Head is Spinning

[amkazen]

Hi, I am new to this forum and wow, am I impressed with the knowledge of the folks on this site. I must admit, however, a lot of this is confusing to me. Prior to perusing this forum all I was concerned with was could I get a fire built in my Pacific Energy Serices C Artisan model free standing woodstove. Now, I am full of questions:
1) Is my stove pipe temperature correct?
2) Is the top of the stove hot enough?
3) How do I check the temperature of those areas?
4) Do I run down to Harbor Freight and buy one of those laser temperature readers?
5) Do I get a thermometer and if I get one, do I drill into the pipe and mount it there or does it just sit on the stove top?
6) What kind of wood do I burn? Who the heck knows? I am burning all kinds of garbage wood: 6 yr old, left over 6" Adirondack Classic "D" double tounger & groove cedar logs from the building of the 2nd story of my house; wood pallets from the local concrete block manufacturer, Pinon Pine, Juniper, and Cedar trees from my lot and neighborhood that is both cut down recently and in years past, and we also get free the "cut-offs" from a local saw mill. These "cut-offs" are usualy 16'-20' long and banded into huge bundles that are loaded onto and off the trailer by a back hoe.
7) How come I can't "load" (new use of the word for me in regards to woodstoves) the firebox at 10:00 pm and wake up at 6:00 am to glowing embers?
8) What is a secondary burn and how do I know I do or do not have one, or want one?

I cleaned the woodstove's chimney pipe for the first time this year after 5 winters. There was minimal creosote build up inside the maybe 10' of pipe that goes straight up through the ceiling & roof.

I am thinking that maybe my firebox is not 2 cu. ft. so I can't get an overnight burn. Heck, by 1 am the wood I put in at 10:00 pm is usually gone.

I did find out from this site that a wood stove cannot be placed in a sleeping area. As dumb as it sounds, I had no clue. We have smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and have never had a problem.

So, perhaps someone here can help answer my questions or point me to a post I might have missed that has the answers in basic, easy to understand laymans terms, something like a woodstove 101 class.

Oh, by the way, the only complaint I have about my woodstove is that it does not heat the entire top floor of my house. I think it is because of where we put the stove. We began trying to use ceiling fans differently but so far not much difference, although it did not help to have the fire out this morning when we woke up. I will try to pose a layout of my house later as that might help with getting my existing stove to heat the house better, or the placing of a 2nd stove.

Thanks for all your comments.

 

[begreen]

Prolly the best place to start is watch this video:

http://www.ec.gc.ca/cleanair-airpur/default.asp?lang=En&n=8011CD70-1

A lot of the wood you are burning is super dry and will burn up a lot more quickly than seasoned firewood. Are you dampering down the stove at all?

 

[webbie]

Lots of woodstove 101 around - in fact, we have come to the conclusion here that wood burning IS rocket science.

Actually, it is probably more like Zen (grasshopper, burn some wood and ask questions later).....because when you do it right, it is fairly effortless. Any of this crazy stuff is usually related to those of us with too much time on our hands, retired nuclear physicists and those whose stoves are not working right!

A decent stove, chimney, good fuel and a decent operator are the most important things....well, probably just about the only things. Anyway, there is some good reading on our main information page at the link in my sig......like how to choose a stove, how to tend a fire, etc.

My suggestion on a lot of other topics is to use the google site search box mentioned near the top of every forum page, because it finds those hidden gems deep in the site....

Welcome, and enjoy!

 

[amkazen]

Uh, I went to that video link and just reading the transcript of the 1st few scenes makes me wonder what will happen between the two of them in front of the woodstove further on down the page....

Yes, we dampen the stove down to no less than approx. 50%

 

[thechimneysweep]

Hey Amkazen,

If you measure the actual firebox of your Artisen, you've got 1.44 cu.ft. Due to the East-West loading dictated by the shape of the firebox, I'm betting you can't get much more than about 1 cu.ft. of fuelwood in there. Factor in the less-than-ideal fuelwood you're burning, and the fact that your heating requirements create that you can't turn your draft control down to the "long burn" setting, you're getting about the longest burn time per load that can be expected.

It seems to me you could kill several birds with one stone here by replacing the Artisen with a larger model. PE's 2 cu.ft. Super Series models would put out enough heat to improve your cold bedroom situation, while enabling you to turn down the draft control and hold a fire up to twice as long as you can now.

 

[amkazen]

I was just thinking the same thing: move the Artisan downstairs and replace it with a larger stove. I like the price of the Englander 30-NC. I will check out the model you referenced.

Attached is a very ROUGH layout of my house with VERY approx. room dimensions, although the exterior dimensions are exact. I put an "x" where possibly a new stove could go. I really do not like the idea of a 2nd wood stove upstairs unless it was in the master bedroom area, kind of like making it a separate suite, which it is, but I now know wood stoves in bedrooms are out of the question, or unless it was a pizza oven type of stove. But, I was quoted $6k for a pizza oven so that is out of the question.
Any thoughts on the potential locations downstairs, or thoughts on doing what I am thining..moving the Aritsan downstairs and replacing it with a larger one, like 30-NC, upstairs?

Well, I guess if anyone wants to see the drawing you will have to let me know. I drew it in Microsoft Word but cannot upload a Word doc, nor can I upload a jpg or a tiff file so I do not know how to get that file uploaded here. Let me kow if anyone wants to see it.

 

[begreen]

jpegs should work fine, unless the file size or image size is too large. What happens when you try to post? For instructions, read the sticky note at the top of the Pictures forum for instructions on posting pictures.

