Wood stove link

[subi-crosser]

Since my shack is over 155 years old and it would cost $500. per month to heat it with gas or electricity, I have chosen to use 'renewable' resources for heat.

I have tried a lot of different 'devices' to accomplish this goal.

It all started with a 'Ben Franklin' stove. You get warmer from cutting and carry-ing wood to feed it, than any heat that will actually be produced BY it!

I had a 'Quality' cook stove for a while, but it only heated a room or two.

I bought a 'Warm Mourning' stove. It wasn't too bad, but I traded it ' Heat-o-lator' that worked better, but still fell short of my expectations.

I kept falling back on an old Montgomery Ward 'heatrolla' between experiments.

The wife found a deal on a Waterford parlor stove. we tried it. Does anyone need a 'real deal' on a 'yuppie wood stove'??

Yea, It was pretty........

A guy that works at the crusher called one day.
Someone had scrapped a 1942 Pick Oak pot bellied stove!

I ran over and paid him his $75.00 and threw it into the GMC. I installed it the other day and fired it up tonight.

I put 6 pieces of 'kindling' and some junk mail in it. It was 92 degrees!!!

We had to open 3 windows and put a fan in the room to get the temp to a comfortable level!

I think I found a 'match'.

Of all the stoves I have tried, this is the first one that actually DID what I expected! A 1942 model!

I have only been working on this for 20 years now.



This thread is for wood stove guys to help other woodstove guys keep warm

[Hondasucks]

I've been toying with trying to build a waste oil furnace to heat the garage at my house. I have a fireplace inside the house but I don't use it all that much since it doesn't do the greatest job at heating the house, I think it's more for decoration. I'd replace it with a wood stove but the way the room is laid out, it'd suck with a wood stove in it, unless it was a long thin one that was as wide as the fireplace but didn't stick out from the wall more than a foot or two. I know I could put an insert in there but #1 those are expensive and #2 I'm not convinced it'd heat any better than the fireplace...

[subi-crosser]

Originally Posted by Hondasucks

I've been toying with trying to build a waste oil furnace to heat the garage at my house. I have a fireplace inside the house but I don't use it all that much since it doesn't do the greatest job at heating the house, I think it's more for decoration. I'd replace it with a wood stove but the way the room is laid out, it'd suck with a wood stove in it, unless it was a long thin one that was as wide as the fireplace but didn't stick out from the wall more than a foot or two. I know I could put an insert in there but #1 those are expensive and #2 I'm not convinced it'd heat any better than the fireplace...

If you can weld, you can build an insert.

Most store bought inserts have a fan that pushes the heat out where you can enjoy it.

Fireplaces,' as originally designed' are pretty, but serve no purpouse other than that.

[Hop]

I've got a couple of questions. I've got an old (not sure how old) wood insert that has a fan and cooks me out of the house when I use it.

Can you get quieter fans for them? Mine sounds like a tank.

How can you set it up so that is burns slow over night? I close the bottom dampers and the flue but the fire is still out or just about out by morning. Someone talked about 'banking' the fire. What does that mean?

I put a flatscreen tv over the fireplace this summer. Nice :-) Should I go out and buy a thermometer and put it where the tv is to determine if it's too hot? And what would be too hot?

Should I pull the thing out yearly to clean? It weighs a ton and it doesn't look like an easy job. I've been using it for 10 years now and haven't pulled it out yet. I do stick my hand up through the flue damper and feel around to see if it's dirty but haven't found much debris. I clean my chimney twice a year but have yet to see any real accumulation of soot there even though I burn just about any kind of wood that I can get my hands on.

Has anybody got a cheap wood splitter that they want to get rid of?

My wife and I use the fireplace a lot. We keep the house at about 85 all winter long and my elec bill usually tops out at about $120 around Christmas time because the wife likes to cook a gazillion pies.

I told her that we'll burn until we run out of free wood and then we'll switch to gas. I'm on an acre lot with a ton of trees. Ten years later and I still have more trees than I know what to do with and I've prob got about 4 cords of wood split and stacked and another 2 cords waiting to be split. I have access to 6 large dropped oak trees but don't have anywhere to store them.

