Im about to freeze, a challenging question

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wmhgs

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Oct 24, 2013
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I've read as much as i can on choosing a stove but have factors over my head. Since the 70's we have heated my parents cabin with a cast iron oval wood stove with a door on the top & front (no gaskets) & a crummy kerosene stove that im not sure i put back together right after cleaning. Its a one room cabin on stilts with an open loft. Studs & plywood only & no electricity. Its very remote & hard to get to so i only have one shot at buying the right stove. The cabin is roughly 350 sq. ft.its 16x20 feet but with no wall board insulation, loft etc Im going to buy a stove rated around 1500 sq. ft. about the same size of the one we have. The stove we have leaks bad & we all have a cough after a weekend there. I installed new pipe, burn the right wood, have the chimney 3' past the roof, hoveled the ashes. Its so hot i have to open the windows or barely creating heat.
I know there are a lot of die-hards here for certain brands that i may not get approval from but I still hope for some good advice. I will only use the stove on hunting weekends so spending thousands is not an option. I have about $600 to spend. So far i am looking at the us stove 2000, the older englander, kodiak, etc in the local classifieds, & of course the Vogulzang! durango (new style with secondary burn epa approved) it claims a long burn time & quick warm up. Its gotten so bad we are heating with a propane heater that sits on top of cylinder (not meant to be breathed inside i would guess), but the wind blows right through the place. Long burn time & good draw are the most important factors as i have woken too many times shivering arguing with the others over whose going to get up & start the smokey fire. so does anyone have ideas on what im doing wrong here? The draw has been poor but stove replacement is the final step.
Are the older style englanders, vermont castings etc. really that great, would they serve my needs? We have a whole forest so efficiency only matters to me as want a longer burn time. Or would the US stove 2000 or durango be better?
 
Vermont has had a lot of ups and downs, I would pass on those. Kodiak depends on model some were /are coal units. Coal units generally do not make good wood fired heaters from the stand point of fuel consumed. I have an Englander been happy with it. In your case ( no power ) mass is your friend- radiant and convection heat. Uninsulated space - well then you have to expect massive temp swings. Any of the wood stoves are going to produce a lot of heat in the first third of a cycle, then a reduced amount for another third and a very low amount in the coaling stage. Nature of the burn cycle for all of them.
 
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Any modern stove is going to be an improvement in terms of burn time as those old timers leaked so much air they could really be scary at times, and as you said, would be either HOT or COLD. What kind of chimney are you working with? Sure it's 100% safe? MANY cabins are not. Just something to think about before investing in anything further when it comes to wood burning.

Any thought to putting a propane wall unit in, preferably vented? A couple of 30lb or 40lb tanks would run you for days. After years of fighting with similar problems in a similar cabin, that is what we did and love it.

pen
 
Maybe a trip up with a couple tubes of caulk would tighten the place up so you could use a smaller stove.

Matt
 
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it could just be a combination of too much stove and/or too much air infiltration. Smoke takes the easiest way out, and it's vital that the pressure in the house be greater than the outlet up the stack, and this is particularly important if you are running a cookstove since the exhaust meets many more turns in it's path and even with the bypass open there may be some routed downwards before exiting the stove. Depending too, where the cabin is the leakiest, or if you exacerbate the problem by opening an upper window to let either the heat or the smoke out, you can cause the line of neutral pressure to rise in the cabin (as so would a window or leaks on the leeward side of the cabin (low pressure zone on the opposite side from where the wind is coming from).

Rather than starting with a new stove to solve the issue, which might still give you the same problems especially if you get a stove that is oversized for the space, your first step should be to get the cabin insulated and sealed and even though it seems counter productive or inconvenient, if you do have to open a window, only do so on the same or lower level as the stove, the lower the better and not on the calm side of the cabin, otherwise you have in effect shortened the chimney and stunted it's draught.
 
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Get a steel stove. You will be needing quick heat when you get up there and upon returning from the hunt. Get some rocks or bricks and wall around the stove. This will give you mass, for heat after the fire is out. Best of both worlds, quick and long.
 
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STIHLY DAN said:
Get a steel stove. You will be needing quick heat when you get up there and upon returning from the hunt. Get some rocks or bricks and wall around the stove. This will give you mass, for heat after the fire is out. Best of both worlds, quick and long.
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I agree, it's a cabin & you are not living there. I would want a steel Buck or similar copy. They can be had for well under $300. Keep in mind you're not going to get a overnight burn on one load...you will have to get up and feed it at least once. This is what I have in my shop, a Cuck copy & it can head 30x30 of uninsulated metal building quite well if I stuff it full:
Stove001.jpg


Stove004.jpg
 
How tall is the chimney? If you have poor draft from a short stack, it will continue to be a problem with any stove, although some are better that way than others. It may be a good idea to extend it if necessary.

You have a great wood supply for sure. Be sure, though, that it is well seasoned, especially if you end up with a modern style (EPA) stove, before you burn it.
 
Wow! I have been searching for this kind of info for 5 years since my dad died. We have always used single walled blued or black pipe & believe or not my dad was a pioneer in fire protection engineering. Maybe its cause we are city boys who didn't know any better but the appalician mtn cold is not easy to fight. Ill get insulated pipe & try a downstairs window. The 20# propane tank only lasts a night, too much $ for me & to remote to get a bigger one filled. The cabin is twice as high in the back as the front, the pipe is 13 ft. So is there any burn time or draw benefit to a EPA stove or should I go older steel? With the older guys gone maintance has fallen to me & I appreciate you all taking the time to respond
 

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The upstairs is usually too hot & the downstairs so so, I'm not expecting perfection but anything I can do to help. The draftieness is at the windows.
 

