Heating with wood and babies

RoseRedHoofbeats · May 2, 2012

(Not heating with babies. They're too wet.)

Okay, so! I have an itsy bitsy mobile home with the littlest Englander stove. The 2012-2013 will be my third year heating with wood. We are very happy with the 17 and it does a fine job of heating my whole house, I spent this winter in tank tops and shorts.

I've got about a cord and a half left over from half a season of burning 50/50 and a full season of burning 24/7, that I bought in 2010 so it is dry as a bone. I'm planning on getting wood from the same tree service I used last time- it was good quality stuff and nicely dried, and they did 4.5 cords for me for $500 delivered. I WAS going to start on a supply for next year and get some delivered in the round to split, but uh, then I got pregnant with twins. (Anyone wanna take a nice Utah vacation this year and help a girl out?? It's real pretty here in the summer time!) Those who remember me from last year will know I lost a couple of pregnancies, but so far we are all systems go. I'm due December 10th.

I'm the firemaster in the house. I'm home all day, and my husband works long hours, and the 17 isn't exactly a stove you can load up and let cruise, if you know what I mean. I have yet to get a the magical combination of an overnight load that didn't leave the house freezing in the morning, though I did finally end up with some useable coals. However, the small firebox makes it very tricky to take the ash out and leave the coals in. I usually ended up just letting it die overnight, running a space heater in the bedrooms, and then cleaning it out and restarting in the morning.

I am iffy on whether I want to even try and heat with wood this season, or at least after the babies come. I would probably still buy wood and give it an extra year to dry out, like I did last time, but it can get kinda smoky in my house when we first start, especially if someone besides me starts it, and the way the house is set up, air and smoke tends to flow towards my bedroom, where I'll be with the babies. All of my kids have breathing problems- allergies, asthma, etc. The stove hasn't bothered any of them so far, but with newborns it is a different kettle of fish. Not to mention the logistics of running a stove with two tiny nursing twins during the day. I think by fall of 2013, things will be easy going enough that it won't be a problem.

The real problem is that my furnace is kaput. It's 30 years old, and the ductwork would all have to be replaced for it to be safe. That's why we got the woodstove in the first place, because it would have been about five grand otherwise- and quite frankly I'd rather risk the smoke than carbon monoxide poisoning.

It gets COLD here, too. The house isn't insulated for crap and I already did all the weatherstripping and draft reduction I could, and it will still get into the 60s even with the space heater going in my bedroom. In the main living/kitchen area, where the stove is, I've chipped ice off the inside of my windows. (Yes, I should replace them. No, I can't afford to.)

So! My questions are:

1) Does anyone else live in a Northern climate without good central heating?

2) What is the best kind of long-term use space heater to get, that can heat up a 12x12 bedroom well?

3) Anyone wanna chime in with any ideas for how to manage little babies and woodstoves? Besides buy a Kidco wrap-around gate as soon as humanly possible?

4) Would it be worth it to upgrade to a bigger stove? I am leaning towards no, because quite frankly if I run this one at max, I can roast us out of the house without much trouble. Unless I could get a soapstone but at that point I might as well just fix the furnace. I would be worried about underfiring it to keep the house at a liveable condition, especially during shoulder season.

Thanks for all your help!

~Rose

BrotherBart · May 2, 2012

The first basic fact is that if you have smoke in that house you have a chimney problem period. Too short of a pipe. Heated this joint with wood for 30 years and your kids could sleep in the room with the stove and not smell smoke.

Armoured · May 3, 2012

Most importantly, congrats!

RoseRedHoofbeats · May 3, 2012

No, I have a "city boy husband who can't build a fire to save his life" problem. =P When I make the fire there's not any smoke. My chimney is 3.5' from the roof, no peak.

Edited- Well, okay, I don't have a chimney height problem. What else could be the trouble? Total stack height from the bottom of the stove is 14'.

~Rose

Wood Duck · May 3, 2012

How about a bigger stove? A bigger stove would give longer burn times and that would mean fewer opportunities to let smoke into the house, fewer times you'll need to put the babies down to reload, warmer nights. You probably won't burn a lot more wood in a bigger stove, although I bet you'll burn a little more.

mfglickman · May 3, 2012

Congratulations!

Fix the smoke problem. If your babes' lungs are at all susceptible the smoke will be a challenge for them. (3 sets of twins in my family so I'm familiar with teeny tiny pairs of joy!)

