Hello from the NWT - stove question

[begreen]

If possible, I'd like to see some pictures of the house to see if we can spot places to reduce heat loss. Reducing this will help regardless of the heating fuel, oil or wood. A sketch of the floorplan would be helpful for determining the best approach for heat circulation.

 

[NWTstove]

Yes, based on what we know so far, that's my conclusion, depending on the reasons for the heat loss and the ability to move the heat from the room to other parts of the house.

Thanks for your comments. Heat loss has been on my mind but I don't know where to start, so I will attempt the walkaround.

The house itself has high ceilings, 12 foot in some rooms (main living room which is a cathedral ceiling), at least 10 feet in the others. There are large windows in about half the rooms, and normal windows in the other half. Add that with what others have said - winter starts in October, and runs until end of May, large house, big windows, high ceilings. The house is built in 2005 so I don't really suspect a ton of non-design heat loss (through window cracks or door ceils). Insulated curtains are a good idea.

I'm worried about overheating the main room where the stove will be in, so I will get a local fan in that room, or use the central air which draws from that room and the boiler room. It would distribute that heat to every room evenly, so the question is do I want to pay electricity for that (which is costly here too).

Here are the floor plans:

On the main floor, I was told the wood stove would go best in the lower living room (on the right when you come in the front door), against the far back wall. That's because the heat would flow upstairs easily, and into the dining room easily too. Note that I intend to open on the family room and living room, so the heat from the wood stove in the living room can flow into the family room too.

 

[begreen]

Thanks, the plans are helpful. From what I see and by the description, there is little need to worry about overheating the place. The house is not only large, but there is extra cubic footage to heat due the high ceilings and heat loss to to the glazing. If you want a softer heat, go for a cast iron jacketed stove, but go large.

Opening up the LR to the family room will help. The kitchen will get the least heat. It might be worth zoning the primary heating system to heat that area separately.

Are there ceiling fans in the LR?

 

[Poindexter]

@NWTstove

Wow. We have moved this past summer to a ~2005 build and the (possible) gains compared to our old 1980 build are impressive. There probably were some builders still using 1980s tech for new builds in 2005.

Are your south facing side larger windows in the living, dining and breakfast rooms?

It is not explicitly clear to me if Canada uses Imperial gallons or American gallons. But a liter is a liter is a liter. 7000 liters of boiler fuel is 1849 US gallons of boiler fuel (for 2700 sqft) in one year. My worst year ever for boiler fuel, in 2400 sqft, with 2 daughters at home with long hair and baskets and baskets of hair products, and multiple air leaks in the house, was 1410 gallons (1980 build) for 2400sqft.

We put in a woodstove and new chimney as soon as the snow melted off the roof the following spring.

The thing about folks living down south is they maybe don't really understand the latitude in NWT and AK. My shoulder season starts in late August. My shoulder season ends around May 1. In between I (and everbody in the NWT and the lower 48) experiences "winter," and then there is fooking January up here to think about. The only folks I know of in the lower 48 who experience 'deep winter' anything like we experience up here live in North Dakota, the UP of Michigan or northern Minnesota where their various windchills can sort of level them up to our outdoor ambients with no windchill involved. I don't know of any permafrost in the three named states of the lower 48.

I do agree thermal curtains on the windows are a good idea for any build this far north. I still think a bare handed assessment of all the penetrations of the drywall on all the exterior walls in deep winter is a good idea. 1850 gallons in 2700 sqft, even with two teenaged daughters at home, seems like a lot. Could be with the big windows thermal curtains will help, but my gut is still saying look for air leaks.

At this point I would cross off the BK 30 boxes and choose between the BK Princess or BK King. You can dial either one pretty low in Sept and March, but run them full throttle from Christmas to Fat Tuesday no problem.

 

[Poindexter]

*and extremely long, epically long showers for the daughters...

 

[beefhoof]

I have a bk king in our basement,and a princess in the garage.King heats 3000 sq. ft.You can always have a small fire in a big stove,but not the reverse.What if your boiler goes down in =40?Were a couple hundred ks N of Edmonton.

