Newbie with some questions, mostly common knowledge

[ThePunisher1974]

Not looking for answers for everything cause I know there is maybe an FAQ that will answer alot of my questions but I just need to ask a few.
My girlfriend and I are seriously considering buying a house that has 2 wood burner stoves, one in the living room and one in the master bedroom, both are small and neither of us know anything about them. The house has been renovated within the last 3-5 years, both units are new from the remodel and haven't been used in the past 2-3 years due to the house being empty. The unit downstairs plugs into the wall, I would assume from some of the research that it has a blower attachment on it, the upstairs unit does not. The pic I am including is from the realitor's website, the unit shown is the master bedroom and is simliar if not the same as the one downstairs. My questions are as follows:

1. Is there a company or service that would come and inspect the units to ensure they are cleaned and in proper working order?
2. What types of wood should I stay away from, do I need to used fire starters or just paper/kindling?
3. Do these units give off that "backyard bonfire" smell that usually sticks to your clothes?
4. Are they safe and how often should they be cleaned?
5. The units have a little rust on them, can I or should I paint them?

 

[Vic99]

Welcome!

Something that would help would be to find out the make and model of the wood stoves and see if you can get a copy of the user manuals online. Very good chance that you can if the stoves are new. One part of the stoves being installed properly is to measure the distance from the stove to all combustible surfaces (sheet rock or plaster walls, wood, etc.) The manual will tell you distance from front, back, etc. This is extremely important for safety. If any surface is not that distance or greater, operating the stove could result in a fire. The manual will also give you lots of handy info like how to properly operate the stove, etc.

Properly installed they are very safe.

Modern wood stoves should not give you the bonfire smell at all. They are designed to contain the fire inside a metal or stone box and deliver smoke up the chimney flue. In fact, most combust a lot of the smoke before it goes up the flue, resulting in a cleaner burn.

Best wood to use is properly seasoned wood. In the end, species doesn't matter as much as this. Wood that is too wet does not give you nearly as much heat and ads dangerous creosote to the chimney. Seasoned wood has been SPLIT and stacked off of the ground for a year. Oak longer, pine shorter. Not all people who sell firewood call seasoned wood by this definition. Many will tell you the tree has been cut for longer.

If you are going to use the stoves, do a few test fires first. Get a stove top thermometer. Your manual will tell you appropriate stove top temps.

After a break in fire (do a search on that here) try a couple of fires with the fire box half full. There is a video on this website showing you how to start a fire easily.

Read lots of stuff on this web site.

Good luck.

 

[sandie]

definitely get a chimney sweep to look at the chimneys to make sure the chimney is clean and they will help do a test fire to make sure it is drafting well. From the picture cannot tell if there is non combustible materials on walls and floor. IF it is far enough from the walls and ceiling you do not need special materials but the floor has to have non combustible material about 16 mor more inches in front of the stove. The heat from them is GREAT, just ask all your questions and you will love you have these in your house. Get the manual just google the model etc and you can find that on the back of the stove usually on a label and get the manual and go over it many times.
Best of luck.

 

[BrotherBart]

Agree with everything above. The stoves appear to be either Englander 18-TR or 18-MH stoves. If they are, manuals with installation and clearance information are available on England's Stove Works' website.

http://www.englanderstoves.com/

 

[thinkxingu]

Brother (or anyone else), I've heard that code prevents woodstoves from being installed in bedrooms--is this the case, or have I read incorrectly?

S

 

[BrotherBart]

Brother (or anyone else), I've heard that code prevents woodstoves from being installed in bedrooms--is this the case, or have I read incorrectly?

S

Nope. You have read correctly. Every current building code that I know of forbids installation of a solid fuel burning appliance in a sleeping area.

 

[learnin to burn]

I was going to mention that as well. I'm guessing the previous owners didn't use that room as a bed room or at least they didn't when the stove was installed.

In the Pic. It looks like the clearances are good and there is plenty of hearth in front of the stove. The short wall on the left looks like it is an open stairway with the top being to the left of the pic.

