Different view on Woodstoves

[musicman]

Hello. Ive been reading posts on here for quite a while. I finally registered so this is my 1st post. Hello everyone!

Anyway Ive burned wood mostly for 30 years and I have a few things I do different than most of you, but I'm sure some of you do the same. I'll throw in a few hints too.

I use a Humble woodburner with both a top and front door. Probably built in the 1960's or maybe early 70's. It has a grate and firebricks. I can easily hold heat 8 hours. 10-11 hours takes really good wood. The firebox is larger than most newer stoves. A lot of the old stoves are similar in design with a bottom grate. Also, I have a cookstove from the 20's that I use occasionally.

I use a EPA exempt stove and always have. I don't like most of the new high-efficient stoves Ive seen. Why? A Low effiency stove might use 10-20% more wood (most wood is free right? or an extra bundle of slabwood) so I use one or two more pickup-loads of wood (I live in Minnesota). Not a problem for me. More important is most high efficient stoves take longer too warm up, and don't get as hot. When I get home after work I want heat! I dont want to wait to let my stove get warm. And if I'm cold at 3AM I want heat NOW! I dont want it at 6AM. Learn how to use the stove and you won't get too hot.

Grates are great! They let air go upward thru the wood and get the fire started quicker. If your fire slows down it doesn't take long to get it going if you have a grate.

I cover the back 1/2 to 2/3 of my grate with ashes, or firebrick will work too. It still lets about the same amount of air into the stove, but the covered part will burn a little slower and will hold coals a very long time. I just scrape some of the ashes forward and thru the grate once a day.

To lower the amount of smoke when you open the door, do 2 things. If your door is plenty big, put a hinged flap on the top couple inches of the door. That stops a lot of smoke. And 2nd, open the draft until the fire is burning a little before you open the door. That lowers the amount of smoke a lot.

Dampers will save a lot of heat on the old stoves but learn how to use them and check them once in awhile because they will kind of burn up if you get a really hot fire or two (you dont want them that hot!)

Never get your stove red hot, or your pipe red hot. Its just too dangerous. Close the draft if you think its getting close. Keep the chimney clean too of course.

If your using a real dinosaur like the old parlor stoves or cookstoves, which are all beautiful stoves, on the first pipe section, use a T-pipe. You can put a cap on the section that isn't going up, drill a couple 1/2" holes in the flat cap, screen the holes somehow, put an adjustable door over the holes (a piece of bent metal with a rivet or bolt in the middle might work). Open it when the fire gets hot. That will slow the fire down a little and it does seem to give you a little more heat from the wood. When its really windy those stoves get awful hot and that helps keep them from getting as hot. Look at pictures of really old stoves and you'll see the stovepipes with holes.

You should have good floor protection. When you use the old stoves or newer ones too, a firescreen around it when your not home could save your home from burning.

The old stoves are a lot cheaper than newer ones. Make sure they dont have holes and cracks all over the stove. Besides sparks they let draft into the stove. Firebricks are a big plus.

No matter what stove you use but especially the old ones, find someone that knows how to use it and have them show you, even if you have to pay them to stick around for awhile. Used right, the old stoves are great.

I hope that helps a few of you or maybe gives a few of you an idea or two. Be careful. Im no professional but it works for me.

[patriotchick]

good advice, with the price of oil alot of people who couldnt afford pellet stoves are rigging up wood stoves. We have burnt wood for several years so we know alot of the ins and outs, but for people new to burning I hope they do get advice from someone with know how. Best advice I got was to take a flashlight and shine it all around and look for places that the light is coming through ( on my new/old cookstove) and put cement over all the seams. I did find a place where light shined through around a seam that I would of missed without the light.
An ounce of prevention....as they saying goes, I hope there arent alot of house fires because of lack of knowledge.

[bee_pipes]

We have been heating with wood for the last 4 or 5 years. I wish there had been something like this post to read before that first year. We didn't have any disasters, but I spent a lot of effort learning some of the pointers MusicMan just listed.

Regards,
Pat

[CarolAnn]

Welcome here, Musicman - I agree with you on all points. I used a Grandpa Bear type wood stove, nice and big with double doors on the front and two heavy duty screw type dampers (one on each door) as well as a stove pipe damper. The one thing I missed was a grate.