 

[NWTstove]

Part of our trouble with the OPs oil usage is we’re thinking of our 6 month winter. OP might have 8 months up there. That could significantly add to the amount of oil used. 7000 liters is around 1900 gallons. Again, big house, long winter. With little ones he’s probably keeping it pretty warm too.

That's a good summary Pointdexter. I would go large, cat stove or not. The big Regency 3500 is another catalytic candidate though with the current heat loss of the house I wonder if a cat stove would be of much advantage. If it has to run at high output continually then the long burn time and with it lower wood consumption may not happen. In that case a big non-cat would be my recommendation.

I totally agree with addressing heat loss as a priority. That could pay back better and faster than a wood stove. @NWTstove, are there a lot of large windows in the house? If so, the heat loss could be high through them. Addressing that issue could take investing in insulating curtains or blinds.

Can you post a sketch of the house floorplan indicating windows, doorways and proposed stove location? Also, does the house have cathedral ceilings or normal 8-10' ceiling height throughout.

Honestly that much oil is a ton of btus. I doubt the stove will be run low and slow often at all so why pay for cats you don't need. Just get a high quality non cat

@begreen , if you want to chime back in here please do. To me it looks like the OP needs to get after his air leaks and put in either a Princess on 6" chimney for first place by two lengths, with the King and A30 two lengths back and nose to nose for place and show.

If I was in his shoes and keeping the house for 10+ years it would be hard to talk me out of a BK King, even with the air leaks fixed. I just searched on NWT, the OP is "somewhere north of Anchorage, Alaska." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Territories

I simply do not have the knowledge of other stove mfrs that you do. Pacific Energy makes some really good stoves, for instance, but I was well and truly converted to catalytic stove technology after my first two weeks of use in Aug/Sep 2014.

Thanks

Definitely get the 30.2, absolutely no reason to get the 20.2 for your situation. There's more than a few members here with them, Poindexter was heating his house in Fairbanks with one, Ashful has a pair of them in his house. Search either of them on this forum should find posts of their experiences. The Chinook 30.2 and Sirocco 30.2 have the same internals as the Ashford 30.2, so reviews of any of those are valid and typical of what you could expect.

A Pacific Energy Alderlea T6 would be another option in Cast Iron if you wanted to consider non-catalytic.

I'm not convinced you'll heat solely with wood with any of these stoves, but if you're also able to make upgrades to the insulation then you should be getting close. They will make a big dent in the oil bill however.

Sounds like you need a lot of heat. Go big stove. Pick a good location that helps heat the common areas. As to over firing a stove, amount of wood and air. It's not supposed to happen if you run the stove properly.

The kids issue comes up occasionally. They learn to keep back from the heat very easily.

I have a bk king in our basement,and a princess in the garage.King heats 3000 sq. ft.You can always have a small fire in a big stove,but not the reverse.What if your boiler goes down in =40?Were a couple hundred ks N of Edmonton.

Thank you to all for your responses. My dad came up last week and he knows a thing or two.

It turns out it is a good idea to use that black foam liner to insulate all the copper pipes in the furnace room and storage room (both in basement). So we are working on that, and both rooms are already not as hot. Imagine I've been heating the rock my house is built on, instead of the house itself.

Second thing "we" discovered was that there are exposed copper water lines in the garage, which is basically heating the garage. Given the garage door has a bit of sunlight coming through a few cracks, that means we are basically heating the outdoors. Going to fix that door, and already insulated those pipes.

We also found that the main vent pipe in the basement, that feeds all the other ventilation with hot air, is itself not insulated, meaning that by the time hot air gets through that pipe, it's not hot (but the storage room it runs through was). So I'll insulate that. How did no one figure this out 20 years ago when it was built??

The oil tank was filled November 20. It is currently 5/8ths full. That means we've burnt $634 (canadian dollars) in two weeks. And I imagine it is going to get worst in the coming months.

I am going to order the Ashford 30.2, insulate everything in the basement (furnace room and storage room piping), and run the central air to move the wood heat around the house.

