New guy looking for stove advice.

Hi - I am new to the forum and pretty new to wood burning stoves in general. I recently bought an old house - built in 1922 - and my wife and I are in the process of essentially gutting it. The house is approximately 1400 sq ft., 3 bdr ranch and was EXTREMELY energy inefficient. During the demo process we have found numerous reasons why, the fireplace being one of many.

We are talking about replacing the existing gas fireplace with a woodburning stove. We hated the configuration of the existing fireplace. It was WAY too big, took up too much room in a small house, my wife hated the brick, and as it turns out, a lot of the infrastructure behind the brick had been damaged by fire anyway, so it's all going to go. Our current thought process is to have the existing old chimney lined, and then replace the old fireplace with a woodburning stove, cover over the mess properly, make it look nice, and be done with it. I have attached a photo of the living room as it looked just before demo started. If I can later I will post pics of the fireplace now that all the brick has been pulled out so you can see the damage done.

We anticipate using the stove to supplement our gas heat and reduce our needs during peak winter months. I don't know if the stove would be burning all day every day, but I anticipate using it a lot. (I have had traditional fireplaces all my life and am no stranger to splitting wood.)

We looked briefly at stoves, but the truth is, I don't know anything about them - who makes a good stove, how they should be installed, what do they cost, etc. My wife and I have our eye on a used stove that is for sale locally, but I would like to do some research on it before I do anything. It is a
Sierra Hearthstove Classic Turbo-Burn Model 2000T. Since it is an old stove (I am guessing this from the company history) I assume it to be non-catalytic.

If anyone feels like offering input/opinions - on Sierra stoves, on the configuration, on my plans for the house, anything - I would appreciate the help. I would like to do this right.

Thanks very much.

OK... I actually read these and took notes, so let me try to address some questions now, and then I'll post pictures and a layout later (layout might come tonight...)

First off... I live in Wyckoff, NJ. Northeastern corner of the state, very close to NY state line. Winters CAN be cold, but then again, I can also have winters like this past one, in which I was spray painting outside in January with no problems (it was 60+ degrees for a long stretch.)

Second... budget. Budget is expandable but low. We're trying to keep expenses to a minimum wherever possible, hence poking around the used market (owner only wants $300 for the stove, which seemed like a really good price...). The budget is not, however, so small that I am going to do stupid things or cut corners. I'm either going to do this right, or I'm not gonna do it. I am going to try to do as much work by myself as possible, but when I get into things that I feel would be unsafe if done wrong, I am 100% willing to consult and/or pay a professional. I am lucky in that my dad is a retired P.E., so he is a useful resource of information about structural matters.

Side note of potential interest: I may not be in this house terribly long. My wife's job was initially going to move her to Bridgewater NJ and we were looking at houses in the Allentown PA area. May still happen, but it's on the backburner right now. 2-3 years though, and I might be moving on. It's also entirely possible I may live here for the next 20 years.

Next: Firewood. I am among the lucky few who has virtually unlimited access to free firewood. I have a big piece of property in rural PA that is mostly woods, and every year I get ample ice storm blowdowns, lightning strikes, sometimes the things just flat out fall down on their own if the ground is wet enough. I *still* haven't finished cutting up the stuff that Hurricane Irene left me. On top of that, there are several trees in my yard here in NJ that are coming down. Unfortunately, a lot of them are spruce, and I hear varying opinions on whether or not this can/should be burned inside. Since I have an outside fireplace though, I'll be keeping the spruce as well. My parents also just had a couple of decent maples taken down, so I'll take that too. Translation: I'll be up to my eyeballs in firewood.

Firewood is something I don't consider myself to be especially knowledgable about though. Dry vs. wet, how long it takes to get there, how best to store it, etc. So, feel free to inform me.

Now, about my living room. Basically rectangular. Front door of the house is on the short wall (you can see it in the photos I posted - it's the crappy white one with the mailbox slot). On the far short wall (also visible in some pictures) you can see where there used to be a window, and we will be putting a window back in there again. The approximate dimensions are 25 feet wide by 13 deep. The fireplace is on the long side. The picture you see above was taken before I started working. It doesn't look ANYTHING like that anymore. That brick hearth and wall are looong gone. We've taken the whole thing down to the studs, and the ceiling out as well, as we are likely going to be vaulting the ceiling in that part of the room. Skylights, and a ceiling fan, are in the plans as well. The flooring is coming out as well (hardwood) and we'll likely pull up the original subflooring from 1922 and replace it with plywood so we can level the floor out correctly. The hardwood may go back in if we can salvage it, but some kind of hardwood floor will be in there.

The gas insert was placed into an existing brick/masonry fireplace. There seems to have been a fire in the house that started in the fireplace. Removing the brick wall revealed scorched woodwork behind it - all the studs are scorched if not flat out burned, and the whole mess was replaced in an extremely shoddy fashion. This is where pictures are really going to have to tell the tale. A big part of the reason we started seriously talking about a WBS was this fire damage - it seems far less likely to repeat itself if the fire is properly contained in a stove. The strange thing about this fire damage is that you would think the brick work and the gas insert was done as a result of the fire... but, the backs of many of the bricks that were near the old fireplace are scorched, so I can't really tell when the brickwork reno was done. I do know the room has been redone several times, because I took down at least 4 layers of sheetrock from the walls and ceiling. There was a construction permit filed for the house in 1990 that said "repair of fire damage", so there is no question that some part of the house burned.

We would like to get the WBS placed as far back into the existing masonry chimney as possible to save space in the living room. Since the existing brick hearth is now gone, the fireplace is suspended about 2 feet off the floor, and I'm hoping to pull out the masonry underneath the gas insert, get it down level to the floor, and place the WBS there, inside the existing cavity as much as possible. The exhaust pipe as envisioned would simply go straight up the existing brick flue. I guess it will probably have to be lined, but I know zero about that. There is combustible wood (obviously) near the fireplace and I don't know what the requirements are for clearance, but if I can maintain the existing masonry chimney as much as possible, maybe that will reduce my needed clearance? Since the floor is getting ripped up, putting in proper floor protection certainly isn't going to be a problem, and any ideas on that would be welcome. I kinda envisioned some nice tile, but I'm not sure if that qualifies. Again, pictures will tell this tale way better than I can.

I don't necessarily envision overnight burns, but I guess the ability to do so wouldn't kill me. My only concern about this is as follows: My house in PA has a WBS, and it is quite effective. However, if you load the stove up to get it burning long into the night, it produces so much heat that even in the winter the house can actually get so warm that it becomes impossible to sleep. I don't want to duplicate that here in this house. The PA house is a much smaller house though, I'd say under 1000 sq ft.

I'll find some photos of the living room post destruction and post them with this.

In the picture where you can see where I started removing the brick wall next to the window, you can see the beginnings of the blackened fire damage in the ceiling and wall above the fireplace insert. The close up of the brick hearth being taken out shows you the width of the old hearth (and the height); it was basically about two standard bricks wide, and seven standard bricks high.

Is it crazy to ask if anyone can ID the stove in this photo on the extreme right?

Joful - that setup you have in your avatar, with the doors in front of the stove... me likey.

I have "the sickness". If something looks broken, I have to fix it. I can't help it.