Nearly Absolute Beginner

[Pavesa]

Hi,

I live in Nova Scotia, came here from England about 2 years ago and really really enjoying it.

We've rented a house for about 18 months that's had a pretty serious woodstove (no make mentioned on it) and it has pretty much heated the entire house during the winter - last winter we used 1/2 a tank of oil and 2 1/2 cords of wood. The house is pretty open plan which lets the heat get around which is great. It has convinced me that wood stoves are the way to go, "green" too!

We're in the process of buying an old house without a stove,

We didn't have a stove in the UK so I'm a novice it terms of deciding what to buy and where to locate it in the building and I was wondering if you could give me some pointers?

A few things about the house first. It has a basement. Prevailing winds in the winter are from the northwest. I've put this diagram of the layout at the following link, north is up the page.

http://perso.wanadoo.es/andrew.bagley/HouseDiag.htm

The first photo is looking from the north site (ie/ the sunporch faces north), the second photo is from the southwest. The chimney to the rear of the house is usable but has no lining and we don't know the condition. The other chimney doesn't seem to go anywhere, doesn't appear in the house!

The entrance is into the kitchen from a mudroom south of the kitchen.The stairs are marked with an arrow and the letter "S". Total area is about 2,300 sq ft. The sitting room is about 14'x15'.

I'm wondering where to put the woodstove, A, B or C, seem the obvious places to put it. A would be a bit of an eyesore going through the middle of the roof at the front through the gable. B and C are attractive because the chimney could go through the ceiling into the room above giving direct heat into the bedroom above, and then maybe go out of the wall up the side of the house (or maybe through the roof, requiring flashings on the roof and possible leaks). B and C are also attractive because the chimney goes out the east wall and prevailing wind is from the west, so this carries smoke away from the house. Can anyone advise from experience on the best configuration here and the right type of woodstove and recommendations on make? I just missed a Vermont Castings Resolute being sold second hand. Also, advice on the merits of buying second hand would be much appreciated. What to look for? There is forced air heating downstairs (none upstairs though). I hope that lays out most of what it is about, I'm not even entirely sure what questions I should ask!

Andrew

 

[johnn]

Welcome! Welcome! Are you sure thay didn`t wall off a door from the kitchen leading into the office. And then put up the walls to make the office? Just seems like a long walk from the kitchen to the dinning room! Could have been the old living room, for it would have been large enough to squeeze an office out of, and the old fireplace been close to the office wall. Could`ve this and that,,I`m sure confused now! Running a pipe through the upstairs bedroom???? I just would have to say NO! There`s always an add-on-woodburner option for your furnace, however you will have to be able to vent your furnace and water heater (if Gas).
Lets see what the other members think. Good luck and again welcome :coolsmile:

 

[Pagey]

Whatever type of stove (cast iron, soapstone, or plate steel) you decide to go with, make SURE you get one with a large enough firebox. Personally, I'd go with at least a 3 cubic foot firebox so you can get good, overnight burns and wake up to a very useable coal bed. Your best solution may be to inspect that masonry chimney and then have it lined with a flexible stainless steel liner. Safe and cost effective.

 

[Pavesa]

Hi,

thanks for the replies.

Certainly, I think we need a pretty good size wood stove. Here, I tend to put 3 large pieces on the fire before going to bed and it carries on giving good out heat until maybe 5.00 am.

Yes, it is a bit of an odd way of working this house. I've modified the diagram slightly, the office isn't quite where I said it was - seen the house 3 times, so working a bit from memory! I don't know if the office was a kind of add-on. The previous owner said his brother and wife lived with them a while and used the office and what we want as the dining room as an annex that they lived in. The obvious thing is to have what we plan as the sitting room to be the dining room (just off the kitchen) and what we plan as the dining room as the sitting room. The problem is we have 2 teenage sons (15 & 13) and they'll be doing computer games and listening to music in the sitting room. Having this noise just outside the office which is used in working hours would just be a recipe for conflict. There certainly is a logic to there being a door from the kitchen to the office, but the problem here would be that there would be no uninterrupted walls to put the kitchen on. I've added to the diagram the rooms off the kitchen and you can see it is pretty much peppered with doors as it is. There is a chimney in the kitchen, you can see the square at the south end of the room.

Andrew

 

[Pavesa]

I should have mentioned that the chimney in the kitchen is the red brick on at the rear of the house. The other cream coloured one a the east side of the house isn't actually connected to anything. There is an old fireplace at the south end of what we plan as the dining room, but there is no chimney.

