Moving beyond stuffing the smoke dragon

[tfdchief]

Hell I still talk to Old Brownie and it ain't even in the house anymore. I do miss that old hoss. I could set it up for a night load half asleep or half drunk. The last half.

But then I look at that big beautiful fire view in New Brownie and get right over it.

Oh, I understand completely, including the "half asleep or half drunk" LOL. Sorry old Brownie died but glad you found a new friend in the "New Brownie" I do understand that too. I love my little Hampton as much as the old Buck. Just different. Thanks BB for the conversation. I really enjoy it.

Oh, and for those seeking answers to the question....."Moving beyond stuffing the old smoke dragon", Go for it, the new EPA stoves are unbelievable. Technology at its best. No question they are everything the old stoves were only better.

 

[begreen]

For me it was never a question. I can burn cleaner, have a great fire view and use less wood. Pretty much a no-brainer decision. No nostalgia here, well not a lot. I do still have a mini-dragon in the greenhouse.

 

[pen]

as is said often: your mileage will vary.....

For me, the old fisher I had could heat this place to 75+ on the record coldest night of the year. However, I paid for it in regular weather as it still ate wood like a hog to keep coals in the bottom if I didn't want to do a cold start.

Going through 5.5 to 6 cord a winter with my pre-epa stove was the norm. Even then, I had to sweep the chimney monthly as I'd get glaze creosote in the flue. I had a 7 1/4 inch diameter square liner and I'd shove an 8in steel brush down to help me sweep the tough deposits....

This is probably the coldest winter I've gone through with the epa englander 30 and still, I'm not going to go over 4.5 cords burned, I sweep the chimney every 2 months instead of one (even though that is overkill now and I just can't get out of the habit of doing it during the burning season)

In all, when we hit -10F or less, I can't help but be nostalgic for the old stove. However, over the course of the winter, even if I need to supplement during these colder times, I'm still well ahead of the game.

pen

 

[tfdchief]

as is said often: your mileage will vary.....

For me, the old fisher I had could heat this place to 75+ on the record coldest night of the year. However, I paid for it in regular weather as it still ate wood like a hog to keep coals in the bottom if I didn't want to do a cold start.

Going through 5.5 to 6 cord a winter with my pre-epa stove was the norm. Even then, I had to sweep the chimney monthly as I'd get glaze creosote in the flue. I had a 7 1/4 inch diameter square liner and I'd shove an 8in steel brush down to help me sweep the tough deposits....

This is probably the coldest winter I've gone through with the epa englander 30 and still, I'm not going to go over 4.5 cords burned, I sweep the chimney every 2 months instead of one (even though that is overkill now and I just can't get out of the habit of doing it during the burning season)

In all, when we hit -10F or less, I can't help but be nostalgic for the old stove. However, over the course of the winter, even if I need to supplement during these times, I'm still well ahead of the game.

pen

Pen, I believe everything you say here. However, that has just not been my experience. In over 30 years of burning my Buck, I have never had to clean my chimney more than twice per season, and many years, just once. I check it and clean it when I need to. Now, after 3 years with the new EPA stove in the kitchen, I find very little difference, some, yes, admittedly, but not much. And thus the fact that every stove and set up is different. Anyway, I am the first to advocate the new stoves....I have experienced one first hand and they are awesome, much easier to burn cleanly and efficiently. I guess I am just lucky that I have had such a good experience with an old stove. Oh, and I bought it brand new and now we are both "OLD"

 

[pen]

Pen, I believe everything you say here. However, that has just not been my experience. In over 30 years of burning my Buck, I have never had to clean my chimney more than twice per season, and many years, just once. I check it and clean it when I need to. Now, after 3 years with the new EPA stove in the kitchen, I find very little difference, some, yes, admittedly, but not much. And thus the fact that every stove and set up is different. Anyway, I am the first to advocate the new stoves....I have experienced one first hand and they are awesome, much easier to burn cleanly and efficiently. I guess I am just lucky that I have had such a good experience with an old stove.

Exactly chief, You have a good setup. Mine was not ideal.... however, mine was par for the course for what is the average installation in my area.

Sadly, our average setups that occurred 30 years ago, are below average overall (this would be a basement type install with a masonry chimney).

Your setup sounds like is has been as good as that old girl could be installed in. Plus, you know what good fuel is. You have always gotten the best out of that stove.

I wish all installations, including EPA units, could be the same. Good fuel with a good chimney setup, and a wise operator, means good results.

pen

 

[tfdchief]

Exactly chief, You have a good setup. Mine was not ideal.... however, mine was par for the course for what is the average installation in my area.