This discussion has been hugely helpful to me, so thank you all!

 

[begreen]

I am going to order the Ashford 30.2, insulate everything in the basement (furnace room and storage room piping), and run the central air to move the wood heat around the house.

These are good first steps, but remember, the heating system is designed to move 57ºC air. It need to be 100% sealed and insulated to not lose too much heat if just moving 30-35º C air. Often, strategically located fans often work better because they are moving the air within the room cavities.

 

[NWTstove]

These are good first steps, but remember, the heating system is designed to move 57ºC air. It need to be 100% sealed and insulated to not lose too much heat if just moving 30-35º C air. Often, strategically located fans often work better because they are moving the air within the room cavities.

Ok, understood. I will try a fan in the wood stove room, just aimed directly at the stove. I feel like "cooling off" the stove with a direct fan will grab more heat off it than waiting for ambient air to interact with the stove to pass the energy through the room.

Do you have any advice on those oil based fans that sit on top of the stove? The following can supposedly move 640 cubic feet of air per minute. I could buy two of them. Just trying to avoid the noise, and the electricity cost of running a fan:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B08DQQ4T1F/

 

[begreen]

A lot of the TEG fans on the stove don't move much heat though some are better than others. Unfortunately, there are many copies now and some good ones disappear after just a year. I got one that's decent, but the Chinese company disappeared. It's 3 bladed and has a larger fan than this one. I think some people said last year that they liked the stove top fans by Voda which are half the price of the mini fan shown.

A blower on the stove and ceiling fan are usually more effective.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Watch that garage heat. You may want a little heat in the garage to aid snow melting and help starting in real cold weather. It’s good to fix the air leaks around the door, and make sure that door is insulated. Where you live, it might really pay off to get a quality garage door with rubber gaskets between panels and polyurethane insulation. Down here these options are nice, but oil still moves at our lowest temperatures. It’s a slightly different situation where you are!

 

[Poindexter]

Ok. Get after your air leaks with passion. It doesn't matter where you get your BTUs from, air leaks are expensive.

With the exterior walls sealed, I don't worry too terribly much about "heat leaks" inside the envelope. I don't for instance, have an insulation blanket on the new water heater that went in summer 2022. The garage is a bit warmer in the summer, but in the winter the 'waste' BTUs coming off the hot water holding tank are still inside the relatively air tight insulation envelope, and I get scalded in the shower less often when the boiler is really cranking.

Heating the rock your house is built on is expensive and futile. I am not the one here to talk about that with wisdom, but there is good guidance here on that subject from other users.

Get the deck fan kit or convection fan kit or just the "fan kit" with the A30.2, 100%. You want it bad bad bad. I glanced at your floor plan, and trying to heat that joint without convective circulation is going to be a problem.

The A30 is a beast of a stove. You can run it hard for years and years. At my place I really should have bought a Princess. The wife put her foot down. 'We' as in 'I' could have either a BK30.0, or "we" as in 'she' were going to look at stoves from other makers. So 'we' have an A30.0 and I have been beating on that poor thing like a rented mule for going on ten years. The bypass door gasket on mine did pass the dollar bill test, again, just in the last couple months. The service life expectancy, per my local dealer, for that gasket is ten years; I got no problem believing I will have to change it next summer. Service life expectancy on the door gasket is 5 years, I got that and took it to the tech who does hundreds of door gaskets per year at the five year mark and maybe again next year.

Catalytic stoves, no matter who made them, need tip top maintenance to provide tip top performance, and wood fuel dry to 20% or drier. Realistically, I start burning half loads in the evening in late August and am still doing so in mid May if I have any dry wood left. In September, October, late February and March I am running, more or less, half throttle 24/7.

In deep winter, yes, I could match the performance of a cat stove with perhaps a sophisticated non catalytic stove. But there is months and months of the year when I am transitioning between +80dF summer highs and -40s dF winter lows. As long as you got dry fuel and can make time to load the stove twice daily, it is hard to imagine you will be sad about a BK 30 box, other than maybe (in your situation and mine) wishing you had a Princess.

