Wood Stove?s

[IATRKYHNTR]

Foregive me if this is in the wrong Forum, but it's where I think I would get the most info.

My wife and I are about to become first time home/land owners. We are buying a big ole farm house in SE Iowa on 14 acres, with outbuildings. The home is huge, 3 stories. On the main floor, in the dinning room there was a fire place that has been bricked closed years ago, but has a wood burning stove there now. The seller wishes to take the stove with him, which is fine by me it looks very used. I've never been around wood stoves until I met my wife, her family all heat with some type of wood. (Outside boiler, add on wood furnace, wood stove...) I am the local volunteer fire chief, so I have worries about having a wood stove in the house, My in-laws have kinda put my mind at ease are far as safety goes... But still I have no experience with the operations, maintenance, and selection of one.

So here are some of my question...
1. Any brand of stove that I should stay away from, or any brand that you have had luck with?
2. What type should I look for, Catalytic, Non-Catalytic...?
3. ANY info you want to pass on?

IATRKYHNTR
Nathan

P.S. I really enjoy this forum, while I will not be totally off grid, I do plan on my lil farm to do what it should, feed my family and provide income from what we can not use.

[Cornbelt]

Get a good one, not a copy of a good one "Made in Taiwan", unless all you want to do with it is smoke meat. They don't seal, have inferior cast iron and are just cheap.  If you want cheap, or are not quite sure you like the idea, or just want to try it, get a sheet metal stove. They will last a little while and give you some experience.
 Google Jotul.
  If you have to put in a flue, go with a tripple wall stainless.
  If you get a chance to buy one used, come back here for more information.  Somebody or another will have had experience with it whatever it is.
 

[chefjeff]

Consider a waterstove. A little trouble to install, but will save you lots. Is it a supplement to another heat source,or your only heat?. Do you have available wood you can cut for free? If not,the savings are limited. Just some points to ponder.

[efremtags]

Jotul makes the best cast iron non-ctalytic stove out there. Check your chimney size. Joul stoves are 6" flue. Others may be 7 or 8" and it is cumbersome to transition sizes, so look for a mathcing chimney/flue. it easy to make a smaller flue work with a larger chimney, not vice versa.

If you have an older chimney liner, you can run a stainless liner inside of a larger liner. The chimney will cost more than the stove, thts the 1 drawback with woods stoves.

[IATRKYHNTR]

Thanks for the replies... I should have stated that this is just a supplement heat source. The house has a dual furnace forced air system, one furnace for each floor of the house. I'm having the each furnace checked out this week, as long as both are fully operational, and safe I will be sticking with them a my main heat source. If it turns out they need work or are not suitable for use, I will concider eather a wood furnace in the basement, or an outdoor wood boiler, even geothermal.

But for right now I'm just looking for info on good wood stoves. The chimney is set up for a 6" flue, but it will be checked also before I do anything. Also I do have access to places to cut wood for free. My father in laws farm yard looks more like a logging mill yard, logs stacked all over the place.

IATRKYHNTR
Nathan

[Lloyd Smale]

check with your insurance company before you buy. Some wont insure homes with wood heat and others jack the rates way up to the point that it isnt worth it. Add the price of firewood in it and if you dont have access to land to cut your own or time to do it buying wood just isnt going to save you money.

[Higene]

Where I live the greenies Red Diper Doper Babies are in the process of wiping out wood stoves. 2009-2010 was the coldest winter here in 20 years. It was 14 degrees (Yeah I know Florida for North Dakota and probably Iowa) and the radio promptly announced that wood stove use was prohibited - which everyone ignored. Point being - they're agin' it. I would recommend a pellet stove. Efficiency and the price of wood are the main reason. Cord wood used to be $100 / cord. It is now commonly $200 + delivery (figure a 4X4 @ $4 - $5 a gallon). If you get a wood stove now you will be hunting fire wood for the rest of your life not deer. Would you rather haul 4X4s full to the top of the cab with firewood or 20 lb sacks of pellets?