Agree with Wood Duck then on looking into a bigger stove. Dunno why but I sleep better with a wood stove than a space heater - electrical stuff scares me.

BrotherBart · May 3, 2012

RoseRedHoofbeats said:
No, I have a "city boy husband who can't build a fire to save his life" problem. =P When I make the fire there's not any smoke. My chimney is 3.5' from the roof, no peak.

Edited- Well, okay, I don't have a chimney height problem. What else could be the trouble? Total stack height from the bottom of the stove is 14'.

~Rose

And the manual that came with that stove states:

"We require a minimum chimney height of 15.0 ft. Chimney systems shorter than this
may not create the amount of draft which is required to operate this wood burning unit."

DexterDay · May 3, 2012

RoseRedHoofbeats said:
No, I have a "city boy husband who can't build a fire to save his life" problem. =P When I make the fire there's not any smoke. My chimney is 3.5' from the roof, no peak.

Edited- Well, okay, I don't have a chimney height problem. What else could be the trouble? Total stack height from the bottom of the stove is 14'.

~Rose

Congrats on the Little ones!

And as BB stated, not only is it not 15'... Your 14' is measured from the "Bottom of the stove". The stove is not part of the stack. So your likely at 12'?? Adding a 3' section and also a Entended roof bracket (anything over 4' above roof line needs one, if higher than that, then one needs installed every 4').

Adding that should help the draft, which will improve the efficiency of the stove itself. It wont make it burn overnight, but it will help with the Smoke and overall burn.

How high above your roofline is the Flue Now?
This is my external flue, but it goes almost 6' above roof line (18' outside, 5' inside) but it shows the Extended Roof Bracket.

dafattkidd · May 3, 2012

Rose, congratulations! May your pregnancy go full term and may these babies be a blessing to you and your husband for a lifetime.

We just had a baby a month ago and it would be very difficult for my wife to run the stove while I'm at work. She was on modified bedrest from just after Christmas until the end of March when the baby came. So we have been burning less wood this year. When it was colder I would load the stove in the morning before work and whoever happened to be at my house helping out would sometimes reload the stove but rarely my wife.

Do you have friends, family or neighbors who can help out? It may worth it to upsize your stove for longer but times. Otherwise maybe consider...pellets !!!

!

Wade A. · May 3, 2012

Rose, per the manual BB quoted, it does look like you are slightly below the mfg. guidelines on chimney height. (BTW, I'm always vague on if that height is measured from the collar of the stove, or to the bottom of the firebox, but nevermind....) It sounds like your fire skills are letting you get away with it, but the only alternative I see to no letting City Boy lay the fire is to extend the chimney height. That is not too involved, or expensive.

As for babies and stoves, I've had two in the house and never did anything special. Every parent has to decide where their comfort level is, and work towards that of course. Mine may be a little more to the "not worried" side of the scale, but there are plenty of people and generations of children who coexisted with wood heaters without any problem. Children have the ability to sense the danger of a hot stove to a high degree.

As for breathing issues, once you take care of your draft issues, the only thing I'd be wary of is when you clean out the ashes. Floating ash particulates do nobody any good, especially children. Clean it out when the stove is still warm and that will suck small ash particles up the pipe.

Why the questions about space heaters? If you are wearing shorts around the stove, and still needing to heat the bedroom, I'd look into moving some cold air down to the stove with a fan and getting a convection loop going. Have you tried that?

Ploughboy

RoseRedHoofbeats · May 3, 2012

...Okay then! I stand corrected. I went and measured to be sure I was remembering right and yes, from stove top to chimney top is about 12'. Roof to chimney cap is 3.5'.

The heat issue is only when the fire goes out at night and it is cold in the morning. It warms right back up once I get it going and I almost always have workable coals in the morning, but it still gets chillier than I'd like with babies. I'm not concerned about running a stove winter after this, 2013-2014, they'll be almost a year old and able to grok the words "NO HOT FIRE BAD", and they won't be crawling and cruising until after this next burning season. With the gate we should be fine.

