Old Farmhouse - New Woodstove??? Advice Please!

[freespiritacres]

Great ideas, thanks! I'll take some photos of the fireplace & post. You all are so very helpful and I really appreciate it. I'd love to go with the new boiler & windows, but alas, with real estate the way it is at the moment, and being i the home under a year, I have no chance with upping my home equity loan amounts :-S - at least not yet!

 

[freespiritacres]

Eileen - my Dixie's a sorrel&white;overo paint mare - zippo bloodlines. I get you on the "redhead" issue, though, I have 2 sorrel mares & a sorrel filly, along with a grumpy palomino mare. Oh, and let us not forget our king of the roost gray gelding. (My husband identifies with him - there are five mares in the barn and five women in the house)...

 

[mikeathens]

How bout a wood boiler in the basement tied in with the oil boiler using the same radiators as Savage suggested, keeping the oil boiler as backup? You could do outside boiler, but with everything all ready to tie into inside, why bother outside?

I would also go with this idea...sounds like the perfect set-up to retrofit - might be cheaper than a stove installation and you could count on it to heat wter AND your whole house. Might be able to do away with oil altogether, or use it for back-up. You'd still have the fireplace for ambiance when you wanted an open fire.

 

[begreen]

How bout a wood boiler in the basement tied in with the oil boiler using the same radiators as Savage suggested, keeping the oil boiler as backup? You could do outside boiler, but with everything all ready to tie into inside, why bother outside?

I'm with Hog. As soon as I read the house specs I started thinking wood boiler. I would suggest that you repost in the boiler room forum on this website and pose the question. You still could install a woodstove for area heating, but with this size house it would most likely take two stoves. Maintaining a single boiler a couple times a day is much more convenient. And is the system if setup well, and the house has some good southern exposure, a solar hot water system can be added to supplement hot water heating.

 

[Jags]

I am also gonna jump on the boiler/gassifier retrofit. With your house config. I am betting that 3 stoves may not keep up. In the middle of winter, solid stone walls might as well be solid blocks of ice. Boilers can really make some BTU's and your already piped for hot water. It just makes sense.

 

[freespiritacres]

Well, I finally did something. I ended up getting a Jotul F400 Castine - the main focus is to heat the downstairs of the house and the bedroom directly above the stove, so that the oil burner only has to cover the hot water and the kids' bedrooms/bathrooms, which are turned way down during the daytime - and not kept hot at night anyway. Install is running behind of course, as so many are getting on the wood wagon this year, but I'm excited. I sit on my sofa in the family room at night (freezing - not running the oil yet - even though it was in the 30s last night outside) anyway, I just keep thinking how nice it will be to have that room WARM this winter.

Anyway, just wanted to say thank you to everyone who helped me out with information!

PS - Salters in Collegeville, PA is GREAT to work with - very informative and friendly!