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If uncomfortable draftiness comes from burning, then try to find a stove that you can hook up to outside air for combustion, so called OAK kit. Although an efficient EPA stove will probably require a lot less air than the old stove does and may not be a problem. I still like the idea of OAK in general though.

13' is marginal but could provide enough draft for most stoves. That's all mine is, but for some installations it's not enough. If it isn't you can always add more. Double wall pipe will help.

EPA stove if burn time is a priority. It will cost more than an old used stove but it would be well worth it in many respects, IMHO.
 
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For any stove (even the one you have yet) please observe clearances and floor protection. That looks like pure wood underneath your stove, not like a hearth. And the chair is definitively too close (although I assume that is not there during heating season). However, even the wall may be too close for a pure steel stove.

If you do not want the temp swings and feeding the stove during the time a Woodstock Keystone may be one of your best options. Its catalytic technology and soapstone exterior will give you long burn times and even heat for such a small stove. Sure, it will be out of your budget but you have to think what convenience is worth to you. Much cheaper will be the small Englander NC-13 but that will give you much higher temp swings and probably require a reload during the night.
 
That's how close I sit to stay warm! Ha jk. The chair is not there in winter. The back is 30" & the side is 23. The left side has a cabinet faced in durock but it only 36" high with 23" clearance. I know durock is probably not the correct thing but a brick wall surrounding may be to heavy. The floor has a metal insulated mat that looks like wood. I'm going to measure that stove its medium size I think. I suprised there's not a correct size out there for this cabin but I guess they are made for houses
 
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Yo at least get those packs of plastic with the two sided tape and airtight those windows.
 
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I'd look for a used EPA stove on craigslist if it were me. I see older Lopis etc. a lot on craigslist from people who are moving to pellet/gas and sometimes they let em go for next to nothing.
 
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We didn't want to plastic seal the windows in case the stove leaked smoke, I know pretty pathetic. All the stoves I've seen in pa, md, de craigslist are non epa. Never heard of looks ill keep my eye out for it
 
wmhgs said:
We didn't want to plastic seal the windows in case the stove leaked smoke, I know pretty pathetic. All the stoves I've seen in pa, md, de craigslist are non epa. Never heard of looks ill keep my eye out for it
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EPA stoves are either catalytic in nature (they use a catalyst like your car to help burn up and get extra heat from your wasted heat 'smoke') or have secondary burn technology with a baffle board in the top of the stove and air inlets up there as well that inject air up at the top of the burn chamber.

For a cabin with infrequent use, I'd avoid a catalytic stove.

As for sealing things up,,,,,, With a cabin, go for the new stove first and see how things go. With a small space, often several or many people there, many times drinks consumed, having a place too tight where there is a vessel inside consuming oxygen, etc,,,, being a little loose ain't bad here so long as you aren't waking up with frost in your hair
 
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pen said:
As for sealing things up,,,,,, With a cabin, go for the new stove first and see how things go. With a small space, often several or many people there, many times drinks consumed, having a place too tight where there is a vessel inside consuming oxygen, etc,,,, being a little loose ain't bad here so long as you aren't waking up with frost in your hair
Click to expand...
One more reason to have an OAK.
 
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$600 may or may not be enough for a proper chimney, which is probably where your poor draft and smoky mess is coming from. The single wall pipe is not the thing to use outside. It doesn't retain heat, which is what keeps draft going, and a cold flue adds to creosote buildup. Not to mention that a chimney fire in that pipe setup, with its improper clearances, would be disastrous, or worse. When was the last time you cleaned that pipe? How dry is the wood you are burning in the old stove?

From what you describe, the smoke and coughing and such, the leaky windows are probably the only reason nobody woke up dead. I'd be afraid to go to sleep.

A new stove isn't going to help anything without a new chimney. EPA stoves need good draft to operate properly. And dry wood.
 
Which craigslist (s) are you looking at? I'd bet there are EPA stoves there, maybe more infrequent (I see a lot of older VC and Fisher/Fisher knockoffs up here, but also newer ones, recently I saw an Endeavor with flue for $600).

Don't cheap out on the stove or install. I'd skip going there in the winter rather than risking injury or death by doing an improper installation. Just because it works doesn't mean it's safe or will always work! The Fisher that was here when we bought the place was WAY below clearances (the sides were set into the mortar of the stones surround and the flue had rusted in one spot so they "repaired" it with sheetmetal wrapped around and secured with wire)-no one died and the place didn't burn down, but both could have happened and it might have been us if we had listened to the PO (well, the guy that lived here anyway) and kept it (it was "so nice to heat with, didn't have to turn the boiler on at all").
 
Have to say that those outdoor flues are not legal at all and should be replaced with a proper, insulated class A piping. The stove installation doesn't give me any comfort either. Are the thimbles ad hoc also?
 
Ha! You're right Pen.
I replace the pipe everey few years due to rust & have never see any build up in it. This thread inspired me to come here last night. Clearing the ash out helped a lot but even after the fire was blazing away for an hour the way it should smoke poured out the door when I opened it. It didn't pour out another time I opened it, frustrating. I opened all the windows til it clears up & switched the propane with the window cracked for air. Today ill try to figure out how the kerosene goes back together.
I have been looking on Craigslist in Delaware Maryland and southern pa.
I will get new pipe. One time I disconnected the pipe on the kerosene side at the elbow & the draw was enough to hold a piece of paper. On the wood stove side with the same set up it would hold it then drop it over & over.
 
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