I have a 1700 sq feet house with propane water and heat. One end of my house stays cooler than the other. My propane bill is expensive. I have a fireplace insert.
In order to put in a stove I think I would have to replace the chimney pipe.
Is this hard? Would switching to a wood burning stove be worth it?
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JD
Kinda depends on how much wood costs. If you can cut your own, on your own piece of land, and don't mind all the time and labor, it's worth it. But if wood is only available from a seller you will need to figure out how much wood you will need and at what cost. Different wood has different heat value so it pays to pencil it out. ERS
I'm heating my house now from waste wood from a local woodworker. My cost for a stove and pipe was about $100 and I've made that back in the 2 years that I've had the stove. The stove puts out a lot of heat and I've had two warm house winters so far. Nice having 80 degree inside temps when it is freezing outside! One problem tho is that you need to get up in the middle of the night to restock the stove if you are living solely on that heat. If you do the stove (you need to seal off the interface between a brick fireplace and the insert) thing then use it to keep the house warm during the day and evening and leave the propane heater to maintain heat at night when you can live with a much cooler house. You will also want to have a small fan to blow the air about the house. In addition, a fan blowing on the insert or through it will also keep the efficiency of the insert up.
-- Bob May Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. Works every time it is tried!
I have heated with wood for over 30 years now and would heat my house no other way permitting I have the health and capability to cut and split my own wood. I have total electric, so its used only if necessary, which probably has not been but a few hours in years and years. I turn on the electric once each season just to burn off accumulated oint etc and make sure its working, and thats it until the next year. I have my own woodsplitter, adn obtaiing wood certainly is not an issue, I try to keep as much wood cut split and stacked as possible (3 or 4 years worth on average) at all times, for those times that you just run into things you did ot expect and it hinders you from getting wood. I am now looking at probably having a few extra years woprth of wood once I get all the trees cut uip that old Ivan either took allthe way down or forced me to finish taking down.....27 at last count of oak in the 18 to 30 inch diameter most of them 26 or so inches in diameter and huge........I have a heap of pines to cut up and remove as well but it will nbot be used for firewood.
You would be better off with a free standing wood stove as they are much more efficient than any insert. You can but a chimney liner made of titanium and stainless that is one piece corrugated that is easily snaked down an existing chimney. Its called homesaver II. Kind of pricey but it carries a lifetime warranty and is the only one that states no chimney fire is capable of hurting it. If you have a triple pipe system now or an old masonaryt chimney this stuff will work perfect to insert inthe old flue opening. Its important to match ytour stoves recomended flue size to the chimney. A large or even 8" sq masonary chimeny is not is not as good as a sized insulated homesaverII system is.
Having your own wood splitter and chainsaw and also a good source for your wood is a big plus. I especially like the 4o or so dollar electric bills in the fall and winter and early spring.Hate to think what it would be if I had to use the total electric heat system....... Visit my website:
Speaking of wood splitters, anyone interested in seeing the pics of one I built 30 years ago? Any interest I'll post them to the drop box, or give a link.
YES. Please. Thanks, ERS
I have an uncle with about 40 acres of woods where I can cut all I want.
The main deal is the cost of the stove, replacing my chimney pipe with a double insulated type, and the mess carrying in wood and taking out ashes would cause.
How hard would it be to replae the chimney pipe?
Considered a pellet stove yet ?
If you go with wood heat, I will GIVE you a limitless supply of kiln-dried hardwood. You only have to haul it home. Hope you're close to Cleveland!
I think you need to consider the whole program.
1) do you have a truck to haul the wood? 2) do you have a chain saw to cut the wood? 3) do you have a splitting maul and a strong back to split the wood? 4) do you have a place to store the wood to let it dry? 5) are you willing (and capable) to work numerous summer days to cut the wood, stack the wood, split the wood, etc?My point is there is more to this than installing a wood stove and stuffing wood in it.
I helped do this as kid because my grandma burned wood. My sister still has a wood burning fireplace and I see them burn a wheelbarrel full of wood each day. Oh, don't forget you got to clean out the ashes and dispose of them too.
chuck
Its best to cut your wood and split it in the winter or fall when its not as hot out, and stay at it and get at least a year or two supply ahead of what you think your gonna need. I hate to th ink abaout cutting wood in the summer in my area, but folks and I have done it.
If you have to spend a half a day on the road just hauling it, it sno gonna be too feasible. I have seen firewood sold in this area anywhere from 125 to 250 bucks for a cord of seasoned oak and hickory....I have seen it at double that price in Nevada and Arizona. But for the most art if you look you can usually find all the wood you want for free around here.
I started with a maul and a wedge, and it did not take but 2 or 3 years of that mess to convince me a log splitter was needed if I intended to keep heating with wood, as well as a good chainsaw if I want to cut wood without having problems each time I used the saw.....but once you get a process down its not as bad as it may seem. Visit my website:
If you have a flue opeing of 8" or so, using that flexible corrugated Homesteader or homesaver II flue liner pipe is a peice of cake. Most wood burners are 6" flue openings, and rarely get over 8" in diameter. Its important to match your chimney flue to the woodstove for best performance. Visit my website:
Then your hooked to a supplier and the prices they decide to charge. I have seen pellets increase 100% in cost over just one winter season.......my wifes cousin has a pellet stove and just as soon as they can afford it, its going and a plain old cast iron Vermont Castings wood stove is going to be installed. Visit my website:
I can get a 13 to 15 hour burn on a firebox full of wood. so we fill it in the morning, and agaian before we go to bed. I can let the fire go over a weekend and have it damped off, and just have a handfull of coals left 2 days later and can have a raging inferno in a matter of minutes with my stove. Most of the air tight stoves today have pretty decent burn times. Your right about nice and warm inside.....I can melt my shingles off the roof sometimes the wife has it so hot, and all the windows open to boot, just letting all the fresh air come in.............Really need a humidifier though or a pot with wate ron it, as wood heat will definately dry out your sinus's and any wood furniture.