[Cornbelt]

  ...and since you are in Iowa, pellet stoves will also work with corn.

[Savage_99]

I like wood stoves.  We have one in each of our places.

Get one that also has top loading.  It's much easier to put stuff in without reaching down for some door every time.

The fancy looking one I got from Vermont Castings cracked.  The old log burning stove that came with the camp up north is still working fine. 

I don't burn much wood any longer, it's too much work.  Still though they are good to have.

[no guns here]

Free wood...

One way we got free wood was to follow the tornadoes in OK when I was a teenager.  After a good twister, there was always downed trees to cut up and haul off for free.  People just want and need them gone.  Always thought it would be a good way to get wood after a hurricane too.  Just have to be selective and get hard wood.  You could probably fill up semi-flatbeds for free as fast as you could cut...

Too bad I don't have any advice for the actual wood stove.


NGH

[Lost Farmboy]

Are you burning oil or gas?  Wood and oil burning in the same chimney make a dangerous soot?  We burnt all wood and dad had me on the roof cleaning the chimney every week.  I think you said closed off fire place, that would be a separate flue.

[squirrellluck]

One thing to consider about pellet stoves and I know someone will correct me if I'm wrong Every pellet or corn stove I've seen required power to operate. Not good in power outages.

[Savage_99]

Are you burning oil or gas?

 Wood and oil burning in the same chimney make a dangerous soot?

 We burnt all wood and dad had me on the roof cleaning the chimney every week.  I think you said closed off fire place, that would be a separate flue.

Do you have any proof of your statement about that 'dangerous' soot?  I never heard that before.

Thanks

[Lloyd Smale]

I dont have proff of what farm boy said and am not going looking but know that any home thats built with a fireplace will have a seperate chimney for it and the gas or oil furnace. Look around in your travels and you will see many chimneys with two or three seperate flues in them.

[Lost Farmboy]

Are you burning oil or gas?

 Wood and oil burning in the same chimney make a dangerous soot?


Do you have any proof of your statement about that 'dangerous' soot?  I never heard that before.

Thanks

Back in the 70s when oil prices went up the state of WI started marking dead trees.  Any body could cut the wood for free.  Dad shut off the oil furnace and we burnt noting but wood for the next 10 years.  A lot of people added a wood stove to supplement their oil furnace.  We had a lot of chimney fires back then.  In the dead of winter I had to clean the chimney every week.  Once the fire starts in the chimney it will spew hot embers like a volcano and start the shingles on fire.  We never had a fire but I saw a few of the neighbors houses burn.  There was news stories back then about the fires.  The fire departments were warning people back then not to burn wood and oil in the same flue.  I do not have proof, just experience.  If I ever burn wood again, I will keep the chimney clean.  We burnt 9 cords a year and kept 2 years ahead because it takes 2 years for the wood to dry.

[blind ear]

To clean our chimney, we would build a big paper fire in the fireplace, *when it was raining*.

 The paper would carry enough fire up the chimney to get the sut started. It would sound lke a tornado when the fire started drafting up the chimmey.

 Had a couple if chimney fires when it wasn't raining and that called for gettting the water hose and wetting the roof. Pop said the chimney fire could crack the liner if you didn't have the chimney good and hot already. We were lucky I guess. ear

[squirrellluck]

Farmboy, those dead trees weren't pine were they?

[mrbigtexan]

i recommend using a heat exchanger in the stovepipe, ours is a magic heat and it works great.

[Lost Farmboy]

Farmboy, those dead trees weren't pine were they?

No.  The state was only marking hard woods.  Elm and oak from what I remember.  The trees were marked with a red X.  No pines.

[Lost Farmboy]

i recommend using a heat exchanger in the stovepipe, ours is a magic heat and it works great.

I agree.  We had one on our stove.  It saves a lot of heat that would just go up the chimney and reduces the risk of chimney fired.

