Looking for your "Wish I knew then" woodstove thoughts.

[Highbeam]

begreen will tell you that all cats, furry or ceramic, are high-maintenance.

I think he's just trying to moderate the bias back towards the noncat stoves. Overcompensating. Same reason I drive a big truck, overcompensating for my little toolbox!

 

[begreen]

Endless pumping of any brand is against house rules. It's why some people have been asked to leave.

 

[ratsrepus]

Endless pumping of any brand is against house rules. It's why some people have been asked to leave.

As Astro would say Rah Row, or how ever you spell it

 

[ratsrepus]

Hey by the way Be Green, shouldn't I be a burning hunk by now? other folks with less post are.

 

[fire_man]

Speaking of stone, don't buy a stone stove. They look great but in my experience are very slow to make heat from cold and waste tons of wood trying to heat up.

This depends on the particular stove. I found the Fireview and Palladian slow to heat, but the Progress is very fast. I'm not sure exactly why - maybe because of window area.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I've learned to get the stove you want. You're going to use it... often. Over the life of the stove, it'll amount to very little extra cash outlay. Especially if you find yourself replacing the stove one or twice.

Frustrations... chimney needs to go straight up. Yeah, you can make it work going out the wall. But you'll be happier with the stove if it goes straight up.

Wood. Needs to be dry. You'll hate the idea of wood burning if your wood isn't dry enough.

 

[Bushels20]

I agree with a lot of the posts. I’m 5 years in now and really wish I would have known enough to buy a deeper insert so I could load N/S almost exclusively. It’s easier, doesn’t roll against the glass and I think, burns better. I have to cut my splits to 12” to load N/S which I don’t do, it’s the occasional end pieces of a log that I get to enjoy for a N/S load.

Also, maybe I’m unique, but for my first 3 years , I was paying a sweep ($169.99 per cleaning) to clean my liner. I was mainly afraid to do it myself for safety reasons but once a friend helped me do it last year, I gained the confidence. Don’t be afraid to pay the $100 bucks and buy the tools and do it yourself (assuming your chimney is safely accessible) which mine is. It’s like any other household chore, it’s a pain, dirty, but you know you did it right, saved $ and can sit back and drink a beer and marvel at your work afterward.

 

[firefighterjake]

I've learned to get the stove you want. You're going to use it... often. Over the life of the stove, it'll amount to very little extra cash outlay. Especially if you find yourself replacing the stove one or twice.

Frustrations... chimney needs to go straight up. Yeah, you can make it work going out the wall. But you'll be happier with the stove if it goes straight up.

Wood. Needs to be dry. You'll hate the idea of wood burning if your wood isn't dry enough.

I actually am very happy with the chimney going out and up . . . my draft is quite strong (hence me mentioning the thought about sometimes thinking I should have got a damper) and the really nice benefit for me is sweeping the chimney is literally a 5-10 minute job as I remove three screws, remove the cap, run the brush up to the top and then put the cap and screws back on. That said . . . I could see how this might be different depending on the house and length of chimney.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Yeah, I guess every install is different. My troubles weren't so much with draft as creosote buildup. I think I lost too much heat on the horizontal run. One of my over and outs is 5.5" of insulated liner, 25 feet up. Draft is great, even in summer. Come clean out time... I'm always amazed. The straight up and always stays clean.

 

[kennyp2339]

Open to discussion and learning how to do things right the first time, cleaning out a chimney by yourself, only burning dry wood under 20% moisture content (buy a meter, there cheap and can save you a lot of hassle) getting an ash bucket with lid, remembering the air settings on your stove so you don't over fire it (I think it happens to everyone, just no one likes to talk about it)

 

[Dataman]

gone with a Blaze king from the start, not spent all the dough on Lopi's Jotul's Vermont castings.

Had a Blaze King "King". Great Stove. Switched to pellets, but don't know if that is smart move. Time will tell. Could load that puppy up at 8m and it was good to go until 6am or longer on Med. I put in Steel Cat. Guy who bought it got great deal. At least 2 years on cat and great stove. $400 since no one would pay a lot up where I live. Lots of old crap non EPA stove for less. Wife got tired of Ash in House on everything. You always let out smoke it seems even following rules. Pellets seem so much Cleaner.

One thing I learned is put metal cloth inside pipe going to outside to prevent stupid birds from going down chimney. Last couple of years at least 1 does this. Amazing they survive (hear them).

 

[Alpine1]

I did just the opposite: switched from a pellet stove to a BK.
Reasons: wood is a lot cheaper (here, of course), stove needs to be cleaned a lot less frequently (every other day for pellets, 3 times in a season for the BK), when the pellet stove was off the house went bitterly cold in half an hour ... not so with the Ashford.
Last, and maybe to someone least important I think firewood has a far smaller carbon footprint than pellet since it is “produced” locally (less than a mile from my house). Just my 0.02$

 

[Ashful]

Alpine, why on earth are you cleaning a BK 3x per season?!? I do each of mine once per year, in summer. They’re running 24/7 from Halloween thru April, weather permitting.

 

[Highbeam]

Me too, one cleaning per year burning mostly softwoods 9+ months per year on low. Now through June.

 

[AlbergSteve]

When you say ''cleaning'', do you mean ash from the stove cleaning? I seem to do mine about once a month.

 

[Alpine1]

Of course, I meant ash removal for the BK. Not so for the pellet stove, which needed ash removal, vacuuming and brushing AND glass cleaning every other day plus a monthly brushing of the pipe.
To be honest, I cleaned the glass of my Ashford once last season.