The wife is ready to switch over to gas because she's tired of the mess from carrying the wood in and the dust from carrying out the ashes. But I still like the price.

[Hondasucks]

EVen if it's not free wood from your own land, I always see stuff on craigslist "I want this tree gone, come chop it up and haul it off" etc..

I don't know what wood is nowadays but I remember about 12 years ago my dad used to go to the wood lot and get a cord of oak for $150 or so and that'd last us at least 1 winter, although he'd usually go get a cord or two of pine from our friends house (they pretty much lost a tree every year) and we'd burn that during the day and then toss in some oak at night and turn the damper down and there'd still be coals in the morning...

I need to find one of those fan-forced inserts.. I had a "fireplace heat extractor" but it didn't fit my fireplace so I scrapped it...

[subi-crosser]

Originally Posted by Hop

I've got a couple of questions. I've got an old (not sure how old) wood insert that has a fan and cooks me out of the house when I use it.

Can you get quieter fans for them? Mine sounds like a tank.

How can you set it up so that is burns slow over night? I close the bottom dampers and the flue but the fire is still out or just about out by morning. Someone talked about 'banking' the fire. What does that mean?

I put a flatscreen tv over the fireplace this summer. Nice :-) Should I go out and buy a thermometer and put it where the tv is to determine if it's too hot? And what would be too hot?

Should I pull the thing out yearly to clean? It weighs a ton and it doesn't look like an easy job. I've been using it for 10 years now and haven't pulled it out yet. I do stick my hand up through the flue damper and feel around to see if it's dirty but haven't found much debris. I clean my chimney twice a year but have yet to see any real accumulation of soot there even though I burn just about any kind of wood that I can get my hands on.

Has anybody got a cheap wood splitter that they want to get rid of?

My wife and I use the fireplace a lot. We keep the house at about 85 all winter long and my elec bill usually tops out at about $120 around Christmas time because the wife likes to cook a gazillion pies.

I told her that we'll burn until we run out of free wood and then we'll switch to gas. I'm on an acre lot with a ton of trees. Ten years later and I still have more trees than I know what to do with and I've prob got about 4 cords of wood split and stacked and another 2 cords waiting to be split. I have access to 6 large dropped oak trees but don't have anywhere to store them.

The wife is ready to switch over to gas because she's tired of the mess from carrying the wood in and the dust from carrying out the ashes. But I still like the price.

ya gotta clean the gunk out once and a while. If you can look from the top and it doesn't look too bad you should be good. My neighbor heats 3 rooms with gas and pays over $200 per mo on the budjet. It is going up every year. He saw my new windows and started asking a lot of questions.
The most I paid for 'back up' heat was $135. for each of the coldest months. It wouldn't have been that bad if the wood I stacked when I went to work actually got INSIDE the stove while I was gone.

As far as the fan goes, you might be able to mount it on rubber washers and make it quieter

[subi-crosser]

Originally Posted by Hop

I've got a couple of questions. I've got an old (not sure how old) wood insert that has a fan and cooks me out of the house when I use it.

Can you get quieter fans for them? Mine sounds like a tank.

How can you set it up so that is burns slow over night? I close the bottom dampers and the flue but the fire is still out or just about out by morning. Someone talked about 'banking' the fire. What does that mean?

I put a flatscreen tv over the fireplace this summer. Nice :-) Should I go out and buy a thermometer and put it where the tv is to determine if it's too hot? And what would be too hot?

Should I pull the thing out yearly to clean? It weighs a ton and it doesn't look like an easy job. I've been using it for 10 years now and haven't pulled it out yet. I do stick my hand up through the flue damper and feel around to see if it's dirty but haven't found much debris. I clean my chimney twice a year but have yet to see any real accumulation of soot there even though I burn just about any kind of wood that I can get my hands on.

Has anybody got a cheap wood splitter that they want to get rid of?

My wife and I use the fireplace a lot. We keep the house at about 85 all winter long and my elec bill usually tops out at about $120 around Christmas time because the wife likes to cook a gazillion pies.