[Cornbelt]

  When we were heating with wood exclusively, our Magic Heat cut down wood consumption to half. We also got a lot of condensation to the point we had to put in a sump for it.
  Bad part is they only lasted about a year, but rebuilding with heavier metal, they'll last nearly as long as the stove.

[no guns here]

You might also be interested in looking up the Finnish fireplace, which is a high thermal mass fireplace that utilizes small very hot fires to heat soapstone that then radiates the heat for hours after the fire.  The Russian fireplace is a play on the same theme but utilizes a long, winding flue to pass heat to brick or stone that then holds and radiates the heat for hours.


NGH

[Winter Hawk]

I heated in the Fairbanks, AK area with wood, in a barrel stove.  Later I made a "shorty" barrel stove by cutting the barrel on one of the ridges around it and then the shorter piece a couple of inches before the end.  Then I jammed it back into the the now "flared" end of the longer piece, sealed it with stove cement and fastened it with sheet metal screws.  That turned into the most efficient stove I have used, so much that I have built several others in the same way.

Our present house is over 100 years old and has two chimneys.  One is closed off but the other was just closed with a piece of sheetrock.  I had it cleaned out and newspapers from the middle 1950s came out! 

We splurged and had the chimney relined, then a Vermont Castings Defiant was installed.  That has done us well.  We use it as auxilliary heat, but it has been a blessing when the power goes out during the Winter!  I have to use a kerosene stove in the back rooms in those situations, but we survived nicely without power for 5 days.  I do think the barrel stove would have been more efficient though.

Insurance can be a problem.  One of the guys at work told me his went up by over $400 this year.  When he asked why, it was the wood stove.  He has it cleaned and certified every year but this year they nailed him.  I haven't seen that yet but wouldn't be surprised if my bill went up also.

-WH-

[The Hermit]

Big old farm houses can sometimes be hard to heat. If this place has to have two funaces, I would check into how much it costs them to heat each year. Check on the amount of insulation in the walls and ceiling.
A 6" flue/pipe will only draft good for about 16 feet in height, if there are no trees too close by.  You may need to consider an 8" insulated pipe for better draft and safety. Mine is rated to 2000 degrees F.
A nearby source of wood is needed that can be stacked and seasoned for use. I put up 20 cords(face cords) of hard wood to keep my main cabin heated all winter, with wood left over to use in my hunting camp.
After 30 some years of burning wood, my insurance company cancelled my coverage due to heating with wood. It is my only source of heat, wouldn't go back to any other heat source. My total fuel cost is less than $1200/year, if I have to buy all my wood. I have a wood cook stove I use sometimes too, when the power is out. Was without power for 19 days and was not inconvienenced at all. Cooked a turkey in my wood cookstove, its a 1934 Kalamazoo Presidents model, with warming oven and water tank.
Cornbelt is right, please don't buy a made in hongkong cheap stove.
I use a double barrel stove made out of 3/16" steel, which looks as good today as the day it was made in the 80's. Both barrels have a door which allows me to clean the chimney from the basement with out having to go outdoors or up on the roof. I also keep all my winters wood in the basement so I don't have to dig it out of the snow. Its dry and weather checked, so it burns hot with out a lot of creosote.
Once you use wood heat properly, you'll settle for nothing less. Good luck on your new home, enjoy the country.

