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Wood heat, the good, the bad and the ...

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: 2005 Sep. ~ Nov.: Wood heat, the good, the bad and the ugly. users admin

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Memorx
Member

10-21-2004

Sunday, October 09, 2005 - 12:03 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Memorx a private message Print Post    
Ok I am just looking for ideas, opinions and basically anything of interest on the subject, good or bad. Just a little background. I do have a earth pellet/corn stove and have used it off and on for several seasons, but last year the pellet supply in my area simply dried up for a while. I was forced to use gas for the rest of the season.

This year I am looking at making a change to regular wood, for a couple of reasons. While the pellet stove was easy, leaving very little ash to deal with and usually only just dumped in a bag of pellets once a day and forgot it, pellet prices are on the rise again and the second drawback is, no electricity, no heat. Our power has went off a few times during ice storms in the winter, so that is a concern.

I have a friend who uses a "wonderwood" stove made by u.s. stove and he says he loves it, while i have read some differing opinons on the net.

So if any of you have any expierence in the wood heat area and you would care to share your opinions, I welcome them. My wife of course has a concern about the mess, dust and other problems that may arise due to using wood for heat. Any good advice?

Jmm
Moderator

08-16-2002

Sunday, October 09, 2005 - 12:10 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Jmm a private message Print Post    
When we lived in Michigan, most of our heat was from two woodburning stoves. My only problem with it was that I had two little girls at the time and it was a constant worry that one of them would fall into the stove. It did happen once, but luckily she just burned the inside of her wrist a little.

I found it to be a very warm heat and it had the advantage of, when the electricity went out, we were also able to cook in pans on top of the stove. It really wasn't a messy heat, our stoves drew well and I quickly learned to bank the fire at night and all it took was a stir and add more wood to get it going again the next morning. All in all I enjoyed using the wood stoves and only turned on the gas furnace when it was absolutely bitter cold at night (the bedrooms were too far from the stoves on really cold nights).

Wargod
Moderator

07-16-2001

Sunday, October 09, 2005 - 12:46 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Wargod a private message Print Post    
We love our wood burning stove (when the kids were tiny, we put up a little fence around it until they were old enough to know not to go near it.) Ours is in the den so we don't feel the heat from it anywhere else in the house, but we spend a lot of time in the den so it works out. Wood is a very warm heat, sometimes warm enough we have to crack a window or the back door open a bit to let some of that heat out. What we really like is that during the winter, we don't have to turn the living room gas heater on unless we're spending time in there. Then all we do is set the thermostat for 72. We do have to use the gas heater in the hallway all night though. The bedrooms get icy cold and if we don't turn it on we'll be freezing all night long.

The ash is a pain in the neck though. Hubby usually cleans it out early in the morning when the kids are still sleeping (our daughter is asthmatic and it's just not worth the risk of her having problems to wait til later in the day to do it.) He throws on a face mask to avoid irritating his allergies. Even though it's a pain to clean out with everyones allergies, it's still very worth it. We save quite a bit of money during the winter by not using the living room gas heater too often.

And thank you for starting this topic! I need to remind the hubby it's time to start bringing firewood up to the house again.

Kaili
Member

08-31-2000

Sunday, October 09, 2005 - 6:25 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Kaili a private message Print Post    
My mom has the main heating one in the basement (along with all the wood)- that one heats the house great and the other is in the living room. I love sitting in front of it in the wintertime. The only thing I don't love is how dry the air gets sometimes, but yeah- like Jmm said!

My aunt has the same set up. My grandpa did too but his upstairs was just a fireplace and the house was huge so it was supplemented by oil heat. Old house.

Tabbyking
Member

03-11-2002

Sunday, October 09, 2005 - 12:46 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Tabbyking a private message Print Post    
where we live now, you cannot put in a woodburning fireplace and if you sell your house, you have to put in a gas one (which we fortunately did 2 years ago, just because we knew our area was getting strict on non-burn days). even pellet stoves are banned.
where we are moving, we are above 3,000 ft, so we can use our woodburning stove. we have a woodburning stove in the main house and a pellet stove in one of the garages.
i was getting pretty used to the simplicity of pushing a button and having the house get warm, without having to buy wood, stack it, bring it in during storms, and fighting it to get it lit! wood burning fireplaces are prettier, though, because with our gas one, we just have one set way the fake logs lie and it never changes!
more and more areas are banning wood-burning stoves, so i am glad we changed over ours to gas when we did...otherwise, we would have to sell the house as having a 'non-working' fireplace, because new owners cannot burn wood.
i think there were 20-some days last year where you could not use a woodburning or pellet stove--of course, those are the coldest days!
this year, they are just outlawing their use totally.

Teachmichigan
Member

07-22-2001

Sunday, October 09, 2005 - 2:44 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Teachmichigan a private message Print Post    
Tabby-- are you referring to the big wood burning stoves that are set up outside the home, connected to ductwork, and will take chunks of wood between 4 and 6 feet long? Or are you just referring to regular old woodstoves that you have in your house? If it's the latter, WHY are they banned? They're cheap, they're efficient, they can keep a house warm when electicity is out (especially important with a baby), AND they provide exercise w/all the chopping, stacking and hauling!

We have a pellet stove and love it -- less ash, no hauling, stacking, etc. But if I couldn't have pellet, I'd definitely go w/a woodstove.

Memorx
Member

10-21-2004

Sunday, October 09, 2005 - 9:45 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Memorx a private message Print Post    
Thanks for the great info and replies. I am suprised that they have banned pellet stoves anywhere. My pellet stove is made by Earth stove and you would have to look real hard to even see a puff of smoke come from the exhaust of it. It is just so efficient that its unbelievable. A 40 pound bag of pellets will not even leave but maybe a cupfull of ash to remove, if that.

I wish I could keep it, but I do need something capable of heating during power outages. I did purchase a wonderwood stove today, which I like for a couple of reasons. it has an outer metal skin around the fire box, so while it can get hot to the touch, its not likely to cause any serious burns if some were to touch or accidently fall into it. It also has a flip up top on the outer skin, giving access to the flat top of the fire box, which can also be used to cook on if needed. I hope it does well and will post my thoughts on it once we get into the heating season and I get a better idea of how well it really does. Thanks again for all of the comments as I found them most helpful and they have made me feel much more at ease about my decision.

My friend uses a "magic heat" on his as well, which is a device that hooks into the stove pipe and reclaims some of the heat that goes out the chimney. It has a thermostatic cotrolled fan on the back which forces air out though some small tubes when the chimney temp reaches a certain point. He claims that it puts out nearly as much heat as the stove itself, when you are burning medium to high fires and is rated at 8,000 to 30,000 btu, which is in addition to the stoves output. They sell for about $129.00, so I may try one of them as well.