I told her that we'll burn until we run out of free wood and then we'll switch to gas. I'm on an acre lot with a ton of trees. Ten years later and I still have more trees than I know what to do with and I've prob got about 4 cords of wood split and stacked and another 2 cords waiting to be split. I have access to 6 large dropped oak trees but don't have anywhere to store them.

The wife is ready to switch over to gas because she's tired of the mess from carrying the wood in and the dust from carrying out the ashes. But I still like the price.

Is there a damper on the top that you can throttle back? Of not, can you put one on it?

A slower burn will make the wood last longer but if you burn it too slow, it causes build up inside your pipes/flew and increases your chance of fire.

A hotter fire keeps your flew cleaner, since the tars are consumed.

[Hop]

Originally Posted by subi-crosser

Is there a damper on the top that you can throttle back? Of not, can you put one on it?

A slower burn will make the wood last longer but if you burn it too slow, it causes build up inside your pipes/flew and increases your chance of fire.

A hotter fire keeps your flew cleaner, since the tars are consumed.

Yes, I've put it in to the point where I'm not getting smoked out. Went too far a couple of times - that's not fun. Actually, it was a lot like my wife's cooking :-)

Your neighbor pays $200+ per month for three rooms??? What, are the rooms like 80x80 with no insulation and just holes in the wall for windows?

My FP is in the center of the house so it heats the whole house (if I leave the bedroom doors open) and I usually have to open a few windows to cool the place down.

[subi-crosser]

Originally Posted by Hop

Yes, I've put it in to the point where I'm not getting smoked out. Went too far a couple of times - that's not fun. Actually, it was a lot like my wife's cooking :-)

Your neighbor pays $200+ per month for three rooms??? What, are the rooms like 80x80 with no insulation and just holes in the wall for windows?

My FP is in the center of the house so it heats the whole house (if I leave the bedroom doors open) and I usually have to open a few windows to cool the place down.

The place is a 6 room 2 story brick that was built about 1900. He only has heat downstairs and the upstairs is heated by what goes up the steps.

My shack was two houses that were about 15 feet apart, about 1875 someone got the idea to hook them together! The elevation changes by 4 feet when you go from one to the other. I actually only heat the front brick house all the time, (7 rooms), and heat the other part as needed. It contains 6 rooms and 2 closed in porches. Then there is the 3 shops that hook on to the back that I use a 'salamander' when I need heat there.

This ol' shack is the largest 'non-commercial' building for blocks around.

It had 4 gas meters when I bought it, but now has NONE.

[dcarrb]

I miss having a working wood stove. The ex and I had a free-standing, cast iron box stove in the living room that was our primary heat source (in a small, open-plan house) for several years. Mechanical, thermostatically-controlled damper, catalyic converter beneath the cooktop, no fans. The downside is, when you live where the temperature drops well below freezing, you can't take off for a few days in the dead of winter withoug making accommodations for houseplants and such.

We lived 12 miles from town and lost power for a full week after a snowstorm in March of 1993. That little stove was a life saver. Kept it so hot my daughter cooked-up burgers and fries on the thing. Good to have as a backup regardless of your primary heat source.

dcb

[svxistentialist]

I'm currently installing a log-burning stove in my house.

It is an insert model from Charnwood. It has an integral boiler to heat hot water and radiators.

We are gradually "going green" with house heating. This is the first phase. Because we will be burning wood in this stove the heat produced will be carbon neutral, no nett CO2 to the atmosphere. This will allow us to use about half the amount of heating oil per year than we have been burning.

Next phase is more attic insulation and the installation of an evacuated tube solar panel on the roof. This should provide most or all of our hot water requirements all year round.

Last phase will be to replace the oil burning boiler outside with a more modern wood pellet burning furnace. At this point our house will require zero oil to heat, and as mentioned contribute no CO2 to the atmosphere.