Andrew

 

[Chettt]

Andrew most any home built in the last two centuries is going to be hard to heat with one source of heat. Two levels, a basement and lots of walls make things difficult. Also the heat from the flue in a room above won't give off much heat at all. Kind of like moonlight to sunlight in comparison. I'd go with a big stove at the location where the wind blows the smoke away and maybe try a small electric heater in the areas that stay cold.

Also if this is going to be your permanent home for 10 or more years, get a new stove. At any rate, now is the time to start getting wood for next year.

 

[Pavesa]

Hi Chettt

thanks for the advice. There is oil-fired forced air heating for the ground floor and I think there are a couple of baseboard electric heaters on the north wall of what we plan as the dining room and on the north east wall of the hall. Also, we're thinking of maybe installing a sun room on the south of the office with access from the kitchen which if winterized could be a dining and sitting room with views over the yard for 3 seasons.

Andrew

 

[Jimbob]

And as far as stoves go, these should be available close to you:

http://www.drolet.ca/product.aspx?CategoId=1&Id=208

Home Hardware sells these:
http://www.flame-intl.com/product.aspx?CategoId=1&Id=394&Page=spec
I think they sell for about $1100.00

I have the Summit, and am happy with it:
http://pacificenergy.net/product_summit.php
They sell for about $1800.00

All three can be installed fairly close to the walls in a corner install, taking up less room if that's where you choose to put it..
The Summit can be installed as close as 4" to the walls in a corner installation if you use double walled stove pipe.

 

[Pavesa]

Hi,

thanks for the info. There is a door through the sunroom on the north of the buiding so we thought maybe stack the wood away from the wall to the west of the dining room and keep a store in the sunroon. Gives minimum trecking. The basement door is from the mudroom to the south of the kitchen so it is quite a treck!

Andrew

 

[johnn]

Still have questions, however I think it is original construction. Im assuming the staircase upstairs is visible as you walk through your front door. Just curious ,, the stairs leading downstairs,,,do they originate in the room off the kitchen,,,or are they located under the stairs going upstairs??? Nice to have your mud room and entry into the kitchen somewhat walled off to trap cold air, from direct entry into floor space. Possibly the south location in the dining room housed an old gas log burner, had one as a kid growing up.(oxygen depleter) I`ll assume in your basement would be an original heat source and the yellow chimney serves as a vent.(would this be the location of your water heater ,washer and dryer?)
Your thermostat location will dictate how warm or cold your house is during those times when you are away or sleeping! If it is going to be in the same room as your stove you might think about moving it to another location. My wood burner insert is located on the west wall of your dining area and the thermostate would be inside the sitting room on the wall seperating it from the hall way,,,My heat transfer across the hall and what doesnt go up the stairs manages to get into and trip the thermostate, once I light a fire, it seldom comes on(early mornings only)However my large door openings are across from each other and yours appear to be offset, possibly leading to more hot air climbing the stairs.
I would locate at "C" hoping to have more warm air enter into the kitchen working its way through the hall area. ( you would possibly get a circle of air flowing)
Get a large box no doubt! There are many people looking and using old stoves so a used one might not be such an issue, however I would only settle for an Epa technology type. And dont even think of taking the Wifes cabinet space :snake: Brothers that age ought to be able to generate enough heat to warm whatever room they are in Maybe you can locate a wood supplier that can or will set aside some wood NOW to start seasoning until you close) luck to you

 

[Todd]

If it were me, I'd look into installing the stove in that little corner between the kitchen and sitting room if possible. That way it would be more centrally located and even out the heat throughout the house better. If you locate it on one of those outside corners your sitting room will take the brunt of the heat and could be unbearable at times.

 

[johnn]

If it were me, I'd look into installing the stove in that little corner between the kitchen and sitting room if possible. That way it would be more centrally located and even out the heat throughout the house better. If you locate it on one of those outside corners your sitting room will take the brunt of the heat and could be unbearable at times.

I too thought hard on that,,, but seeing how your plans are drawn from memory and not to scale, or not knowing the bearing wall location`s, I elected not to mention bring in the DEMO team and design something there! Brings up a lot of variables and accumative costs issues. however it may sit there with the current floor plan just fine.

 

[begreen]

Greetings Andrew and welcome. There are some good guidelines for first time stove owners posted here on this website and also at www.woodheat.org. How is this house currently heated? What condition is the heating unit in?

The flue is permanent infrastructure. Plan its location carefully. It's good to remember that the flue is as important as the stove. Keeping the flue warm will increase it's draft and will help it stay cleaner. The flue should be centrally located and entirely within the house envelope. If it's installed properly, there should be no problems with leakage at the roof. It would be good to precisely locate the existing flues. They should be checked to determine if they are in use and if they are tile lined. One possibility might be to tap into one of them and connect the stove that way. This might require power venting the furnace (or boiler) if one is already using the chimney. But that may be possible and will keep the roof a bit cleaner. Try to avoid tacking an exterior flue on the house if possible. Is there also a flue in the kitchen? If yes, that might have originally served for a wood cook stove and is perhaps another possible stove location.