 

[begreen]

Going from a 1 cu ft stove to a 3 cu ft stove could put you in the opposite situation, especially if the 1 cu ft was producing adequate heat, just not burn times. How many sq ft in the house? Is downstairs a daylight basement or is this a conventional 2 story house?

 

[amkazen]

I reread the picture upload process in the picture forum and tried unsuccessfuly again.

Here is the error message:
Error Message: The file you are attempting to upload has invalid content for its MIME type.
I created the drawing in Microsoft Word. I then copied the picture into Adobe Photoshop 2.0 and saved it as a jpeg file, and also as a tiff file, and then tried to upload it.

I had to split the Word doc drawing into two jpeg files: one is 32 kb and one is 42 kb so they are below the 350kb max.

Any thoughts?

 

[webbie]

Well, without a long story doing anything in Word pretty much guarantees it to be incompatible with normal stuff.....all kind of malicious codes can be embedded in Word and MS stuff, and also MS tries as much as possible to make it so their created stuff is only read by other people who buy software from them.

But any plain old jpg should and does work.....thousands of them here. I suspect MS put some kind of code in there.

If you want to email me the stuff, I will clean it and send it back. One way to easily do this is just take a screen shot of your pic and then edit that if needed. I upload screen shots here all the time without any editing at all, for instance the one enclosed here. On the Mac (and I suspect in windows also), you can set the type of default screen shot - in my case it is png which is another allowed graphics format.

jpg, gif and png work here, tiffs are usually too large and are not really part of "net" standards.

 

[begreen]

I suspect either the image dimensions are excessive or it is at a high resolution, like maybe 300dpi. If you send it to Craig or I via a PM we can sort it out.

 

[amkazen]

Sent it to Craig via his www site email.

Also just pm'd the Word doc to you

 

[amkazen]

Pics are now attached. Thanks to Craig!
"x" is where I could add a stove, or move the Artisan. I think moving the Artisan to the 1st floor and getting a larger stove for the 2nd is the way to go. But, I am getting comments the Englander 30-NC might be to big to replace the Artisan with so maybe the 13-NC is the way to go (the 13-NC has a slightly bigger firebox: 1.9 vs. the Artisan's 1.4 cu. ft.)
Each bedroom has a ceiling fan, as does the living room. Currently, we have the living room fan on the summer setting and each bedroom on the winter seting, but I have not noticed a big difference in the bedroom temperatures.

 

[crazy_dan]

I do not want to be the bearer of bad news but your stove is as far away from your bedroom as it can be.
what is your stove sized for as the sq ft of the upper floor is about 1700 so it would take a fais sized stove and 1 cubic foot firebox seams too small to me but I am used to old non EPA stoves

 

[amkazen]

I agree about the stove being about as far away as it can be. So, would a different stove work or would it be better to move the upstairs stove more to the center of the house, between the bathroom and the pantry?

And, if I move the stove to the center, what would be be the best solution to the hole in the ceiling and metal Pro-Panel roof where the pipe used to go through? The ceiling is tongue & groove red cedar, which I guess I could splice new pieces into it, but then that would leave the actual roof with a hole in it. I guess I could just leave the stack sticking through the roof unused. Hmmmm...

 

[begreen]

If the stove can legally and safely be installed in the common area location marked with an X it will work pretty well as a heater for the floor. Not perfect, but with the use of a small fan it might work very well. In addition to the Englander, I would still consider the PE Spectrum or Classic. It has an exceptionally long burn time. You might also want to look at the Quad 3100 and 4300 in your search. They are exceptionally clean burning stoves as well as being good heaters and the 4300 is a nice size with a 2.4 cu ft box that is harder to find.

 

[amkazen]

I also was thinking the location upstairs with the "x" in the common area might be a better place for the stove. I will look into the other stoves you mentioned.

As for downstairs in the game room where I have the 2 "x's" next to the pool table are really the only places I can put the wood stove as the floor above has radiant heat pipes in the floor (boiler uses a lot of propane and at $2.52 per gallon...I like my free wood). The radiant floor prevents us from putting any pipe vertical through the floor. Both locations will have to be vented through the wall and then can go vertical.

However, the "x" to the right of the pool table has an overhang (deck off the 2nd story) of approx. 8' above where the pipe would exit from the wall. We could go up through the deck and then enclose the pipe (chimney?).

The "x" to the left of the pool table will also have to go through the wall and then go vertical but at least I would not have to go through the deck.

So, to finally answer all my questions about the location of my stove(s), I guess I need to know the following:
1) Does the pipe from the 1st floor location need to go all the way vertical to above the roof height? I would think it does but I believe I have seen gas stoves vented out through the wall and not have a pipe go up to above the roof line.
2) If the pipe does not have to go all the way above the roof line, can I have the pipe exit out under the 8' overhang? The overhang is covered in stucco and if that is not fire-retardent enough I could always cover the part of the overhang by the pipe exit with another type of fire-proofing.

Thanks for all your help!

 

[begreen]

Sorry, I don't like it. That tall exterior pipe is going to draw poorer and need a lot more cleaning. And having a wood stove next to the pool table sounds like a prescription for an assburn. Maybe consider a pellet stove in the lower part of the house? Or if wood is plentiful and easy, maybe consider a wood boiler add-on and scrap the upstairs stove idea?

 

[amkazen]

Yeah, getting your butt too close to that stove would not be much fun.

I'll look into the pellet stove idea some more.

Let's consider this post closed! THANKS!!