tight" wood burning stoves. The entire neighborhood can fill up with smoke from just one or two of these smoldering SMUDGE POTS. They put out tons of smoke that condenses into creosote. This lines the inside of the stove pipe, drips from the pipe joints, and creates a fire hazard that requires regular cleaning. I'll never install one of these clunkers again, or an outhouse! We put in a new "EPA compliant" wood stove 10 years ago and we use ONE THIRD less wood for the same amount of heat! No more creosote, and no smoke once the stove is heated up in about 5 minutes. The coal bed easily lasts overnight. All the smoke is burned up by preheating the combustion air. It is a brilliant & simple design. More heat for less wood, no smoke, & almost no stove pipe cleaning. Do yourself a favor and get a modern, more efficient and cleaner stove, and your neighbors will thank you too.

Hi I have a lot of questions about my fireplace,