I use a Vermont Castings Dutchwest cast iron stove. Has a cataalytic combuster on it, which is super in regards to pulling lots of heat out of the firebox before it goes up the stack. My firebox temps run approx 450 to 650 deg, and my heat output with the catalytic combuster on reaches in the areas of 1600 to 1800 degrees.....but my flue pipe temp has never gone over 350 deg.Its a very efficient stove. I heat
1800 sq ft, plus open the door to my attached garage and it takes the chill of the shop as well. I only have to empty my ashes once per week (dump em in the garden or compost pile) and opnce we usually light the stove up for the first time it stays burning 24/7 until we finally shut it down at the end of the heating season... Visit my website:
Good points, Chuck. There is a way he can do it just installing the stove and stuffing wood in it, though. Buy the wood cut, split and delivered. I guess you do have to stack it.
We live in Maine (i.e. we use hardwood). The house we bought last summer has wood heat with backup electric. I compared what it would cost to use wood vs. propane. With dry wood delivered, cut to length and spilt, wood was about 3/4 the estimated cost of propane heat (plus we would have had to buy a heater). Oil heat was maybe 3/4 the price of wood (delivered). We stayed with wood.
Sure, I could save a few bucks cutting and splitting logs myself, but I have lots better things to do with my time.
Steve Smith
Not me..........
I can burn wood if need be--but I mostly use heat pumps, being in the pacific northwest where the climate is mild and the electricity rates are fairly low......
Comes down to the heat source in any circumstance, I recently put in a water source heat pump--cooling the house and rejecting the heat into the swimming pool, that process is reversed in winter in the few times where the air source drops too low and the air source heat pump ceases to work effectively.
Still considering putting in a heating coil and storage tank onto the woodstove so I can buffer that source--otherwise, the well water works just fine out of the ground at 55 degrees F.
I have over 10,000 sf to heat in winter, combining the house and shop, so dont you try and tell me how to I should do it........
I have studied the situation in great detail and have come up with with what certainly seems to best for myself....
YOU dont know how much money I make, nor do you know how much I enjoy or not the heating with wood....what with all the work and mess it makes, and however cheap it might be for me to cut my own wood here on the estate, or on some other landholdings I have.
Untill now, and far as I know, you have had no info on where I live or the costs of the various fuels in my area.
I will grant that wood IS cheapest in $$$, the last study I heard of, but see I got several barrels of waste oil I need to use up soon too........and so although I dont usaully fire up the woodstove much at all these days, I gather heavy oil is worth something around 120,000 btu per gallon--for a 1 gallon per every 2 hour burn, that supplies about same heat as the heat pump would when working in more favorable outrside air temps......just something to consider when the temps here dip into 35 deg F or so as they occasionally in the winter.......
I live in a 2184' two-story (including basement) in SW PA which is an old farm house (walls not insulated too well) and the first year we lived here (1977) went through $1000 of heating oil.... oil fired hot-water heat. Installed wood burner and have since upgraded to a larger one and have been cutting/splitting/ stacking wood ever since. I have a shed built under my deck which holds about 13 cords of wood and admittedly, there are a few winters where we don't burn it all. We both work and the oil fired system will run a few times throughout the day and we fire up when we get home and burn it all night long. We won't burn the wood burner when we aren't here (safety concerns). Oil bill has dropped to about $300/year (but that's including the price increase over the years). Have a truck, trailer, good saw, 24T logsplitter and still good-enough health to keep doing it. I feel that it not only saves me money but that the house is considerably more comfortable burning the wood. I use a 30 gallon galvanized trash can for the ashes and only get about 1-1/2 trashcans throughout the winter - so the ashes aren't really a problem. I try to burn only oak, cherry, locust. The wood burner is piped into the brick chimney going up through the center of the house, brick stays warm, so creosote has not been a problem. Wood burner burns hot enough also to help eliminate the creosote problem. I also built a "heat-exchanger" of sorts from the hot water heating system by using a copper piping gridwork over top of the wood burner to capture some of the heat and use the circulator pump on the furnace to circulate the warmed water throughout the house.... also lets the oil-fired system work a little easier by "pre-warming" the water. Yeah... it's still work, but I've still got good enough health to gather the wood and let's face it - anything you want - ya gotta work for... Ken (nice and toasty in the winter) Sterling
Well thats just you!
Just what the f*ck does that have to do with the price of coffee in china! I could care lesshow much money you have and how it even enters into the topic of wood heat! Are we bragging here? Thats you and I am me, and each has their own tastes and desires without getting persnickity about it! No one insisted what way to go only suggestions were made and personal experience provided without demands n any way.
And no I don;t and hope its far enough away with an attitude like you seem to display....Oh, its in the NW great catty corner from me, thanks be to god...........Perhaps for you with all kinds of money pellets is the way to go, but I certainly will not pay $12.50 a bag for pellets in my area dude! Thats my experience and what I hear from other pellet stove users in my area, they are locked into what ever prices the local dealer charges according to his whims. In the neighboring state of Georgia I hear they are about 4 to 5 bucks a bag.......but who wants to haul pellets 200+ miles.......not me....but thats just me again, so don;t think I am insisting you have to do it or others as I am sure there are some that will go 200 miles to save $$$$. You come off pretty strong for a simple reply!
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