Yippee! Getting ready for first burns for our KQ 380 and Jotul F55

[Rusnakes]

Only this group can appreciate our excitement--

After a LONG period of renovation...
putting the stoves in place (like 2 months ago)...
cutting, splitting, and stacking 26 full cords of wood...
waiting on a chimney installer...
having said installer back out at the last minute (grrrrr)...
getting a new installer (who was great)...
getting the stove pipes installed (they finished the day before Thanksgiving)...
and waiting, staring at our stoves, until the building inspector came today to certify them ready to use...

We are now ready for our first fires.

Kind of worried that the temps are a bit high for a first first (it's an unseasonably warm 64 degrees F outside here in SE Michigan), but I'm kind of pleased we can open up window and let the breeze blow out the stink.

Pics of the babies in place (Jotul F55 & Kitchen Queen 380)



Just cleaned off the protective coating off the top of the KQ a few minutes ago and are gearing up to start a couple of small fires to get the process started. Wish us luck!!

 

[RandyBoBandy]

I've had a slight addiction with looking at cookstoves lately. I would love to install one in my home. The kitchen queen is a beautiful stove.

 

[Rusnakes]

I've had a slight addiction with looking at cookstoves lately. I would love to install one in my home. The kitchen queen is a beautiful stove.

It IS a lovely stove. We researched the heck out of them and settled on the KQ 380 because of the size, the affordability, the good ratings, the oven design (the way the air circulates around the oven), and the ability to have multiple domestic water options. We were going to run our domestic hot water through the wood stove, but decided against it at the last minute (worried about the pipes under the floor in an impossible-to-reach crawlspace), so we are going to do the water reservoir (17 gallons) and run a solar hot water system instead, which will eliminate the need for an active electric or gas hot water tank (we'll still have it available should it be needed). The amount of energy that is used for generating hot water is astounding really. We have a home energy monitor and it is shocking the values per day, even being conservative. Cooking is another big one for us, so the wood cook stove will take care of that for half of the year for us, too.

 

[RandyBoBandy]

Where about sin SE Michigan are you?

 

[Rusnakes]

Ah! I didn't realize you are local. We are in Saline Township. We used Chelsea Hearth and Fireplaces for the install. Very professional. We had another person/company who was highly recommended to us by Big George's and it turned out to be a disaster, with him backing out at the last minute (unless we wanted to pay $2800 more and wait longer).

Stove put out a lot of heat last night. We only had the KQ running, with a decent small load. Back side of the house was 77, even with windows cracked to take away the off-gassing smell. Seems better with the smell this a.m., but have it up just shy of 400 right now. There was an excellent bed of coals this a.m., too.

 

[sutphenj]

Ah! I didn't realize you are local. We are in Saline Township. We used Chelsea Hearth and Fireplaces for the install. Very professional. We had another person/company who was highly recommended to us by Big George's and it turned out to be a disaster, with him backing out at the last minute (unless we wanted to pay $2800 more and wait longer).

Stove put out a lot of heat last night. We only had the KQ running, with a decent small load. Back side of the house was 77, even with windows cracked to take away the off-gassing smell. Seems better with the smell this a.m., but have it up just shy of 400 right now. There was an excellent bed of coals this a.m., too.

What is the KQ 380 rated to heat? Does it have secondary air tubes?

 

[RandyBoBandy]

It IS a lovely stove. We researched the heck out of them and settled on the KQ 380 because of the size, the affordability, the good ratings, the oven design (the way the air circulates around the oven), and the ability to have multiple domestic water options. We were going to run our domestic hot water through the wood stove, but decided against it at the last minute (worried about the pipes under the floor in an impossible-to-reach crawlspace), so we are going to do the water reservoir (17 gallons) and run a solar hot water system instead, which will eliminate the need for an active electric or gas hot water tank (we'll still have it available should it be needed). The amount of energy that is used for generating hot water is astounding really. We have a home energy monitor and it is shocking the values per day, even being conservative. Cooking is another big one for us, so the wood cook stove will take care of that for half of the year for us, too.

I'm intrigued with the solar hot water system. What was your initial investment if you don't mind me asking? Hopefully it will work efficiently when it goes "Michigan grey" for most of the winter.