I am still very skeptical of my ability to work a stove 7-9 months pregnant and with newborn twins, even once we get the chimney issue cleared up. I'm good but I'm not that good, and odds are I'll have to go on bedrest at some point. Plus taking a year to play catch up with my wood supply doesn't sound half-bad. I share your hesitation with the safety of space heaters. I am up a creek in regards to family/friends support, most of them don't know a wood stove from a hole in the ground and the ones that do remember their grandparents' smoke dragon and think I'm nuts. I definitely couldn't have someone come over on a daily basis to help. But, if I fix the chimney, and drill my husband hard on "this is when you move from kindling to small splits to a full-size split, no you cannot just throw the round of oak on there and leave it, STOP TURNING THE AIR DOWN" and so on and so forth, and he gets up early enough to get it started.... that might work. And once the twins are born it's not like we're not gonna be up every few hours anyway. It is a TRICK getting the ash out and leaving enough coals to work with, though.

The only real problem with buying a bigger stove is that my hearth is built for the super low clearances of the 17. It does have two layers of Micore, so that's not the issue, but it's only 4'x3.5'. That's not enough clearance even for the TNC-13. I think anything big enough to add appreciably to the burn time is going to require a bigger hearth. Honestly if I have to buy a new stove AND rebuild the hearth I might as well just shell out to fix the furnace for supplemental heat which solves both the heat and the burn time problem. =P

ETA: Okay, I looked at the manual for the TNC-13, and yes, my hearth is too small. But it did have a schematic for the flue set up, and it says 15' from FLOOR to chimney cap (the 17 manual just says a minimum of 15' chimney). I think extending the chimney would help with draft regardless (we have a LOT of terrible inversions here in the Valley) but I need fifteen feet of *what*, exactly?

Also, I should totally ask for and get that ash can vacuum for Mother's Day, right? =P

~Rose

pen · May 3, 2012

Good luck with the little ones. So long as your pregnancy is normal (no complications) and your splits are of average size, I think you'll make out just fine. That said, make sure you have a back up plan for heat of some sort just in case everything doesn't go as well as it should!

As far as the breathing issues, as everyone else has mentioned, make sure you get that thing drafting appropriately and the majority of potential problems should be non-issues. Adding a few feet of height would be a good thing regardless of the setup. However, once you hit 5 feet above that roof you'll need to add a brace remember! Also, does that chimney go straight from the top of the stove and up through the roof? Or does it make a 90 and go out through the wall, then up? If it goes out through the wall, then you may need more than just a few more feet of chimney.

As far as the breathing, once any smoke issues are handled (through the hubbies education and some extra chimney) make sure humidity is staying in a normal range (not too dry or too moist) and you should be good to go with the kids.

pen

Backwoods Savage · May 3, 2012

Congratulations Rose! Twins!

It does always tickle me when folks make such a big deal out of tending a wood stove before and after the babies are born. Especially when I think back many moons. For example, when I was born, there were already the two parents and 3 kids in the house. The house was heated with two wood stoves and also had a wood cook stove. Mother got along just fine and so did the kids.

As for the safety thing with kids, I had never heard of anyone putting up gates or protection to keep kids away from stoves until I was about 40 years old. Now it seems to be the norm as folks tend to think they can't teach their young ones anything and that includes staying away from the stove. Shoot, the heat is usually enough to teach the children. It is somehow into our systems that heat gets uncomfortable when it gets to a certain temperature. Also, when I grew up almost everyone heated with wood or coal and I know of nobody who ever had a problem with young kids getting burned on the stove and that include me. Well, there was the exception one day that I burned an arm while loading a stove... As for a new stove costing so much, that depends upon your idea of costs. Our soapstone stove can still be purchased for what we paid 5 years ago or less!

You asked:

1) Does anyone else live in a Northern climate without good central heating?

Yes, we live in Michigan and do not have central heating. We have a Woodstock Fireview as our only heat. We burn about 3 cord of wood per year (used to burn 6 cord or more with our old Ashley stove).

2) What is the best kind of long-term use space heater to get, that can heat up a 12x12 bedroom well?

A ceramic heater would do the trick nicely. We have a Pelonis ceramic heater (the first ones that came on the market) and I remember a couple times we had to be away during the winter. We sat one in the kitchen and then stocked the stove up as good as we could. Two days later we came home (temperature in the teens) and the house was around 50 degrees. These little heaters do not take gobs of electricity to run and they are very safe. If tipped over, they shut off automatically.