Sadly, our average setups that occurred 30 years ago, are below average overall (this would be a basement type install with a masonry chimney).

Your setup sounds like is has been as good as that old girl could be installed in. Plus, you know what good fuel is. You have always gotten the best out of that stove.

I wish all installations, including EPA units, could be the same. Good fuel with a good chimney setup, and a wise operator, means good results.

pen

Thanks Pen. I have to admit that for many years I did have the same problems. It was when I lined my flue with a SS liner and direct connected the old Buck that things got good. After I did that, I was able to burn way more efficiently and no more creosote problems. As a slammer, it was a problem, but when I originally installed it, that was the standard. And yes, years of learning has made a huge difference. Anyway, it is all about staying warm and safe and thank God I have been able to do that.....and hope I can for many years to come. I love this place and all the knowledge it pours out to so many. I for one have been the beneficiary of an incredible amount of information and knowledge from this site that has made me a better burner. I only hope I have passed on some of my experience to others as well.

 

[Osagebndr]

I'm new to wood heat and love it. I have a reg buck free standing set up and that stove really heats my 2600 sqft home. I'm constantly reading posts on this site on how to and what to burn and look for. Matter of a fact I have the ol girl burning with no smoke about 95% of the time thanks to what I've read here. Lots of knowledge on this site , but I am looking into a good EPA stove for this year, longer burn times. Hope I find one that heats as good as this one does

 

[firefighterjake]

Grew up with a wood furnace in the house . . . and after college I had a camp that was heated by an Ashley and then a Shenandoah.

Fast forward to a few years . . . I'm married. Living in an actual house where I don't have to worry about the well pump getting flooded or frozen or rain water coming through the front window. I've been through the Ice Storm of 1998 which left us without power and heat for 14 days. Thought about a woodstove then, but this was quickly forgotten until 2007 or so when the price of heating oil began to climb to crazily high prices. That sealed the deal . . . it was time to find alternative heat.

Looked at wood pellet stoves and liked the concept . . . but apparently so did everyone else in Maine as it was nearly impossible to get one of the better pellet stoves . . . one place said it would be January . . . maybe February . . . before they would have one for sale. Add in the pellet shortage and I crossed that idea off the list.

Dear old Dad had an Outdoor Wood Boiler. Loved the idea of a thermostat and just loading a few times each day . . . but then I saw how much wood he was plowing through each year. He had reached the point where he was also burning just about anything he could stuff into the OWB to keep up with the need for heat. I love working with wood, but I didn't want to make it so that getting wood fuel is an all encompassing and never ending job. The expense of the whole deal was a killer as well.

Thought briefly about high efficiency boilers with thermal storage, but a lack of space and cost crossed the Tarm, Garn and other similar products off my list.

That left me with a woodstove . . . and since I research every product before buying (I once spent a day or two researching toaster ovens even . . . and when it comes to electronics or vehicles I plan on several weeks of researching) . . . well, it was time to hit the internet . . . and I ended up here . . . where the appeal of burning less wood and still having a long burn time was pretty appealing. The idea of a clean burn . . . honestly . . . at the time it didn't mean a whole lot . . . now I think it's pretty cool to be a stealth ninja wood burner . . . and helping out Captain Planet at the same time.

I should also mention that originally I only planned to burn weekends and evenings . . . took about a week of burning before I realized it was pretty easy to run the stove without burning down the house . . . and the idea of saving beaucoup bucks sounded pretty good as well.

Haven't looked back since then.

My next door neighbor . . . he is a different story. Has a beautiful Lange woodstove . . . but he's definitely old school as he split up what he calls his "best wood" this summer. The other day I was sweeping my chimney when I heard his smoke alarm go off. When he came to the porch to gather some wood I asked about the smoke alarm and he said it happens every time he starts a fire in his cold stove . . . later mentioned that every few weeks he has to take apart his stove pipe due to the creosote being so bad . . . and of course the few times I have been over there in the winter the place reeks of wood smoke and creosote.