Other than getting after your air leaks and insulating some of your pipes judiciously (your #0 priorities); your #1 priority is bringing in 8-10 cords of SPF (Spruce Pine Fir) and enough pallets to stack all that off the ground. Probably 3-4 pick up truck loads of pallets. All the SPF (Tamarack and Doug Fir included) can be reliably seasoned to <20% in one summer as long as your splits are stacked up off the ground and covered on top to keep the rain off by USA Saint Patrick's Day (March 17). You can kinda maybe push that to April First if you are quite a bit south of me in Fairbanks; but you should ask yourself if you are taking this seriously or just playing with fire. You must not stack this fuel in an area where you got moss growing on gravel. Split, stacked off the ground, top covered, decent sun exposure and decent wind exposure.

If you got extra space for even more fuel you may bring in some birch to split and stack and top cover blah blah. I have started burning a little birch in August and May. The longer coaling stage is useful for me in shoulder seasons when I need just a little bit of heat off the stove for extended periods. In cold weather, when the stove is working, I strongly prefer the short coaling stages to be found in the SPF family with accompanying highly active combustor.

 

[Poindexter]

@NWTstove

I went and looked at your floor plans again. Can you put a red dot somewhere on one of the drawings where your wood stove s going to be installed please?

Your house was not designed for wood heat. However, if the big south facing windows are in the Dining, living and breakfast rooms with expensive glass, you have an opportunity for notable solar gain if someone is going to be home to open and close decent thermal curtains. Same for the sunroom on the other end of the house. Which way is south?

If you get the fan kit on your A 30 you can save one box fan in the house; and I find the Ashford 30 box felt efficiency inside the house is greatly improved with the factory fan kit pushing air between the steel firebox and cast iron jacket. If you got the cash, you could insulate the cold air return duct nearest the stove and use that for warm/hot air distribution throughout the house with your existing household air handler. In general folks trying to pump hot wood stove air through a not insulated duct in the unheated crawlspace are not happy with results. You live way too far north to put up with results rated marginal in Colorado.

 

[Rusty18]

+1 for fixing air leaks and insulation. My house was built in 1979, I spent the first year living there fixing a lot of the leaks. Cut my electric bill in half (from $850/month to <$500/month. Still have a ways to go though.

I have very limited experience with outdoor wood boilers but since you already have all the piping inside would it make sense to just add a wood boiler?

To drive home what the others have said…go after the air leaks like your retirement depends on it! The spray foam guns are worth the investment. You save money on buying the bigger cans (the math says it’s the same price per oz as the little cans…but the big ones are like a Mary popping bag of spray foam) and you have so much control over bead size and where the foam ends up. I can usually foam between the handy box and the drywall without having to trim off any excess. Also the cellular blinds work well. I put them on the bed room windows if my house (farthest from stove and hvac system) keeps room 4-5 cooler in the summer and probably 8 degrees warmer in the winter all other things being equal.

Good luck and stay warm this winter!

 

[joop]

shrink thermo plastic for the windows,makes quite the difference and not expensive

 

[Newbie78]

don't overlook pacific energy non-cat stoves.

 

[NWTstove]

@NWTstove

I went and looked at your floor plans again. Can you put a red dot somewhere on one of the drawings where your wood stove s going to be installed please?

Your house was not designed for wood heat. However, if the big south facing windows are in the Dining, living and breakfast rooms with expensive glass, you have an opportunity for notable solar gain if someone is going to be home to open and close decent thermal curtains. Same for the sunroom on the other end of the house. Which way is south?

If you get the fan kit on your A 30 you can save one box fan in the house; and I find the Ashford 30 box felt efficiency inside the house is greatly improved with the factory fan kit pushing air between the steel firebox and cast iron jacket. If you got the cash, you could insulate the cold air return duct nearest the stove and use that for warm/hot air distribution throughout the house with your existing household air handler. In general folks trying to pump hot wood stove air through a not insulated duct in the unheated crawlspace are not happy with results. You live way too far north to put up with results rated marginal in Colorado.