I used to keep a supply of 3" short lengths of green hickory, as it took a long time to dry out and burn up - these laid crosswise at either end of the rest of the logs to hold them up and give the air flow that a grate would have. I think a real grate would have been better!!

My favorite tool was a log grabber I got at an auction in Iowa - a rod inside of a steel tube, with two claw fingers welded onto the tube end and one claw welded onto the rod. The rod turned inside of the tube and on my end, it had a smooth wooden grip on the tube and another handle to turn the rod (and open or close the claws) with the other hand. Sounds complex, but it was elegantly simple and worked great.

I'd get a roaring hot fire going a couple of hours before bed time and then close it all down. The last wood in was green. By morning, the green wood was dry and ready to roar into life when I opened the dampers to let in air.

My stove sat in the corner of two cement block walls, and these were covered with a facing of stones. This was both for looks and mass - heat those rocks up and the house stayed warm for a long time!

No matter what kind of wood stove you're using - I can't say enough for MASS - have a bunch of non-combustible mass near that fire and you'll have a nice heat radiator that lasts for hours or even days!

[Westcliffe01]

Musicman, unfortunately I don't get the impression that you have USED a modern EPA stove.

I heat from November to May 24/7 with a modern wood stove in Southern Michigan. Agreed, it is by no means as cold here as Minnesota, but it is still Michigan with close to 6 months of continuous winter. If anything, with the secondary air type stoves (non catalytic) one has to be careful NOT to to get the stove too hot. My Morso will easily run at 1000F stack temperature if cranked up. My living area is typically 68 - 80F 24/7 with the normal cyclic variation that goes with wood burning.

I burn about 4 cord of wood per year while heating 1300 sq ft with another 500 sq ft in the finished basement. My uncle in VA has the smallest and cheapest plate style stove from Century ($250 for the stove an Menards). He uses less than a cord a year heating a trailer home with some additions.

Neither of us has had any appreciable creosote buildup. I cleaned my chimney a few weeks ago and had about 1/8" buildup in the last section of pipe (clear of the roof).

Besides being less of a burden on my neighbors due to no visible smoke and hardly any smell, I am covered by my insurance, which would not be possible if I tried to install a non UL listed or non EPA stove. If one lives in an area with no ordinances, it may allow you to do as you please, but for the same reason that we no longer build Model A Fords, it will pay to install a high efficiency heating appliance.

[musicman]

Sounds like you like your stove Keith. I'm happy for you. I am not familiar with the brand of stove you have but have heard of Morso. Your uncles stove may be an exempt stove but Im not sure. Quite a few of the cheaper stoves are. I know Ive looked at them in Menards. They are cute little stoves.

Thats why I used the word "different" in my title as I knew these stoves werent discussed enough, along with safely using them.

I've never had an EPA stove in my house but am quite familiar with them as several of my friends have them. They all like mine better, LOL Most non EPA stoves are not airtight, therefore they burn quickly, which means less smoke. If they are somehow shut up airtight they will smoke bad. Fortunetely, I knew just which brand and type of stove I wanted and watched for several years to find mine. They were made new in my area and would be hard to find in most areas of the country. I used a few tin ones before this and really like this one better. It cost me $100. I look up my chimney twice a year but there is never any build up, probably because my wood is dry and I fire it up good once or twice a day. I do wish I had a glass door.

Fortunetly I live in an area where I can use the old stoves. My insurance man was at my house and looked it over and was very impressed with my setup. Im in a rural county and so many stoves have poor chimneys because of the expense of them, or lack of knowledge of chimneys. So he was happy to see my Stainless chimney installed right, and a lot of wall protection.

I feel for anyone in a town trying to burn wood. It would be hard to keep the neighbors happy. And worse to keep an insurance man happy.

Whats wrong with Model A Fords? LOL That made me chuckle. I drive old vehicles but not that old!

[WRTN]

This is the wood stove I use to heat our house currently:

http://www.usstove.com/proddetail.php?prod=1600G

It hooks into the heat pump ducting and will easily heat up to 3000 square feet. *

We still have our Fisher wood stoves from our last house but have not used them since this stove was already here.

Tractor Supply Center sells this stove cheaper but requires a blower kit to be installed. *