 

[peakbagger]

I still haven't fully made the switch, I look at the economics and cant justify the purchase of modern boiler. I started out with Fisher I got for cheap, then moved up to a Defiant that I bought for a reasonable cost and rebuilt. My reduction in wood usage was significant. I would still be using it except a friend had a wood boiler that she was going to pay to have taken out so I got it for free. At some point I did splurge on storage with some info from Hearth. The wood boiler is not a gasser but once up to temp appears to be pretty efficient as I run it full bore. WIth storage I use if far more often so my wood usage has actually gone up. As long as this boiler stays in one piece it would be hard to spring for a $10,000 plus gasser, especially when most require a paid installer to get a warranty. Rather than upgrading the wood boiler, I spent the money on some additional solar panels (30% fed credit and self install) and a split heat pump (got with incentives and self installed) that has cut my wood usage substantially and covers me when I am not home. I expect someday the wood boiler will be un- repairable and meanwhile I will keep an eye out for another used one to replace it. Alternatively if some group of agencies line up incentives so that I can get a $15,000 pellet boiler for $4000 out of pocket like in Berlin NH, I might consider it. I haven't added oil to my tanks in two years so it hard to justify payback.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Most houses I've lived in had some form of wood heater, many were the old kitchen cook stoves. Those old kitchen stoves weren't terribly efficient, but while you were cooking or making coffee you were heating the house.
I've also had some decent pre EPA smoke dragons in homes that worked pretty well. Had an old Blaze King that heated a 2,000 sq ft home from the basement. It went through a lot of wood, and produced a lot of smoke (out the chimney, not in the house) to get those smoldering all night burns, but it did the job.
From about 1994 to 2009 we had been living as caretakers on some property in a mobile home heated with an electric furnace. I wanted to install a wood stove so bad because the property had all sorts of dead and dying trees available for wood fuel and I missed heating with wood, but our electricity was free as one of the perks for being caretakers, so there really wasn't much point in installing a wood stove.
Fast forward to 2009, we bought a house and renovated it and my chance to start heating with wood again opened up. I briefly looked around for a used wood stove, but there was nothing but junk around and while researching stoves I learned about modern EPA stoves and how much more efficient they were, and a fellow I've known for years bought and ran a store that sold wood stoves and similar related products and he gave me a pretty good deal on a Regency F2400. I was also waiting on another guy I know who works at the Blaze King manufacturing plant in the same city, he told me they often have end up with new stoves sitting around the plant that have some sort of imperfections that they often sold off cheap, but that deal didn't come through. I talked to him a year or so later and he related to me that they started fixing the imperfections and selling them and full price rather than selling them at the plant for those discount prices, so those deals just weren't available anymore. Too bad, I might have ended up with a cat stove instead.
My latest stove install was in my shop, an old Lopi smoke dragon wood stove I picked up from my neighbor for $100, that included 5 pieces of SS insulated chimney and some chimney cleaning rod and a brush. He had installed it in him mobile home and the insurance company said they wouldn't insure him if he left it in, so he removed it and had it just sitting around until he heard that I was thinking of installing a stove in my shop. As far as stoves go that old Lopi is a real wood eater. Can't get burns longer than a few hours, even with the draft fully shut and the chimney belching out smoke, like a true smoke dragon, but it heats up the shop very nicely and quickly, and strangely enough the chimney stays cleaner than the one in the house with the new EPA stove. Mind you the chimney in the shop is half the length and only gets used 1/5 of the time or less.
So for me, and probably a lot of people, my introduction to EPA wood stoves was simply because I bought a band new stove rather than an old used one, but having and still using the old smoke dragon out in the shop constantly reminds me home much more efficient the newer EPA stoves are.

 

[KindredSpiritzz]

So many people start with a crappy stove/"smoke dragon" and never move beyond it. And yet, a lot of us do.

i think its education or being unaware theres something better out there. I grew up with old box wood stoves, thats all i ever knew. Til i joined here i didnt know you could buy a "newer technology" stove that would cut down on smoke and the need to clean the chimney. I didnt know a newer stove could produce more heat from less wood or burn longer and conserve wood. Nobody took me aside and said hey, theres something better that your missing. Unless the "old school" people stumble across a newer stove and start asking questions they'll never know the difference between stoves.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

The thing about modern EPA stoves vs older stoves is they both can be operated poorly or efficiently, and I'm sure there are some older pre EPA stoves that could be operated in such a manner that the owners get more efficiency out of them than some newer EPA stoves that are operated poorly. Even with dry wood I can run my EPA stove in such a manner that it will belch smoke out the chimney and turn the glass black, and I can run my old smoke dragon stove so it burns cleanly (no smoke) and the glass stays clean.
What I can't do is run my smoke dragon for 8+ hours, have the glass stay clean, and no (or very little) smoke coming out the chimney, not even with real dry wood. That is only possible with the EPA stove.
What so often happens with old schooled wood burners when they get a modern EPA stove is they try and burn the same old wet wood in them that they are use to burning in there old stoves, and the newer stoves don't work any better than (or even worse than) their older smoke dragon stoves, so they often end up missing out on the full potential of the newer stoves. Then they tell all their old school wood burning buddies that these newer stoves are crap, and so the rumor goes around.