Here is the main floor. The five circles are ideas of where the wood stove could go.

I recently changed a bunch of halogens for LEDs, probably 20 bulbs around the house, and maybe 1/4 of the piping is now insulated.

Option 1 in the picture, along the west wall, was the installer's recommendation for where the wood stove should go. It only goes through the roof, so less flue pipe. Same with Option 3, but it's kind of close to the door. 3 is good though because it's closer to the other living room (remember that double wall dividing the two rooms is getting removed too). Option 4 and 5 are good because even though they're be more expensive and more labour (going through 1 floor and 1 roof), the pipe will go through the master bedroom. Any thoughts?

I think where to put the stove seems to be clearly option 1, because it will feed several areas with heat, as long as I get that fan kit and maybe use the central air as well.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

1 may have issues with wind coming off the house, or stack effect if the house isn’t well sealed.

My choice would be number 4. You’d also get more heat into the kitchen.

 

[Poindexter]

Any thoughts?

This looks like quite a bit of a bugger.

Does the north side of the house face the street? Do the stairs up from the garage enter the main floor under the curved stair case?

There are four factors to consider. How you weight them is up to you.

1. Snow load. I have to plan on 55 pounds per square foot snow load up here, and I like/want the roof penetration for my chimney stack to be within a foot or two of the ridgepole at the peak of the roof so I have the smallest possible glacier trying to push my chimney onto the lawn every spring.

2. Wind direction. This is where the local experienced chimney sweep trumps every keyboard warrior on the internet. How much would it cost for a local experienced sweep to park down the block from your house and figure out where on the roof your chimney penetration should be for reliable economical operation? I am nervous you might end up with tens of feet (3s of meters) of chimney pipe sticking up off your dining room roof to get the chimney tip up out of turbulence near the building. I do think if you install the stove on an exterior wall of the dining room, in calm winds, at say +10C, zeroC, -10C and colder the stove will probably do fine. But you are spending good money on a high end stove that can also do remarkable things in the shoulder seasons - if you have dry wood and good draft. If outdoor temp is +20C and you want the house interior at +24C or +28C, a BK 30 can do that when coupled to a thoughtful chimney install.

3. Chimney efficiency. Some of the wood you burn every time you load the stove is going to make heat that is used to carry smoke and particles and water vapor up your chimney instead of heating your home. It just is. One option would be to just bring a firepit indoors, roast some smores in the family room over an open fire and let the bedrooms fill up with smoke. You will be keeping all the heat generated in the house. The most efficient chimney, that carries the smoke out with the least amount of "wasted" BTUs, is inside the insulation envelope for as long as possible, and has the shortest possible length once it is outside the insulation envelope. I think you are kinda screwed on this one.

4. Access. Burning even 4 cords a year, somebody is burning some calories humping material around. Burning 6-8 cords annually, you will have no time for no unnecessary foolishness winter of 25/26. There is going to be a trail of bark chips somewhere in the house.

Number five would be aesthetics. At the end of day, your house was not designed to use a wood stove efficiently. You are going to have to make several compromises to make this work. But if you put an excellent stove under a mediocre chimney you would be well advised to manage your system wide expectations towards mediocre, even with dry wood at or under 20% MC.

Of the options numbered, I think I dislike #5 the least. You would lose a closet in the MBR to the chimney chase, but they make free standing wardrobes out of hardwood, or used to. It does, I think, put the chimney on the back side of the house though near the eave line. You might end up stacking some pipe on the roof in that location, but it won't be the eyesore of the neighborhood. You could hopefully talk your wife into maybe building a ready storage rack maybe one meter tall and two meters long to hold about a weeks worth of seasoned cordwood in the sunroom area during heating season. If you got to go out in the weather every time you load the stove this is probably not going to work no matter where the stove is located.