The Hermit

[tacklebury]

Might consider an oven designed stove.  They are handy because you can cook on them, bake in them and the baking area also works good for drying things.  If you're burning the wood for heat anyway, might as well get a few more miles from it. 
http://www.antiquestoves.com/kitchenqueen/index.htm

[Rex in OTZ]

Like anything you now need to make a decision is this thing for show and play or a real serious investment in heating equipment, like meat grinders and chainsaws you either going to work it or somthing borderline useless takeing up space in the house.
study up and see whats being said check out/join some wood stove forums.
If people fear the wood stove is because they dont understand them and they get misused and they wonder why they had house fires (improper installation, poor fuel, no maintenance, careless operation), wood stoves are like anything they require some know how to operate and a great deal of respect, like dealing with electricty both have safty codes, both require safe conduct when operating if ignored thers ugly consiquences.
If you choose to get a heating stove get one of adiquate size/design to heat your room/rooms,the idea you have you have somthing because of the brick chimney (that bricked up chimney may in disrepair) have it checked if you choose to use & work it, use plenty of heat barrier and if anything error on side of safty, homes had been heated with wood, coal for a very long time, the fuel and tec of the age was the reason folks went away from them.
There are some awesome wood furnaces that look just plain awefull and cost over $2000 and have 300 Lbs of fire brick in them, they have a thermostatic heat exchanger fan on them, automated dampers and can burn 20 hours on one load of wood thems the ones you should be looking into getting.....the price of oil isnt going down any time soon and having a alternate source of heat in the home means incase of a ice storm/blackout your toasty when others are looking for some way to heat the home
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stove
 
http://tribes.tribe.net/altenergy/thread/5af97f97-3b2f-4855-ae02-3d00f0f2520f
 
http://www.rohor.com/
 
http://www.vestaldesign.com/blog/2006/04/high-efficiency-wood-stove/
 
http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/
 
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/fireinhouse/all/
 
http://woodstoveforum.com/forums/forum.php
 
http://www.stovesandspas.com/

[bilmac]

There used to be a pellet stove being made that would operate with a 12v battery for power. They are way easier to install, some can even vent through a wall. If i lived in corn country I would look hard at them. The price of corn has been way up lately so they may not pay. I think there are models that you can remove the guts and use wood in an emergency. Wouldn't make much heat, but maybe enough to keep the house from freezing in an emergency.

[Pat/Rick]

 I'm using a "Quadra-Fire" brand stove, its a pretty good stove but not the wonder stove the salesmen make it out to be. I try to keep around 8 cords split and stacked (don't know what I'll do when the boys are gone). We heat with wood, and is our back up stove when the power goes out. That can last upwards of a week and a half if its a bad winter. We'll typically loose power once a month when winters grip is in place. I have to have a professional sweep once a year to keep insurance up to date. That's okay though, its still cheaper than paying the power company. When I can't get wood anymore I'll switch to pellet with back up power source.

[hillbill]

ive been useing a old MONARCH add-a-furnace, forced air wood burning stove.when i built my house i set it up on the back porch with a thermostat and a squirrel cage fan that blowed thru the air jacket and with duct into the kitchen.as my house is small at about 1300 sq ft, the fan and duct was unnecessary.i removed the duct and the fan.when it gets down to around 10 degrees or so i have a small 10 inch box fan ive mounted to the ceiling that i turn on.this stove is amazeing in that often ill start a fire in the fall and it will burn till spring.we have a lot of warm days in the fall and spring and i just turn the air intake down and with a little wood in it, it will just hold the coals till i need it again.rake the ashes, throw more wood in and turn the air up and away it goes.ive seen it hold fire for 3 days when regulated correctly on one load of wood.or it will burn hot all night when its really cold and still have a 5 gal bucket of red hot coals in the morning.

[Bugflipper]

I use corn as well. Some have built in 12v backup for power outages. Mine is just 12v all the time and runs off the battery bank. It is vented through the wall like bilmac said. They need power to drive the auger and blower. I imagine I've used it 20 years or more. They used to be a bargain when corn was low. Mine burns about a ton a year, which is somewhere around $185 give or take.  I grow a little feed corn so no big deal. If a fellow didn't he most likely could talk to a farmer and buy it out of the field as they are running the combine instead of paying markup. I am guessing 185 is cheaper than buying enough wood for the winter. But to me not having the smell and discolored walls would be worth it if it was a little higher than buying firewood.