 

[RandyBoBandy]

Does Chelsea hearth and fireplace have a KQ in the store?

 

[Rusnakes]

We are just at the beginning for building a solar hot water system (anticipate it being ready for March or so 2018). Should run us about $1000-1200. Here is the website with tons of building specs: http://www.builditsolar.com/Experimental/PEXColDHW/Overview.htm The person who sells the aluminum fins is from the U.P., so it is nice to be able to support someone from the state for the building of this product.

 

[Rusnakes]

Does Chelsea hearth and fireplace have a KQ in the store?

We actually bought the KQ from the stove store in Tekonsha (Antique Stoves: http://www.antiquestoves.com/general store/generalstore.index.htm), out off of I-69. I don't think Chelsea sells the KQ (I'm not sure if they have other cookstove models). The address that comes up is not the correct address for the store, which is on the main drag through Tekonsha. You will want to give them a call and set up a time to visit out there, since it is a small operation. However, they do have a number of different stoves available to see and Ed will spend a LOT of time answering your questions and chatting to you about all things stoves. You can also hit up the Amish communities along the way if you go down US-12.

 

[illini81]

cutting, splitting, and stacking 26 full cords of wood...

Did I read that right? Twenty-six cords? Wow that's amazing! You sneak it in there like it's no big deal. Way to go!

 

[Rusnakes]

Did I read that right? Twenty-six cords? Wow that's amazing! You sneak it in there like it's no big deal. Way to go!

Haha! Yeah. We worked from March through May to get most of it up. We used a firewood processor for the first 16 cords, then did 7 cords by hand, and had 3 cords dumped and delivered (this was prior to our purchase of 23 cords of wood from up north of us; guy brought it in on a double bed semi trailer!). There are still vestiges of piles out there that need some time and attention...maybe a couple cords at most. I'll post pics of the stacks when I get home later, if I get a moment to snap a shot.

 

[begreen]

Very impressive Rusnakes. You have done well. I love a kitchen cookstove. One can heat the whole house if centrally located. What is your anticipated annual wood consumption?

 

[Zack R]

Impressive! Please send photos of the 26 cords of wood as well.

 

[Rusnakes]

So, this is a good chunk of the wood, in 3 separate spots. We still have more in the garage, about a cord of kindling from the wood processor, and some on the porches, too.

These are the "handy" racks in the back. We wanted to measure how much wood we use for a season (to more accurately answer begreen's question about projected usage), so we built enough racks to hold 16 face cords of wood. The stuff closest to us was deadstanding ash (due to ash borer here in Michigan). Our pallets are a mix of high grade oak pallets and crummy pine ones, so we will be replacing the pine ones once we reach them in the piles (had to scrounge up a LOT of pallets in short order, so we used just about anything we could get our hands on):

This runs from 4 feet high closest to me in the pic to a little over 5 feet by the end of the stacks. I believe the total run of wood piles was around 88 feet long. There are 6 rows on the front section here (I believe that was about 65 feet long; there is also another 30' or so row hidden on the far side of wood chunks that were too small to stack, so they will be used for cookstove wood chunks) and 5 rows on the back section. There are about another 2-ish or so cords to the right that need to be dealt with in one way or another (in and out of the pic).

 

[begreen]

So 26 face cords or 8 2/3d full cords?

 

[Rusnakes]

26 full cords, so 78 face cords.

 

[begreen]

26 full cords, so 78 face cords.

are you going into the wood selling business?

 

[Rusnakes]

Most of the pieces are 18 inches long; some are up to 22-24" (which is why they are separated, since they won't fit in the stove and need to be cut to fit).

 

[Rusnakes]

Hahah! Well, depending on what we use this year, we might be unloading some well-seasoned wood in the years to come to local buyers! LOL Local wood goes for $80-100/face cord and you buy a LOT of air around here. We couldn't find a local person we liked, so we worked with a cord wood guy up north instead. In total (if I remember this correctly since it was last March when I calculated it...), I think we spent $38/face cord to process it ourselves. That included purchasing some timber tongs and a timberjack to do the final 6 or so cords by hand.

 

[Rusnakes]

We already had a Stihl on hand, which worked great for the job.