In order to get the stove more centrally located perhaps consider centering one in the sitting room on the bathroom wall, to the west of location C. If a flue needs to be added, take your time and get precise measurements so that you can determine how the flue pipe would travel through the 2nd floor.

There are lots of stove choices. You might also want to look at Napoleon stoves which tend to run for less in your area and work well when space is tight. Pay attention to stove clearance requirements when looking, especially if it's going to be in a corner of the room. There are several good woodstoves in the 2.5-3 cu ft range that would probably work well. You'll need to decide what works best within your aesthetic, lifestyle and budgetary needs. What type of stoves are the dealers selling in your region? What do you like the best so far?

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewannounce/13750_2/
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/choosing_a_wood_stove/

One more thing, as soon as you can this spring, get your wood ordered, delivered and stacked. The number one problem we see here is with folks trying to burn semi-seasoned wood. Your heating bill this year may not be representative of this new house. Try to get the fuel company records for the past few years so that you can see how many btus it took to heat the place. That will give you a sense of how much wood to order.

 

[Pavesa]

Hi,

thanks for all the advice.

when we got here, our retired neighbours suggested a wood supplier and his supply is excellent. A mixture of birch and maple all 18 months old. It burns really cleanly. I stack it outside under tarps and I have an old tarp that I wrap around to stop the wind blowing the snow in (plenty of that!). We ordered 3 cords this year and it looks like we'll have some left, but this house is really extremely well insulated.

I've added a bit more to the drawing I posted and added a couple more internal photos. The drawing is done with word for those interested and then saved to html and then posted onto some free hosting with ftp.

http://perso.wanadoo.es/andrew.bagley/HouseDiag.htm

The route to the basement is from the mudroom down the stairs at B (for basement!). My impression is that the yellow chimney isn't connected to anything, but maybe I'm wrong. There is a pretty new (2003) oil forced air furnace in the basement which is below what we plan as the sitting room and perhaps the yellow chimney is the flue. I don't recall a flue out of the east wall which is the closest wall.

There are some pictures looking north from the kitchen into the hall, you can see the staircase and from the photo by the staircase you can see the dining room door on the far left and just about make out the door frame on the sitting room door at the bottom right hand corner. You can also see the sun porch and door at the far end. Currently the thermostat for the forced air is located in the sitting room on the west wall just south of A. I can see that would probably hardly switch on with the woodstove there, it might be better to move it into either the dining room or the hall.

I started being minded to put the stove at B, but if the chimney isn't to go into the room above it could be at C which would probably bring more heat into the kitchen and bathroom and would probably give better convection upstairs. If it were at D, how would the chimney vent outside? I'll try and locate the yellow chimney, perhaps it goes in the wall between the bathroom and the sitting room. Would it be possible to share this between the furnace and the woodstove if it were big enough? I guess there would be 2 liners? In fact, thinking about it, I'm pretty sure that chimney is for the furnace, I'd need to trace its route - detail you never notice when you're looking around the place! Is the only reason to avoid external flue that it is cooler and gives a poorer updraft and doesn't stay as clean? (good enough reasons in themselves if so!)

I must say, I liked the Vermont Castings Resolute stove. There is another one on Kijiji here but no handle and it doesn't lock so that seems a bad idea. 2 being for sale at once suggests maybe they are available second hand quite frequently

Thanks

Andrew

 

[begreen]

How many square feet in the house will you be heating? How are the insulation and windows? The VC Resolute is an attractive stove, though I suspect it's too small for this house. I'd probably avoid newer versions anyway due to higher maintenance.

If the stove could be placed at location D without obstructing the entry to the kitchen, that would work well.

The furnace and woodstove can not share the same flue. However, it may be possible to power vent the furnace out the basement wall. If so, that would liberate the chimney. Is the second (red) chimney in the kitchen? Is there room for a stove there?

 

[Pavesa]

Hi BeGreen

The house is 2,300 sq ft. So far as I can tell, the walls seem quite well insulated. I had the opportunity to sit around in it for about 50 minutes reading a book and it was quite warm and the forced air heating didn't seem to be cutting in and out. There is no insulation under the floor in the basement, so that is something we're going to sort out before next winter, you get pretty cold feet! There is cellulose insulation in the roof space but it has settled a lot and I'm thinking of putting in some fibreglass wool insulation to make another layer. The windows seem to be in good shape they are double glazed, replaced a few years ago.

