Is this a Crazy idea ? please tell me this will work.

[rwhite]

You need to convince of all the pro's of a wood burning stove in the living room.

1. These are no longer the big steel hulks they once were. There are very stylish stoves that become a center piece of the room. As others have said they make some that have very small clearances needed now. Even a smaller stove in the 1000 sqft range would probably heat the house sitting the living room better than a monster sitting on that porch.

2. Take her to the stove store and see some. I love watching fire (get one with a viewing glass). It is mesmerizing and provokes thought. You will find yourselves sitting in the living room talking more. So it's really a relationship builder.

3. Show her some of the better plans with custom made hearths and such and convince her you not just going to plop a stove on the floor.

4. Think of the savings (and the things she can get) especially with getting free wood.

5. Is there a fear of children burning themselves? I can tell you that being raised in a house with a stove and having numerous kids come the house there have been very few incidents of burning and they have been limited to a fingertip and they learned after 1 time. There is much more danger in a cook stove than a wood stove. Coffee table and end tables have been the number one cause of trips to the doctor in our house.

6. Stoves really don't take up more "effective space than any other design feature. Take for instance a large clay pot that wife has displayed in the living room. This thing has a 1' footprint. But in order to display it and not look cluttered, nothing is around it for 4-5'. A wood stove don't take much more than that.

7. Convice her that oil heat can still be used. My wife has no desire to carry wood, load a stove or deal with anything having to do with a stove. She likes to turn a thermostat on and be warm. So you will probably be the one using it and let her use the oil when your not around.

8. The final sell (if needed)...Take a picture of you living room and photo shop a stove and hearth you want into it an let her see what it will look like.

 

[Ehouse]

Think of the porch as a plenum. Is there a way to run an insulated return (cold) air duct from the cold end of the house back to the porch, perhaps under the house? Put a fan in the duct with a vari-speed control to move the cold air back to the porch to be reheated.

Ehouse

 

[DanCorcoran]

The hearth.com website has a gallery of stove photos. Make an album of 15-20 of the most attractive ones and show her how nice a woodstove can look. She may be picturing an old pot-bellied stove with guys sitting around it whittling, chewing tobacco, and spitting. She also may be concerned about dirt, bark, and ashes all over the house. These are more a function of the stove operators than the stove itself.

 

[andybaker]

I have a couple other ideas. Don't know if they'll work but I'm known for thinking out of the box. I have a ZC fireplace. I have two connections for heat ducts to attach to them to send warm air elsewhere to another room. Where you want to put the stove might not work for something like this but maybe at the other end of your room and pipe the air in that way. Another thing I remember from my grandfather. He was a plumber by trade. He had an old wood stove. This is back in the 70's. He tore it apart and built in chambers so the smoke would have to travel through the firebox through these chambers to get out. The box would get a lot hotter this way with less then half the use of wood the original way. I think he created what we call after burn affect. Anyway, he also built in copper pipe running back and forth along the outside back of the stove to heat water that he plumbed into his radiant heat water system in the house. It heated the whole big country house. I'm not saying for you to do this, but maybe there is something out there that does the same thing he did back then. I will say, the wood burning industry is one of the most creative industries I've ever witnessed.

 

[firefighterjake]

Random thoughts . . .

As others have said getting the heat out of the proposed extension into the main area of the trailer will be tough . . . even with fans . . . it may be possible to move some of the heat out . . . but I suspect that the majority of the heat will be trapped in that room.

Ideally . . . it would be nice to have the extension put in the area of the kitchen/living room and then you could really open up things . . . and then the woodstove would work well there.

It seems as though the wife is not on board with the stove being placed in the existing living room . . . as Rwhite said . . . what are her concerns . . . the look of a woodstove, space being used by the stove, safety concerns, etc. All these things are not insurmountable . . . as RWhite said . . . newer woodstoves look quite nice, newer woodstoves often have very small footprints with small clearances and safety issues can all be addressed as well.

 

[Dune]

Ask her to join you in this thread, or at least read it.
The money I have saved by not buying oil for the last 5 years has raised my familie's standard of living considerably.

 

[ScotO]

my wife, too, was deadset against a woodstove in the house as she grew up in a house that heated with an old firebreathing dragon......she said everything in the house smelled like beef jerky and the walls were constantly needing cleaned, plus the dust.....she literally CRIED when I commited to it, but I went ahead with the install having read up on the new EPA stoves and having 500.00/month heat bills I didn't "care" what she thought (really I knew she would be happy with the stove)....Anyway, four years later and NO SMOKE SMELL on our clothes, NO SMOKE SMELL in the house (except for the occasional downdraft during a cold startup), very little dust and almost no dirt to speak of.....if I were to take our stoves out of the house SHE WOULD KILL ME, she loves them, esp. the warm, cozy, FREE heat, and when the power is out we're the most popular house in the entire family......like the other guys said, get her on here to read some testimonials (there's quite a few female members on this site too), and look at some of the dressier stoves...these new stoves are a LOOONG way ahead of their predecessors.....

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Here's a little beauty we installed and it would be a perfect fit in your home.

Here's one more little benefit of trying this stove: buy it and if it doesn't suit you, you have 6 months for a full refund. No other stove maker can match that guarantee. Here is a link to that company:

Woodstock Stoves


I've been in 6 different mobile homes that installed wood stoves in a porch like yours. Two of them tore out a wall too so more air could get into the home. Result was always a super hot porch and a chilly house; especially the back half of the house. It is difficult to move the heat to where it is needed. However, if the stove were installed in the house then it becomes very easy to heat the whole place.

Time to really have a look at the budget with the wife's help. What will it cost to heat with propane or oil? What will it cost to heat with wood? Will you be happy being cool to cold all winter long or would it be better to be comfortable in your own house? Only the two of you can answer these questions.