 

[Rusnakes]

Oh, and we rented a Bobcat to move cord logs to the firewood processor, too.

 

[RandyBoBandy]

Hahah! Well, depending on what we use this year, we might be unloading some well-seasoned wood in the years to come to local buyers! LOL Local wood goes for $80-100/face cord and you buy a LOT of air around here. We couldn't find a local person we liked, so we worked with a cord wood guy up north instead. In total (if I remember this correctly since it was last March when I calculated it...), I think we spent $38/face cord to process it ourselves. That included purchasing some timber tongs and a timberjack to do the final 6 or so cords by hand.

Where abouts upnorth did you find a semi load? I've been interested in pricing out a truck load to be delivered to the house.

 

[Rusnakes]

Where abouts upnorth did you find a semi load? I've been interested in pricing out a truck load to be delivered to the house.

It was a guy out of the Cadillac area named Howard. He is on Craigslist for northern MI. Offers mixed hardwood (a mix of maple, ash, and birch). Here's a link to one of his posts: (broken link removed to https://nmi.craigslist.org/for/d/firewood-large-4x4x8-foot-cord/6339902479.html) He will definitely deliver down here, unless he's recently changed his mind. Probably not though...he likes to hustle to make a buck.

Pros of this guy...he gets you the wood ASAP (I think he delivered it within 3 or so days of when we ordered). He can get his double trailer semi in ANYWHERE (seriously, the end of our driveway is tough for anyone and he just slipped it right down the drive...no issues). He will stack the wood however you'd like it stacked to process. I personally liked having 2 logs run north-south on the end to keep the logs off the ground, then piled on top of there; I'd ask for 2 rows that are NOT touching each other. When the rows are in contact, the logs are more susceptible to movement across the two piles (and they get hung up on each other, too, which is a pain). Plan for about a 25-30' long stacks of logs that are just about 7-8 feet tall in the center. He will bring you exactly the diameter logs you want (we requested no more than 14" logs max, and 8-12" preferred; we only had maybe 10 or so logs total that were at or around 14" logs. 12" is big enough to move around by hand really).

Cons--he proselytizes constantly the entire time he's at your house. I mean constantly. Half of the logs were drug out of the woods, so they have a fair amount of dirt caked on them (we used a stiff bristle brush to clean them off when we did the 6 cords by hand, since we weren't on a time crunch). The maple and birch he brings is green. The ash is deadstanding. So, plan on waiting for the maple and birch to be ready. Tell him exactly the percentages of what species you want. I think he might have some oak typically, but not at the end of the season when we bought wood.

Now all that said, the guy we worked with for the firewood processor recommended a company in Harrison that offers very clean, all oak cordwood. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cooks-Forest-Products/167370339942956 This company used to offer to drive down our way, so it might be worth a call. We have strongly considered trying to split a load with someone locally so we can up our oak on hand (and maybe sell off some of the maple we have).

 

[Rusnakes]

For a firewood processor, there are really 2 main options in our area, from what we researched. Frank's Firewood Processing, out of western Michigan, will process as much wood as he can for $500/day (he does the processing with his own Dyna processor). He could probably get through 20 cords of oak in a day likely:
Frank's Firewood Processing
6160 S DRIVE S
Athens , MI 49011 (269) 986-1105 Frank Force.

The other option is out of the Charlotte area. This is an Amish woodworking business that offers their firewood processor for rental (you do everything yourself, including hauling the processor to/from Charlotte. SUPER nice guy. They rent the processor for $500 for "the weekend"--this basically means they give you 2 FULL days to process wood. Travel to/from the store is on the day before and day after the rental (so basically you get the afternoon before, 2 full days, the morning after for the rental). They provide you with (I think) 3 new chains to use on the processor saw.

Meadow Ridge Country Store
1705 N AINGER RD
Charlotte , MI 48813 (517) 543-8680 Henry

Here's the website where you can grab this info as needed: http://dyna-rentals.com/

Either way, you'll need to rent a skid steer to get the wood from the pile to the processor. A-1 Rental in Ann Arbor offers them for sure. Not sure if there are some for rental in WL. We rented from Wolverine Rental off State in Ann Arbor--best deal and it was close by us, too.