3) Anyone wanna chime in with any ideas for how to manage little babies and woodstoves? Besides buy a Kidco wrap-around gate as soon as humanly possible?

See above.

4) Would it be worth it to upgrade to a bigger stove? I am leaning towards no, because quite frankly if I run this one at max, I can roast us out of the house without much trouble. Unless I could get a soapstone but at that point I might as well just fix the furnace. I would be worried about underfiring it to keep the house at a liveable condition, especially during shoulder season.

The Fireview is a bigger stove and it would keep you warm all night. There is truth to the "soft heat" thing. We do keep our house warmer than most folks because that is where we need it for comfort. If you come to our house in the winter months, expect it to be in the 80's. That would be very nice with newborns.

Underfiring it? The Fireview is a cat stove, which means you can run that thing on a low setting without concern about gunking things up so long as you have good wood. Good dry wood is the key to running any stove the way it should run. You might find it interesting that our chimney is shorter than yours and shorter than the manufacturer recommends. We have no problem and the chimney stays nice and clean. Well, we have cleaned it once. Put it up 5 years ago.

DianeB · May 3, 2012

http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garde...000357392&track=pspla&kw={keyword}&adtype=pla

Rose - pick up an infrared box heater - they work great. Turn it on when you go to bed. You could also use it if you did not feel well enough on any given day to work the stove. This one at the link is $249, but I think you can find them cheaper now elsewhere.

My kids were newborns and babies growing up with a stove - the old non-EPA type and they had no respiratory problems and they learned about "hot" We had no accidents. I was able to manage the stove during pregnancy and after but stopped doing the wood carrying - hubby had to take that on. I could lift pieces and put them in the stove once they were placed nearby - but I stopped carrying wood up the steps to get it in the house.

RoseRedHoofbeats · May 3, 2012

I'm not worried about safety- the only reason I'd even bother with a gate is we had CPS called on us after my daughter burned her hand. Yes, that is completely ridiculous, but there you go. She has never had a problem with it and it truly was an accident- the stove hadn't been burning for a few hours and she was helping me sweep the hearth, and it wasn't hot enough for her to feel the heat and she put her hand against it when she lost her balance. It wasn't a bad burn at all, and the case was dismissed out of hand, but I'd like to avoid any more social workers in my house.

The only real reason I am worried is logistics about having two nursing newborns. With my daughter I spent about the first six weeks in bed recovering, nursing, and sleeping and that was just one baby. I do not have easy pregnancies or births. I was on complete bedrest for six weeks and twins are more likely to come early. If we have to have them spend any time in the hospital especially, we will want a supplemental source of heat because it's likely neither of us will be home at all during the day and I don't want to have to heat the house back up from 30 degrees. And having a C-section, which I'm also at higher risk for (this whole twins thing is so much fun! Don't get me started on the fact that I have to get a MINIVAN...) would make it VERY hard to keep up with a stove. I want to have a good backup option in case the stove just doesn't happen this year. I'll use it as much as I can for as long as I can, but I am just not feeling it is gonna happen 24/7. Plus, it gives me a year to catch up on my wood. The ceramic heater sounds like they would be great, thanks!

It doesn't really seem worth it to upgrade my stove, especially rebuilding my hearth (I don't know if the trials and tribulations I went through building that thing are on here, but seriously, I will shoot someone before I touch a bag of grout again) when this is really a temporary problem, and I might end up in a situation where any woodstove is not feasible to rely on as my sole heating source.

Though hey, at least we identified the chimney problem! =P

~Rose

BrotherBart · May 3, 2012

Our backup heat in this barn is a DeLonghi oil filled electric radiator heater in each of the eight rooms and one in the basement should we need to keep pipes from freezing. Haven't ever had to heat the entire house with them but did do it for a day for a test in 30 degree weather and they get it done. I just got electric bill scared and finally fired the wood stoves. You have to make sure you know what is on what electric circuit in your house. With any electric space heaters you use. But the tool to identify which outlet is on which breaker is cheap.

Blue Vomit · May 3, 2012

RoseRedHoofbeats said:
I'm not worried about safety- the only reason I'd even bother with a gate is we had CPS called on us after my daughter burned her hand. Yes, that is completely ridiculous, but there you go. She has never had a problem with it and it truly was an accident- the stove hadn't been burning for a few hours and she was helping me sweep the hearth, and it wasn't hot enough for her to feel the heat and she put her hand against it when she lost her balance.

