In need of advice on stove placement

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.

yount

New Member
Hearth Supporter
Feb 23, 2009
1
east tn
We need help deciding where to put a wood stove. Currently, we have an electric heat pump, a gas fireplace and a wood burning fireplace. The wood is by far tops of the three. So we have decided that we need a stove before next winter. Our house is two stories, with the first floor mostly open. There doesn't seem to be a good place to put the stove on the first level because of installing the chimney through the second story. My thought is to put the stove in an 11 x 11 mud room that is offset from the main section of the house. This room is currently used as a mud room. The first floor is 30x30, excluding an offset sunroom that already has a wood burning fireplace. Would adding a wood stove that is not in a central location be worth the time and money? The doorway from the main section/mud room is just a 36 inch door. This doorway would be the only means of heat moving to the main living area. the mud room in directly off my kitchen, which is open to the living room. What do you guys think? This is the only feasible place I can think of. I hope we can come up with an efficient solution.
 
The mudroom sounds like a sub-optimal location. If the goal is to heat the house, go for as central a location as possible. If you go back to before there was electricity, all houses were designed this way.

Where is the wood burning fireplace located? Have you considered putting either an insert or a freestanding stove in that location?
 
Without the stove being located centrally in the first floor it is going to take some work with fans, vents, etc... to get that heat moving around. With nothing pushing/pulling the heat around it will pretty much stay in the mudroom baking the paint off the walls while the rest of the house stays cold.
I'm not super experianced at wood burning but my neighbor has a small wood/coal stove in his kitchen. With it fired up it is about 90 in his kitchen but 65 in his living room which is just a doorway away. He throwes a couple small ocilating fans in the doorway and it even the temps out through the lower floor of his house.

Rich.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.