Wood Stoves

[elk_hunter]

For those of you who have wood stoves in your homes, can you share your experiences, especially with certain types of wood and how you have your stoves configured (e.g. pipe size, stove size, etc) and how often you use it. And how much wood you go through during the winter? Our winter is coming to a close and I'm on track to hit 5-6 cords. I've got a Lopi Revere with a blower and I've been using 16-18" lengths. Has anyone MacGyver'd anything cool, say for example, to tap into the wood stove heat, like hot water or routing the stove heat through an existing HVAC setup to blow through the entire house?

Also, do you have any recommendations for top caps? I had one of those turn-with-the-wind types but it had a screen in it that kept getting clogged and I'm wondering if this is normal or not. The chimney guy said it was normal - he said my pipe (4", I believe) was fine and clean with almost no creosote but for some reason the top cap was getting plugged from the tiny screen). For some background, I have been burning very dry and well seasoned pinyon pine, doug fir and almond - I throw the almond in at night and it gets me all the way into the morning with coals and then I can put pine or fir in to get it going again. I hear juniper is a good wood to burn - nice and hot with little ash (kind of like the pine, fir and almond) but haven't tried it yet. Any other recommendations based on your experiences?

 

[DavidKeenan]

I used to have one of the outdoor stoves I did like it but there was a lot of work involved keeping it going. A liot of hardwood and and cutting it to length. I had a friend in the logging busisness and he would bring me a truck load of junk once a year. That made it good being free. But the past two years I have went to a pellett stove a Loy easier to maintain and not so much work on the wife while I'm gone during the week. Very little maintenence and just fill up the storage with pellets once a weeek We just use the blower. Our house is fairley open and it takes care or it. We have propane for a back up.

 

[DavidKeenan]

I was burning hard woods. Oak hickory beech etc. Never burned pine. It burns up too quick and not as much heat. I think oak was best for me.

 

[drahthaar]

I use a Pacific Energy stove, Canadian Co. I believe. Its my primary source of heat, have been burning wood Since Sept, I have used about 3 c of wood. I burn Douglas fir and larch, mostly the fir. I have been slowly getting rid of all the Grand Fir off my property, I will burn that crap early fall just to get rid of it, but its barely worth the time to cut it.

I have got 12-14 hour burns off fir and larch. I stock up the burn box with just a few coals left, with the biggest couple of pieces I can get in there and it lasts from 6:30 am til I get home at 6 at night.

I have the 6 inch pipe coming up, with a 90 degree jog to the wall and one more 90 after going thru the wall in the chase. There is a "T" there outside where I can pop the cap and run a 5 piece brush up the 24+ feet of insulated chimney pipe. I tend to get build up at the second 90 degree turn. So I pop that cap off about 3 times during the winter and clean that. I think it happens when the stove is turned down so low, not burning hot.

 

[klenke91]

My parents have a yukon combination wood fuel oil furnace in the house, it works awesome. We've always used hardwood, pine will clog your chimmeny. Yukon is still around, search around you can get it as an LP, natural gas combo too. Never had any trouble and the extra fuel option is nice if you just need to take the chill off in the morning and dont need a fire all day.

 

[stillkickin]

I have a Blaze King insert at home, and a Hearthstone free stander at the fish camp. Both work well, but am blessed to live in an area full of hard maple and oak.Usually I burn about 2 cords a year as I only use the wood to supplement. Gotten a bit laid back after the heart surgery a few years ago . I only start fires with pine or cedar, creasote is not much of a problem but clean my chimneys yearly.

 

[BirdDogWebb]

The wood stove is my ONLY heat source. I have a Jotul, Oslo 5oo. I’ve used about 3 cords and had a solid fire since early part of Nov. until a few weeks ago. With the spring weather, I now just build a fire each night.
The old house belonged to my grandparents. The front/main part of the house is log, built some where around 1775, and has two rooms added to the back, the dinning and kitchen.
I have a small fan in the top of the door way to transfer the heat in to the back rooms.
The old house is a little drafty, you can nearly see the blinds move on a windy day.
The stove is rated for 2000 sq ft and does a good job at keeping it warm. On the single digit nights I get up in the night to load more wood in it. I plan to build a water tank to set behind it to preheat the water before going to the electric water heater. It also serves as a cook top stove or an oven. Cooked many of times on it.