~Rose

Congrats Rose, we have twins in the family, they are something special, just like all children.
You hit the nail on the head with the quoted post above. Hearth gates are for accidents. Kids have accidents... Period. I'll pay $100 any day to prevent my kids from getting burned by accident. I teach my kids to stay away from the stove all the time, unfortunately, all the training in the world can't prevent a freak unfortunate accident. It doesn't make them bad kids, it doesn't make us bad parents, that's why they call it an accident. For that, I'll pay $100. Call it added insurance.
Good luck

wkpoor · May 4, 2012

I have 2 kids 7 and 12. Both are being raised with a wood stove. Neither as toddlers had a single issue with the stove. Its now that they are older that they are doing stupid things like coming in out of the cold and setting mittens on it or standing to close with nylon snow suits. At least the touch up paint dries fast on a warm stove hehehehe.

f3cbboy · May 4, 2012

Congrats on the twins. my wife and i had ours 9 yrs ago on 12/8.
Gotta do what works for you. we waited i thnk until the kids were 4 to get a stove, but in hindsight i really dont think it would have been an issue. we were wakin them up feedin em every 3 hrs. (unreal i know) ours came 7 weeks early. coulda easily fed the stove - had to go past it to get to the kitchen for bottles.

dafattkidd · May 4, 2012

Reading the rest of this thread and I'm thinking it makes sense to keep your existing stove and get space heaters like BrotherBart said. I think a couple of little oil filled electric heaters is a low cost solution. Have your husband build fires whenever he's around and pack it before he leaves, then turn the electric heaters on if you're not up to loading it. Then when he gets home he can start another fire. This way you're really only running the electric units for a few hours per day. You can even set them to a thermostat so they can kick on when the room hits a certain temp. Hope that helps.

TradEddie · May 4, 2012

Congratulations. It's worth remembering that generations of people did not "get along just fine" with open fires and pot-belly stoves, many, many kids were seriously burned or worse. I heard once that burns and scalds were the second highest cause of death among children in Victorian London Although I'm not particularly paranoid about potential dangers around the house, there have been several serious incidents with stoves and fires in my extended family,so when my kids came along, the insert was made physically out of reach. I used a conventional free-standing metal fireplace screen in front, and constructed side guards from expanded metal and aluminum, spray painted black, $45 total, cheaper than an ER co-pay. It's a minor inconvenience to lift the guard away to reload, but my kids are 7 and 8 now, and the guard usually still stays in place. Two energetic boys chasing around the house on a cold winter day is not unusual, and all it would take is one slip.

TE

dafattkidd · May 4, 2012

Kidco hearthgate has proven to be a priceless product. My insert is in the room we are in the most, and my son is full of energy. So this has worked out great for us.

wkpoor · May 4, 2012

dafattkidd said:
Reading the rest of this thread and I'm thinking it makes sense to keep your existing stove and get space heaters like BrotherBart said. I think a couple of little oil filled electric heaters is a low cost solution. Have your husband build fires whenever he's around and pack it before he leaves, then turn the electric heaters on if you're not up to loading it. Then when he gets home he can start another fire. This way you're really only running the electric units for a few hours per day. You can even set them to a thermostat so they can kick on when the room hits a certain temp. Hope that helps.

Backup plan is a good thing. We have a propane furnace but haven't used it in many a year. This past winter I was on the road alot so I decided we might need back up heat. I went out and got a 100lb cylinder and hooked it up. Luckily the furnace still worked. Didn't even use one bottle worth the whole winter. Ended up being pretty cheap back up plan.

Chettt · May 4, 2012

Rose just be safe. Portable electric heaters, a wood stove and newborns is a handful for anyone. Would finding an apartment with gas and electric included in the rent be an option for a couple of years?

RoseRedHoofbeats · May 4, 2012

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh, you're funny. Heeeeee. *wipes tears*

Rental prices for a two bedroom apartment are over 1000 in Salt Lake. Not including any utilities. That's assuming we could even find one. And that would involve somehow magically get out from under this place, which we're about 70 grand upside down on. We bought it at the peak of the bubble in 2007 before anyone though real estate prices would go down ever and we were paying a fortune in rent.

If I can't handle setting the thermostat on a ceramic heater, something else has gone terribly, terribly wrong. =P

~Rose

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