I am underinformed, but with the data posted here I am rather nervous about demolishing the wall between the living room and family room. It looks like the wall above it on the second floor is the NW facing wall of the MBR, and there ought to be a roof on a master bedroom. That roof, in NWT, is going to have some snow on it. My sense of the thing is if the builder put a load bearing truss in the top of that wall you can take out the cosmetic parts. If the builder didn't put in a load bearing truss at the top of that dividing wall you are going to need some jacks to hold up the second floor and the roof while you build a new load bearing wall with maybe a double wide door opening more or less on center with stub walls at the ends to support a load bearing truss so you and your true love don't wake up in the dining room someday, covered with snow. Opening that wall will simplify heating the main level with wood, I do agree on that point. I haven't seen your blueprints or your inspections or your as builts, blah, blah, but somewhere above that dividing wall are some shingles with snow on them that need to stay put.

Ideal floor plans for wood heat?

We have a number of threads about how to move heat around in homes that were not designed for wood heat. Starting with a clean sheet of paper and an empty lot, how can we maximize the effectiveness of a single wood stove?

www.hearth.com

 

[NWTstove]

This looks like quite a bit of a bugger.

Does the north side of the house face the street? Do the stairs up from the garage enter the main floor under the curved stair case?

There are four factors to consider. How you weight them is up to you.

1. Snow load. I have to plan on 55 pounds per square foot snow load up here, and I like/want the roof penetration for my chimney stack to be within a foot or two of the ridgepole at the peak of the roof so I have the smallest possible glacier trying to push my chimney onto the lawn every spring.

2. Wind direction. This is where the local experienced chimney sweep trumps every keyboard warrior on the internet. How much would it cost for a local experienced sweep to park down the block from your house and figure out where on the roof your chimney penetration should be for reliable economical operation? I am nervous you might end up with tens of feet (3s of meters) of chimney pipe sticking up off your dining room roof to get the chimney tip up out of turbulence near the building. I do think if you install the stove on an exterior wall of the dining room, in calm winds, at say +10C, zeroC, -10C and colder the stove will probably do fine. But you are spending good money on a high end stove that can also do remarkable things in the shoulder seasons - if you have dry wood and good draft. If outdoor temp is +20C and you want the house interior at +24C or +28C, a BK 30 can do that when coupled to a thoughtful chimney install.

3. Chimney efficiency. Some of the wood you burn every time you load the stove is going to make heat that is used to carry smoke and particles and water vapor up your chimney instead of heating your home. It just is. One option would be to just bring a firepit indoors, roast some smores in the family room over an open fire and let the bedrooms fill up with smoke. You will be keeping all the heat generated in the house. The most efficient chimney, that carries the smoke out with the least amount of "wasted" BTUs, is inside the insulation envelope for as long as possible, and has the shortest possible length once it is outside the insulation envelope. I think you are kinda screwed on this one.

4. Access. Burning even 4 cords a year, somebody is burning some calories humping material around. Burning 6-8 cords annually, you will have no time for no unnecessary foolishness winter of 25/26. There is going to be a trail of bark chips somewhere in the house.

Number five would be aesthetics. At the end of day, your house was not designed to use a wood stove efficiently. You are going to have to make several compromises to make this work. But if you put an excellent stove under a mediocre chimney you would be well advised to manage your system wide expectations towards mediocre, even with dry wood at or under 20% MC.

Of the options numbered, I think I dislike #5 the least. You would lose a closet in the MBR to the chimney chase, but they make free standing wardrobes out of hardwood, or used to. It does, I think, put the chimney on the back side of the house though near the eave line. You might end up stacking some pipe on the roof in that location, but it won't be the eyesore of the neighborhood. You could hopefully talk your wife into maybe building a ready storage rack maybe one meter tall and two meters long to hold about a weeks worth of seasoned cordwood in the sunroom area during heating season. If you got to go out in the weather every time you load the stove this is probably not going to work no matter where the stove is located.