The Oslo wood stove works best at 400deg to 600 deg.(surface temp) It has a secondary burn chamber in the top of the stove. There are 3 lengths of pipe about 1 1/8” dia. With holes drilled on both sides the length of the pipe. Once the heat is going, most of the flames are in the top of the stove and blue flames exiting all the holes in the pipes. It nearly looks as if it was on propane. It’s pretty cool stuff.

I have the stove setting on the hearth of the fireplace and using the chimney for the flue. The chimney is lined with a 6” stainless liner along with a cap. There is a large amount of space around the liner in the old chimney. I was going to fill that with vermiculite to insulate the liner but I have no problem with creosote building up.

The main thing with wood stove is to keep them hot. Get you a magnetic surface thermometer so you can see what your stove is doing. Mcmaster Carr online has a good one. It has three hands- one to show actual temp, one to show the hottest temp and another to show the coldest. It even helps to see what your stove is doing while you sleep. I’m not familiar with your stove, you might want to know what your max temp is.

Keeping your stove burning hot, you will have less creosote build up in the flue.
Keeping your flue hot you will have less creosote. When the hot gasses meets cold surfaces or air they turn to liquid- creosote. That is why your top screen is “getting plugged”. Hot gasses meeting cold surface and turning to liquid.
If you can discard the screen, do so and just use the cap.
I think the gasses/smoke turn too liquid at 250 deg or lower, I can’t remember the exact.

If you can, store a day/nights worth of wood near the stove to “pre warm” it before loading it in the stove. If the wood is cold or frozen it will absorb all the heat from your hot fire causing the stove to cool and then causing the flue to cool and then causing creosote to build.
I’m not familiar with your available firewood. Do a search for firewood btu rating chart.
Find the wood species that is available in your area. It will give the heat content in million btu’s per cord . The higher the number the more heat it will produce. Remember the highest rated will burn hotter and longer-having less creosote. That is why pine causes creosote, the btu rating is very low. It doesn't produce enough heat to keep the flue hot(above 250 deg) there for when the hot gasses meet the cold flue surface you get a tremendous build up of the creosote.

The last house I had the King style wood burner. I had it in the basement of a two story log house. The air handler of the heating unit was fairly close. I ran another duct from the return side of the unit into a homemade hood over the stove. It did a fair job just by running the fan, but man that stove was a monster and needed to be fed constantly.
Most of my heat from that beast was going straight up -to the ozone.
It depends on how your house is laid out., if your cold air return is close enough, you might be able to tap into it for circulating the heat.

 

[ringer]

I put a modern wood stove from Vermont Castings in my daughter's place up in the mountains. I have a tree trimmer that dumps off 4 cords each year and I rent a hydro splitter for $100. That little stove keeps their house warm and saves them a lot of money. I heated with wood for 7 years in Oregon and had a wood stove that used the existing brick chimney. I would be very careful doing that. We had creosote build up and started a chimney fire that almost burned the house down. It sticks to the firebrick lining. This guy used to take all his trimmings to the dump and just wanted a place to dump the wood for free. Eucalyptus, mesquite and olive. I don't like fir and pine much but if it's free I will use it.

 

[Jezz]

IMO, part of clogging problem is the DF, it is full of creosote. I don't burn any DF. With the trees around our cabin I stick to larch, red fir and white fir. DF is terrible for causing creosote build up in your pipes and with you only having 4" (really small) it compounds the problem. We have 6" pipe in one cabin and 8" in the other.

 

[idnative1948]

Thank you all. Some very good information from folks who heat with wood full time. I tried heating with wood for the first three years we had our second house. Biggest problem was buying wood and ending up with a mix when it was dumped.

 

[drahthaar]

You guys burning hardwoods, just consider yourself lucky to have hardwoods. We don't really have that option.

idnative, just be careful about buying wood. This economy has so many guys out of work, bunches of them are out cutting wood to make a little money, as many of them are cutting green trees and selling it. Make sure you trust them and know what your getting.

 

[Bucnutz.wis]

I have a small corn stove with an LP furnace for backup. No issues, just that corn prices have tripled in the 6 years I've owned it... but still cheaper than LP only, and more user friendly than wood (like pellets)...

 

[mrmedora]

Bird Dog,
That was a great reply. Next home for me will have a Jotul in it. Might be the 600, but you sold me on a brand I was unaware of.

Thanks.