 

[begreen]

As daddy used to say, a poor worker always blames his tools.

 

[tfdchief]

The thing about modern EPA stoves vs older stoves is they both can be operated poorly or efficiently, and I'm sure there are some older pre EPA stoves that could be operated in such a manner that the owners get more efficiency out of them than some newer EPA stoves that are operated poorly. Even with dry wood I can run my EPA stove in such a manner that it will belch smoke out the chimney and turn the glass black, and I can run my old smoke dragon stove so it burns cleanly (no smoke) and the glass stays clean.
What I can't do is run my smoke dragon for 8+ hours, have the glass stay clean, and no (or very little) smoke coming out the chimney, not even with real dry wood. That is only possible with the EPA stove.
What so often happens with old schooled wood burners when they get a modern EPA stove is they try and burn the same old wet wood in them that they are use to burning in there old stoves, and the newer stoves don't work any better than (or even worse than) their older smoke dragon stoves, so they often end up missing out on the full potential of the newer stoves. Then they tell all their old school wood burning buddies that these newer stoves are crap, and so the rumor goes around.

Well said, couldn't agree more.

 

[Coach B]

True story--I found Hearth.com while trying to find a quality mask online to wear while loading my smoke belching/tree eating OWB! Started reading about efficient cleaner burning modern indoor stoves. Still have the OWB, but now only use it for the core of the winter. Jotul is burning right now at home. Love it!

 

[embers aplenty]

I use to think my smoke dragons were the berries till I started reading on the hearth. After all the learning curves, as in epa stove operation, the importance of having an insulated chimmney liner with block off plate and having about 3 years of wood css, the rest is history.

You just have to think of what your going to say to the next person driving slow and turkey necking at your wood.

 

[Don2222]

Hello

For me it was a long 27 years from a Franklin Wood stove to a Harman P61a-2

1. Franklin Wood Stove
Free - was disconnected in garage when we moved in.
So I connected it and tried it out for 4 years.

2. Large Consolidated Dutchwest Federal Design Coal/Wood air tight stove from Vermont Castings.
Air tight is better and convection fan is better, but a combo stove did not burn either fuel as good as a stove made to do one or the other.
Had it for 19 years and used for 3 years.

3. Avalon Astoria 45k BTU wood pellet stove.
Had 4 years and worked well for first 3 years.

4. 10 year old Harman P61 - I painted and updated it to a P61a-2 with nickel trim kit and modern fire door.
Works like a champ. Made only for wood pellets and works the best!

​

 

[georgepds]

Had an old jotul combi-fire, the one that looks like an easter island head, with a hinkey door. Came home one night to find the door had popped open and the C-O monitor was screaming.... Hmmm time for a fix. I got about 5 foot of chain and used to wrap it around the stove after I fired it up. Worked for me but my better half said fix it, proper. For some reason she just refused to wrap chain around a hot stove.. go figure

Had my heart set on a beautiful enameled Vermont castings, like I used to see in the 70s. Came here to find out that Vt castings had changed hands several times and gone way down hill so far as customer support. Here I caught the bug for a Woodstock progress hybrid, went up to the factory to take a look with said better half, and she loved it . So a Woodstock progress hybrid went in

It is sooooooo much better than the old Jotul. I can control the temperature and run an all night burn.. what a joy

 

[Osagebndr]

I've been lookin at Osborn, pe, regency and blaze king. All make great stoves just got to fit it into the budget.

 

[smokedragon]

I have been reading since November, comparing models, reviewing options. I will be upgrading because it really is a no brainer to me:

More (or the same heat) for less wood. I will be switching before next burning season, period.

Add that to the fact that I won't have to worry about my chimney clogging as much.....

Now, many in my area who heat with wood are very poor, and their installs are probably not that safe (or up to code). An old smoke dragon runs from 75 - 300 depending on size, condition, etc. A cheap EPA stove of the same size (especially if you need an insert) is 1000 minimum.

Also, many of these older installs are not run on liners. That adds to the install cost. Many folks would benefit in the long run, but cannot afford it in the short run. Story of life.

 

[Bobbin]

Thanks for a really fun read, you guys. I've enjoyed every story and more than a few have made me chuckle.