I am underinformed, but with the data posted here I am rather nervous about demolishing the wall between the living room and family room. It looks like the wall above it on the second floor is the NW facing wall of the MBR, and there ought to be a roof on a master bedroom. That roof, in NWT, is going to have some snow on it. My sense of the thing is if the builder put a load bearing truss in the top of that wall you can take out the cosmetic parts. If the builder didn't put in a load bearing truss at the top of that dividing wall you are going to need some jacks to hold up the second floor and the roof while you build a new load bearing wall with maybe a double wide door opening more or less on center with stub walls at the ends to support a load bearing truss so you and your true love don't wake up in the dining room someday, covered with snow. Opening that wall will simplify heating the main level with wood, I do agree on that point. I haven't seen your blueprints or your inspections or your as builts, blah, blah, but somewhere above that dividing wall are some shingles with snow on them that need to stay put.

Ideal floor plans for wood heat?

We have a number of threads about how to move heat around in homes that were not designed for wood heat. Starting with a clean sheet of paper and an empty lot, how can we maximize the effectiveness of a single wood stove?

www.hearth.com

Thanks for this response.

The north side does face the street. And the stairs from the garage do come up into the kitchen, and the same staircase (vertically above) up to the bedrooms, starting from the front door.

A lot of great points you raised. The chimney, if the stove is at position 1, would only need to be a few feet above the roof as there is no other roof or walls within 10 feet of it from that point. So there would be a small amount of chimney above the roof, and the rest inside the room.

I will check about demolishing the wall you mentioned. Good point. Because opening up the two rooms is a real benefit, if possible.

I've found a wood supplier who will get me 2 cords unsplit for 500 bucks each, or split for 600 each. I will see what he is delivering before I ask for 5 cords at a discount. I suppose the price is pretty location dependent. Where I am, you're allowed to go cut wood on a 1km section of highway, as lot as you get the free permit. Sadly I don't have the time for that, but might take time off work.

I have to do recycling in the garage anyway, where the wood will be stored, so I can grab wood every time I go by - at least twice a day anyway.

One concern I do have is about ash. We had a pellet stove in a different place and every 5 days I was emptying it. The ash tended to get everywhere, and one mistake could be a disaster. So I'll have to keep an eye on that.

Thanks for all your advice. We'll see how this goes.

 

[joop]

won't be dry enough

 

[Newbie78]

I think you need to open up as much of that main floor as possible. Including the entire first floor of the stairwell.

And maybe even consider putting your stove in the middle of the room between "4" and "5". Or against the soon to be gone stairwell wall in that same room.

"This looks like quite a bit of a bugger" as stated above.

Very difficult to heat that whole house with one stove with all of those walls in the way...

I can see that and I don't know anything.

 

[begreen]

I'm good with location #1. This is a big room and high volume with the cathedral ceiling, and high heat loss with the big window. With ceiling fans the heat will convect to the other areas and upstairs. The kitchen won't get the most heat, but face it, this is a big house. It could use 2 stoves or a wood furnace. A small stove in the breakfast nook wood be cozy.

 

[Poindexter]

The chimney, if the stove is at position 1, would only need to be a few feet above the roof as there is no other roof or walls within 10 feet of it from that point. So there would be a small amount of chimney above the roof, and the rest inside the room.

Well, I haven't seen your roof, and I don't know your microclimate. That is why I was asking about a local to you chimney sweep.

In the northern hemisphere your local winds, probably, come out of the NW most of the time for most of the winter, but there is a bajillion and six exceptions based on local and regional topography.

This is where the sweep with local experience trumps everybody on the internet.

 

[begreen]

True, wind can affect the pressure around the chimney cap which can make for squirrely draft in some situations, especially if the chimney location roofline is much lower than adjacent roofs. This site has several good articles about what makes for a good or poor chimney installation.

A non-commercial service in support of responsible home heating with wood - How Wind Affects Chimney Performance

The Wood Heat Organization was formed to support the public in the responsible use of wood energy in the home. We fulfill our mandate by providing reliable information, by conducting research into wood heating-related issues and by representing the public interest in discussions of policies that...

www.woodheat.org

I like the idea of keeping as much of the flue system interior as possible, especially in a very cold climate.