Clean up time

[Oldman47]

Hi Oldman 47,

Secondly, with a house the size of yours I would go with a larger stove since the Napoleon 1100 is a pretty small stove. We have a Jotul F600 in our living room and a Woodstock Classic in the lower level family room. As many people here at the forum will testify getting heat upstairs from an unfinished basement is a real challenge, so I don't think you'll get much heating upstairs out of the small Napoleon.

Thirdly, I would try to figure out if I could place a stove on the main living level. Just about everyone here at the forum will tell you one of the things they enjoy most about heating with wood is being able to sit in their easy chair, soak up the heat from their woodstove while they watch the fire burn. I spend about an hour each night after my final reload lying in front of the fire watching it burn. Having a stove in an unfinished basement pretty much insures you won't be getting much time enjoying watching the fire burn. Even if you stick with your original plan of putting your stove in the basement you might want to give some thought to where you could put a stove on the main level of the house and design for it now in case you fall in love with wood burning later and decide you'd like to have a stove upstairs.

My stove is going in on the main living level. Right now the only thing in the basement will be my geothermal furnace, a water heater, the well pump controls, plumbing drains and whatever water treatment system I need. Although my well has tested as safe, it tastes terrible so I will be doing something to make it more pleasant to use. At the least I will probably have a whole house filter and iron removal. I still need to sit down with a water treatment expert and work that stuff out.

 

[Woody Stover]

I've got one of these for drinking water. They are highly rated and they have some whole-house units as well. (broken link removed to http://www.aquasana.com/product_detail.php?product_id=24)

 

[Mag Craft]

I am on a well also and the water has tested good and I have a filter in line with the main water line, but I bought a unit to distill all my drinking water.

 

[Oldman47]

In my present home I have city water and am using a nice RO unit to produce very good drinking water but I would not want to even shower in the raw water from my new well. Among other things I need to get rid of traces of methane and lots of iron. I really wish it was as easy as a softener or a whole house filter but this is going to take serious treatment to make it into nice water.

 

[Knots]

There's a thread or two in the DIY forum about removing iron from well water.

 

[Oldman47]

Thanks. I'll check that out.

 

[mstoelton]

you can never have too much wood ready for the stove. It stores until next year!

 

[razerface]

In my present home I have city water and am using a nice RO unit to produce very good drinking water but I would not want to even shower in the raw water from my new well. Among other things I need to get rid of traces of methane and lots of iron. I really wish it was as easy as a softener or a whole house filter but this is going to take serious treatment to make it into nice water.

I had a well like that once,, back a few years. I bought a big $1500 iron removing filter. Found out it depended on big hp and flow from the well pump to function correctly.

 

[mol1jb]

I as well live in Central IL. In my leaky and poorly insulated 1700sqft house I use 3 cord for the past 2 years (no picnic winters). With your new build, the insulation is awesome and I'm sure the tightness is great. I'd bet you would be good with 3 cord seasoned.

 

[Ashful]

I have been heating with a pellet stove. I burn 3 tons per year and really don't know now much wood that translates to for a wood stove.

The numbers I've seen go like this. I'm sure there's wide variability in the BTU values of various pellets, as well as the efficiency ratings of the quoted stoves, but this should put you in the ballpark:

Pellets = 20M BTU @ 85% eff = 17M BTU usable per ton
Hardwood = 29M BTU @ 83% eff = 24M BTU usable per cord
Softwood = 18M BTU @ 83% eff = 15M BTU usable per cord

So, very roughly, if you're using 3 tons of pellets you're in for 2.2 - 3.5 cords, maintaining the same temperatures in the same weather.

 

[sportbikerider78]

Thanks for the info. I was thinking 4 cords going into this new year would be good. I have no softwood...but i will be heating to a warmer temperature. I think that it would be tough to keep a healthy fire going while keeping my main room 66-69 as I was doing with the pellet stove.

Bottom line..I was spending about $800 for pellets ..so if I can cut my own wood for free or add in a cord or 2 to get a jump on the season...I'm still way ahead.

 

[Ashful]

You don't have your stove in your sig, but I can attest it's not difficult to put 5 cords thru a single 3 cu.ft. stove in a Philadelphia heating season. I could probably do 6 cords per stove, if I were in Syracuse, with your slightly longer heating season.

 

[Oldman47]

Thanks for the info. I was thinking 4 cords going into this new year would be good. I have no softwood...but i will be heating to a warmer temperature. I think that it would be tough to keep a healthy fire going while keeping my main room 66-69 as I was doing with the pellet stove.

Bottom line..I was spending about $800 for pellets ..so if I can cut my own wood for free or add in a cord or 2 to get a jump on the season...I'm still way ahead.

Even cutting your own wood on your own place is not free. You have fuel and oil costs, new chains and eventually a new bar for your chainsaw. Add in the cost of splitting equipment, even if it is just a maul, and your wood is cheap but never free.