 

[Adabiviak]

I think there's a tradeoff between the ease of cleaning a single, straight shot of stovepipe that goes through the roof (that comes with having to lock down a good seal on this roof) and having a curved stovepipe that lets your stack come out under the eaves (for example, leaving your roof seal intact). If your stack is already dialed in, it is what it is; if you have someone else clean your stack, the nuances of cleaning it don't matter much either.

I find it pretty hard to tell whether or not a stove is going to be too big or small for one's house. It's not like these come in small enough increments to dial it in that closely, and there are way more variables that go into this besides 'house volume vs. firebox volume', but I went for a unit slightly smaller than what the house called for on paper: I'd rather run it a little hotter (where it's more efficient and clean) than sporadically and/or cooler (where it can be problematic).

Figure out how to get access to plenty of your wood under the assumption that you don't want to go outside to get it. If you have one of those built-in wood hoppers, you're good to go. I stack wood on a wire kitchen rack just outside some windows (that don't otherwise have a good view). In the winter, I take the screens off and if I need wood when it's actually storming out (and my bundle of wood that I keep indoors is out), I open a window and pull some in. When it's nice enough to go out again, I backfill this. Before I had this system, maybe twice a year I'd be walking outside in the snow in my slippers and robe to grab a few splits.

I wish I had thrown more bark under the pallets upon which I store my wood. I mean, the pallets are otherwise throwaways, so when the moisture and bugs start to rot them out, I replace them, but when I split wood, I wind up with plenty of bark bits and cedar bark (as my favorite for this) is nigh indestructible in this role.

 

[NoGoodAtScreenNames]

A split always looks bigger when trying to fit it into the stove than it looked when you were chopping / stacking. Cutting small dries out faster, let’s you pack it into the stove easier and burns better / just as long as a larger piece.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Dtunes]

Is it common to go a month or more without cleaning/ash removal with other stoves too? I used to have a pellet stove(quadrafire cb1200) and I was constantly sweeping, vacuuming, and cleaning the glass.

 

[jebatty]

Same See Fire wood stove since 1990 for 1500 sq ft heating of 1956 house in northern MN, same primary heating source (electric baseboard backup when gone for more than a day) and same 24/7 heating as needed with stove located in living room, same cold winter temps and NW winds with winter temps into the -30'sF and 0 to -20F regularly, same wood c/s/s of mostly aspen with two summers dry time, same once annual chimney brushing -- what I didn't know but happily learned was that

• the firebox lining, all sides, top and bottom, was fully replaceable with standard fire brick -- fully replaced once and partial replacement once
• the secondary burn plate was standard steel bar stock, 4" x 1/4", with replacement easily cut to length and fitted, and have replaced as needed about every 4-6 years depending on quality of steel in the bar stock
• door gasket was standard and replaced only once
• only need 4 cords of dry stove wood to cover the heating season
  
• wife loves the radiant heat and rejected an opportunity to install a central heating system, quickly learned to start and maintain the stove burn, never has complained about wood heat as being inadequate or not getting where it needs to go, and never has objected to minimal clean up associated with wood stove heating

 

[Ashful]

4. Don’t think you need to heat your house 100% with wood, and make your family suffer for it. Program the thermostats on your central heating for whatever temperature you want to keep your house at various times of the day, and just make it your personal game to handle as much of that overall need as possible by keeping the stove fed. Even if you burn a small amount of oil or electrons, you’re putting one heck of a dent in your heating bill, and you will maintain domestic tranquility.

* wife loves the radiant heat and rejected an opportunity to install a central heating system, quickly learned to start and maintain the stove burn, never has complained about wood heat as being inadequate or not getting where it needs to go, and never has objected to minimal clean up associated with wood stove heating

This could easily morph into a thread on marital advice.

 

[Jan Pijpelink]

This could easily morph into a thread on marital advice.

I suggest not to go there.

 

[begreen]

Is it common to go a month or more without cleaning/ash removal with other stoves too? I used to have a pellet stove(quadrafire cb1200) and I was constantly sweeping, vacuuming, and cleaning the glass.

Interesting. I had the same pellet stove in insert form. What I loved about it was the every other week cleaning cycle during mild weather and once a week during heavier winter burning of a bag a day. I burned doug fir pellets which were pretty low ash. That may explain the difference.

With our current stove during shoulder seasons I go 4-6 weeks between ash and glass cleaning. This can change to once every 2-3 weeks in a cold winter, though the glass is still quite clean at that point. Again, this is burning doug fir. If I was burning maple or alder my ash removal cycle would be more frequent.

 

[BIGChrisNH]

I'll chime in. I wish I knew that a much larger stove (my current Englander) would be such an improvement, I should have purchased years ago! Wish I knew that a good chainsaw is worth it's weight in gold. Wish I knew I would get really tired of carrying 4 cords of wood per winter down bulkhead steps. I have since built a large woodbox on casters that I can throw splits into, then wheel over to the stove room. Also wish I knew that my basement install would heat the house just fine, but that a really cold start would need a blow-torch and box fan combo to preheat the flue.

 

[spirilis]

Couple random thoughts-

1. Wish I had built a woodshed or at least fabricated a durable cover for my stacks
2. Catalytic woodstoves really seem the best choice for efficient burning at a versatile set of burn rates
3. Ecofan was a good purchase, but so was the upgraded blower for my Englander. Options for convection is nice.
4. So happy with my duraliner rigid insulated liner. Highly recommend the rigid stuff.