Certainly, I think D would be a good place but I think it would probably obstruct the door from the kitchen. Along the wall from C seems to be the closest viable alternative.

There isn't a stove in the kitchen and in fact the sellers say there is space and a flue for a woodstove, but it is nice to have a wood stove in the sitting room - creature comforts on winters nights in Canada!

Andrew

 

[johnn]

looking at the front view of your house, the chminey seems to be somewhat in line with the window,,,which leads me to think the ever illusivechimney may be between the bathroom and locationC wall. Hopefully at the corner. Power venting the furnace to an outside wall as mentioned, would be, I feel the best solution.I dont know how you feel about locating a couch in front of a window,,,however locations C orD opens up more possibility in arranging the room(preferably D) will not inhibit the floor plan, but I don`t feel you`ll find the chimney there!

 

[begreen]

With 2300 sq ft to heat, go for a good sized stove. See if you can contact the oil company for the fuel consumption records. That will give you a good idea of the house heating needs.

Looking at the floorplan, I'm wondering if the "dining room" was actually once the "parlor" and the current sitting room was actually the dining room. Normally the dining room and kitchen are connected for ease of serving.

Anyhow, it's easy to see that the house has undergone some changes with each new owner. I wouldn't get to fixated on any one plan yet. As you live in the house and get used to the light and how you use the space, plans can change. Try to imagine the house as it was originally built and used.

It might be nice to have a small kitchen stove like the Napoleon 1150p and a medium stove in the sitting room eventually. At this stage it doesn't cost anything to let the imagination play a bit. Have you looked at any stoves? For a starter, I might consider a Woodstock Fireview for the sitting room if it fits within the budget.

 

[Pavesa]

Hi BeGreen

I'll follow up abut oil records. I'm don't how far they go back. The old guy selling the house has cancer and is in a hospice so it may be that the house has been empty for some time and running on minimum heating. His warm may not have been my wife's "warm" either.

I think you're right about the parlor. My grandmother and aunt had parlours in northeast England "in case the vicar visited". Still, you can understand that having a warm sitting/dining room was a good combination.

Looking on the local Kijiji classified ads, I several used Pacific Energy stoves:

Summit: $1,150

Spectrum: $800 & $650
Spectrum Classic: $2,800

another unspecified heating up to 2,000 sq ft - Spectrum maybe - $850

Vista: $900 heating up to 1,000 sq ft

They all seem pretty ambitiously priced compared, say, to the Vermont Castings at $500 a piece. The Summit claims to heat 3,000 sq ft and was recommended by Jimbob. Do people feel they justify the extra expense? They seem to be priced at about 30% over the others.

Thanks

Andrew

 

[begreen]

If that Summit is in good condition it's a great deal. PE stoves are simple and stout. They have close clearances and heat very well over a wide range of outside temperatures. Read up here on Vermont Castings maintenance. There've been too many posters recently that wish they had done this first. The originals were good stoves, but the recent units can be pretty expensive to maintain. FWIW, the cat units seem to do better. Also, you need to compare like size stoves. A Resolute is not going to put out the same heat as a PE Summit. The Resolute firebox size is much smaller. While looking, see if there are any Jotul 500 or 600s for sale while looking.

 

[Pavesa]

Hi BeGreen

the ad says it is in excellent condition. Actually, he has a bunch of other stoves for sale as well, so it looks like maybe a retailer selling off trade-ins.

Andrew

 

[begreen]

Will you getting a stove before getting the house? Are you considering getting a stove now, or window shopping?

If there's no hurry, then I suspect that good deals will continue to show in the months to come.

 

[Pavesa]

Well, we're there on the mortgage etc as of Friday, and committed to buy and they're definitely wanting to sell, so if there was the right deal I'd go for it now and put it in the garage of the house (with owner's permission) and probably get it installed in August/September. According to agreements/contracts etc we take over the place on 9th April and move in at the end April, so there's no immediate need for the stove.

In fact, we planned to buy the house we're renting but due to maintenance issues changed our minds, so I haven't taken any interest in how the used stove market works. I suppose it is probably relatively quiet now. We're getting to the end of winter so who wants to buy now? Equally, for that reason, maybe there are some good deals around as people need to get it out the door now or wait until October. Obviously, you can't know for certain, but do you think maybe a bit of patience and a wait might see a real bargain hit the screen over the summer? There are 290 stoves on Kijiji Halifax now.

Andrew

 

[begreen]

Here's a good site to compare a variety of stoves online.

http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/fswood.htm

 

[Pavesa]

Hi,

does anyone know anything about Conestogo woodstoves. There is one for sale here. It is fron loading, 8" pipe and has a picture of a covered wagon with wheels on the front cast iron doors. Picture attached..

Thanks

Andrew