 

[ThePunisher1974]

Well, it's considered a "master bedroom". It's a whole addition to the house, someone added a 2 car garage and that bedroom and stove is above it as well as the washer/dryer room and a bathroom. The dementions are 24x29. You are correct that there is a starwell leading to the first floor to the left of the stove as well as sliding doors heading to a small deck on the right. To my knowledge this room has been used as the bedroom as the previous bedoorm downstairs was converted to a coumpter room of somesort.

 

[firefighterjake]

Not looking for answers for everything cause I know there is maybe an FAQ that will answer alot of my questions but I just need to ask a few. Hakuna matata . . . ask away . . . we love answering questions . . . it's just part of giving back to the community here at hearth.com . . . plus you've already posted a picture and since we all love loving at woodstoves and piles of wood we already "owe" you.

My girlfriend and I are seriously considering buying a house that has 2 wood burner stoves, one in the living room and one in the master bedroom, both are small and neither of us know anything about them. The house has been renovated within the last 3-5 years, both units are new from the remodel and haven't been used in the past 2-3 years due to the house being empty. The unit downstairs plugs into the wall, I would assume from some of the research that it has a blower attachment on it, the upstairs unit does not. The pic I am including is from the realitor's website, the unit shown is the master bedroom and is simliar if not the same as the one downstairs. My questions are as follows:

1. Is there a company or service that would come and inspect the units to ensure they are cleaned and in proper working order? Chimney sweeps . . . if you go to the Chimney Sweep Institute of America (www.csia.org) you should be able to type in your zip code and find a sweep who has actually taken some classes and become certified vs. hiring any Tom, Dick or Harry who bought some brushes from the Home Depot and thinks they know what they're looking at while inspecting a woodstove.

2. What types of wood should I stay away from, do I need to used fire starters or just paper/kindling? Only bad wood in my book is unseasoned wood. You want wood that has been cut, split and stacked for 9 months to a year before using . . . otherwise you will most likely find burning wood to be an excercise in futility and frustration. On the east coast hardwood is preferred in general over softwood, but you can burn both . . . even the dreaded pine . . . it's just hardwood gives you a longer burn in general. Highly desirable wood (when seasoned properly) include oak, locust, sugar maple and hickory. To start a fire you can use commerically available firestarters like Super Cedars or wax pine logs or use paper and kindling (my own personal choice since I'm cheap.)

3. Do these units give off that "backyard bonfire" smell that usually sticks to your clothes? Yes . . . but only if you do not have a good draft. Otherwise, you will rarely smell smoke in your home . . . it used to be that you could always tell if a person burned wood because you could smell them . . . I can guarantee you that if a person is burning properly and has a proper flue you will not be able to tell by smell if they burn wood . . . unless they have that distinctive two-stroke gas/oil smell on them since they've just come from cutting up a load of scrounged firewood. In my case, I typically smell more like apple pie or rose petals since I use potpourri in my woodstove steamer . . . it makes the house smell really nice . . . what you will not smell in my home or on me is the smell of smoke.

4. Are they safe and how often should they be cleaned? A properly installed, operated and maintained (you really need all three) woodstove is very safe . . . however if your stove is not installed correctly with it being too close to combustibles, the hearth is not rated or wide enough, you overfire the stove or chimney, you attempt to start the fire with gasoline, you dispose of your hot coals and ash in a plastic bucket/bag/cardboard box, etc. and then place it on the deck, in the garage, etc. or you fail to check and clean out your chimney . . . well then, in that case, yes, operating a woodstove is not safe. If you are the type of person who realizes that runnnig a woodstove is not as simple or as easy as just turning up the thermostat and realize that you must put in a little bit of work and thinking to stay safe, then yes . . . a woodstove can be safe. As for cleaning . . . if you're talking about the chimney, I'm rather safety conscious and try to inspect and clean my chimney once a month . . . the woodstove ashes are dumped weekly into a covered metal pan . . . the hearth is swept every day, I clean the glass every other day and the woodstove gets one big cleaning at the very end of the season after it has been cold for over a week.

5. The units have a little rust on them, can I or should I paint them? It's up to you. If you are thinking you will be burning this year, I would probably wait until late Spring since new paint (on both brand new stoves and repainted stoves) will smell as the paint cures when you burn in it for the first few times. A ilttle surface rust will not affect anything other than the looks of the stove.