Stove this year
Solar panel next year.
Wood pellet furnace the year after [or maybe sooner if finances allow]

Joe

[subi-crosser]

Originally Posted by dcarrb

I miss having a working wood stove. The ex and I had a free-standing, cast iron box stove in the living room that was our primary heat source (in a small, open-plan house) for several years. Mechanical, thermostatically-controlled damper, catalyic converter beneath the cooktop, no fans. The downside is, when you live where the temperature drops well below freezing, you can't take off for a few days in the dead of winter withoug making accommodations for houseplants and such.

We lived 12 miles from town and lost power for a full week after a snowstorm in March of 1993. That little stove was a life saver. Kept it so hot my daughter cooked-up burgers and fries on the thing. Good to have as a backup regardless of your primary heat source.

dcb

The wife has pics of Louie and I cooking hotdogs on a stick. (Lou is the 6 1/2 pounds of fury that guards my house when I am away.)
We cook the hotdogs on the woodstove to keep the other pets, ( that listen for the micro-wave) from barging in on our quality time.

Lou is the only one that seems to CARE that I'm home. He greets me at the door.

I sometimes put a cast iron skillet on the woodburner and add a few # of really good beef, some onions,a shot of seasonings, mushrooms and some 'secret' ingredients and let it simmer for a few hours. I don't even put a knife on the table, ( except to butter the bread).

When the power goes out, we are the only ones that have fresh coffee and hot meals and a LOT of company!

[subi-crosser]

Originally Posted by svxistentialist

I'm currently installing a log-burning stove in my house.

It is an insert model from Charnwood. It has an integral boiler to heat hot water and radiators.

We are gradually "going green" with house heating. This is the first phase. Because we will be burning wood in this stove the heat produced will be carbon neutral, no nett CO2 to the atmosphere. This will allow us to use about half the amount of heating oil per year than we have been burning.

Next phase is more attic insulation and the installation of an evacuated tube solar panel on the roof. This should provide most or all of our hot water requirements all year round.

Last phase will be to replace the oil burning boiler outside with a more modern wood pellet burning furnace. At this point our house will require zero oil to heat, and as mentioned contribute no CO2 to the atmosphere.

Stove this year
Solar panel next year.
Wood pellet furnace the year after [or maybe sooner if finances allow]

Joe

Joe,

I could NEVER heat this house with 'traditional' methods! I hear horror stories from all the neighbors. I have a propane back-up system but it has not been on at all yet this year, except to test it.

This old 1942 model pot belly has eaten less than a wheelbarrow load so far.

I told the wife to only put in a few pieces of wood and see what happens.

The BEST thing that a guy can do is replace as many windows with the 'argon filled' double pane windows as fast as affordable!

It costs $1,000 per window to use the guys on the phone, but you can buy the windows for about $200. each (in Jan and Feb,) and put them in yourself if you can change your own oil and spark plugs!

I had to trim ONE board on ONE window to put 4 windows in. Average time ,per window, was 2 hours, including PAINT inside and out.

It even makes the rooms NEXT to the room with the new windows warmer, since the heat has to go somewhere, (since it is not going outside.)

[svxistentialist]

My place is a modern bungalow Jerry. We already have replaced the original double glazed windows with more efficient ones.

Our stove install is nearly finished. We could be burning wood tonight!

One possible snag with my system is when power goes. As it has a boiler and circulation pump, power goes, circulation goes!

We have a propane fire in the other room, so we are far from snookered. Heat output from the stove is so high, we have to use water to distribute it and get full use from it.

Joe

[I'm also interested to see how many barrow loads it takes. Do you use the potash in the garden?]

[dcarrb]

Originally Posted by svxistentialist

Last phase will be to replace the oil burning boiler outside with a more modern wood pellet burning furnace. Joe

I knew of a household in Vermont that had an outside-boiler arrangement, well away from the dwelling. Of course they had to trudge outside periodically to tend the big firebox, but this completely removes the hazard of fire (and the hassle of firewood-borne dirt and insects) from the dwelling. Not a bad idea.

I have a 2-eye cookstove that my grandparents used for many years, fueling with coal. I melted crayons atop it when I was a kid. It's just a decoration now, too warped and inefficient to be useful, but someday I'd still like to install a flue and hook it up. Currently I have a central, electric heat pump system, with the only emergency backup being a vile kerosene space heater.

dcb