Well WE Did it!

We ordered our wood stove and install. I have never had a wood stove before so It does make me quite nervous.
My husband figured that the price of Propane is going up and he wanted to have another source of heat, especially
if things go really crazy. He has always wanted wood but I am so afraid of fires.
It is going to be profesionally installed, and he says that I shouldn't worry.
Hopefully some of you can also make me see that this is the right thing to do.

And rest assured that we will ALL be here if you need any help or advice on how to operate the stove safely!

Thanks all of you for your replys. I'm sure I will get used to it and love it. And I will keep things
away from the stove. I'm sure when it is 10 degrees out there I'll get used to it fast.

I just got a stove last year for the first time. I was extra, super, crazy nervous about having a 600 degree object sitting in my house. But, once I started using it I eased up in my obsession. I don't burn it all day when I'm gone, just when I'm home. I only work six hours a day so it burns a good amount. My husband starts fires sometimes but since I work less I am usually the one to start the fire, it is really easy. It cut my natural gas use by half each month I used it.

I burn 24/7, home or not home. Your confort level well increase with use. there very safe appliances. It would be hard to burn your house down. As long is it gets installed properly, and it passed inspection, you will be good to go. congrats!

Nokoni, it's good to know that I eventually will learn to use it. I am the one home more often as well. So I'll need to learn how to do it.
We have done this also to save money on gas. To go on the budget plan this year the gas company doubled our payments. Thats when
my husband decided we needed wood or pellet.

It is going to be installed by a professional so that alone makes me feel better. It does have to pass inspection and this company has been in this town for over 15 years and they have a great reputation.

I just hope this sense of nervousness goes away at some point. I'm sure it will once I get used to it.

A couple of newbie tricks, buy yourself some fatwood. It makes start up a snap. There are many ways to light a fire, a lot of them are cheaper then fatwood, but by far fatwood makes it simple. Dont damp the stove down to much, if you do to early, you can plug your chimney cap and you will hate your stove. If your glass is dirty your not burning hot enough. Other then that, there realy isnt to much that can go wrong. Obviously you want to keep the ash vac out of it, there is a good chance that there is a hot coal buried in the ash bed somwere. During startup, crack the door slightly to get it started, never use the ashpan for this. When i say cracked i mean let the door frame latch rest on the frame of the stove. Stoves are realy easy to operate, just take minimal pratice and you will get it down. When my wife is home she is a fire bug, she can beat me getting it lit and roaring. She was alittle nervous at first too, but loves it. God luck.

Congrats! What type of stove did you purchase? Also, we like pictures of the installs.......lots and lots of pictures

As you may have noticed, it becomes a lifestyle kind of thing and the people who are into it......well, they're into it.

And you might as well know up front that most of us are the kind of people who take satisfaction in sticking it to the utility.

I believe the technical term is Stickittodemaniosus

O' Yeah , Propane , Natural gas , Electricity in the winter time is always "cold" , Why ....... high prices , ya got to turn the heat down to save any extra dollars you can . Woodheat , well there ya go .........you can keep that house warm and save a lot of $$ doing it. Like the old saying goes ..."nothing warms you like wood heat" Fire that stove up and let it snow ! Damb , is it still only August !?

I'm with ya Roo, where's the cold weather already

You guys can come visit. we are on the cusp of fall. high 30's, low 40's, degree mornings, high 60 degree days wont be long.

As long as you have the stove goin, I'll bring the beer

you dont have to bring the beer, i have 5 gallons of colorado honey mead thats been cooking in the basement for the last 3 years. I just finish cleaning the stove from last season just to get it all dirty again.

The stove is a HamptonH300 in the timberline brown finish with the side shelves. It looks sharp, and it should be just the right size for our house.
Our house is a 2100 square ft colonial.

So you are all saying it would be alright once we are used to it to light it before we go to work or are we better off to do it when we get home? And I'm sure my first night that it's lit will seem odd.

And I like the idea too of my propane bill going down this year. We will still use it of course but we are not going to lock into there ridiculous monthly payment
so I am excited by that. We will only pay for what we use when we use it. (hopefully we can cut this in half from last year)
Someone also told me that when you dont use a certain amount of propane that they will charge you more per gallon? Has anyone
else ever heard of this. It seems like when you try to get ahead they kick you back...oh well then we would burn more wood next year..LOL

Anyways, I will send pictures when its all done, is there somewhere on this forum that says how to do this?

Thanks

Once you start to see the effects of on the propane bill, it will be more like...

"Honey, remember to load the stove before you leave this morning...."

just so you know, last year was my first year of burning. 2700 sqft house, lp bill dropped from 2800 to 1200. the amazing thing and one that is not measured is that our house was 10 degrees warmer.

Last year I installed my insert, and the first night it was going over night, I probably got up 5 or 6 times to go look at the stove. I remember thinking oh my god that thing is hot, the entire stove is filled with a fireball and the secondary burn tubes look like they're fired by propane. The livingroom was 80 degrees, and I couldn't believe the thing wasn't going to just melt.

Well, according to the manual, my stove was not showing any signs of being over fired, the primary air inlet was as low as it could go, so logically, I was thinking....Well, the stove manufacturer must have tested this thing with full loads of wood, it must be intended to do this. But I'll say the first few fires can make you pretty nervous. Well, now I've gotten used to it, but I can still say that when it's really ripping along, I still am just a touch nervous, but when it's cold out and I wake up at 3 or 4 am to toss a few more splits on, I'm very happy that stove is hot and keeping the house warm.

I do remember a few times when the coal stoves in my parents got cherry red because someone forgot to lower the air, and they seemed to be just fine. (I wouldn't recommend doing though) My insert with it's blower never gets that hot, and I'm glad the blower is there to get the heat out of the stove.

So the one thing I do think about sometimes is this: If I had to do it again, what would I do differently.

Options:
1. I might have removed the Majestic Prefab and built an alcove, but that would have been a serious amount of work, that would have included a complete chimney reinstall. but would have given me the flexibility of installing a freestanding stove instead of a an insert...much different look though.

2. I might have gone with a Lopi Revere which would have fit but has a larger firebox than my Osburn. Downside is the Osburn's view of the fire is second to none. It's a Very pretty insert once installed.

3. I might have removed the Majestic and purchesed a new prefab-fireplace that is made with more woodstove like technology. Again, the complete chimney rebuild.

In all I believe I made the right decision. The stove heats the house, It looks nice, and my wife is very happy with it.

I hope you enjoy your stove. You've made a life changing decsion that will have impacts that you never imagined.
People will not believe how well it works, you'll get in better shape gathering wood, You might even become obsessed with gathering wood...I think I have. If you have kids, they won't take it for granted that you just turn up the thermostat to get heat. They get to know that you have to care for and feed the stove. You have to bring in wood from where you store it, they get to know that you care about the whole oil situation.

You and your SO will like hanging out and chatting by the stove and just watching the fire. I can't tell you what a nice calming effect the stove has, and how many times my wife and I turn off the TV in favor of just sitting on the hearth being cooked by the blast of radiant heat and just watching the fire.

Enjoy!

Warren i did the same thing the first week. Also did one better, first couple nights crawled thru an attic crawl space to look at the pipe with a flash light to make sure nothing was burning. took me a while to sleep thru the night. but after awhile its not even a second thought.

Hi Guys,

I was not nearly as worried the first time through the night as you guys. The stove was in the house when I bought it and had been running since 1988. I upgraded to a larger one in 2005 and an even larger stove in 2006.

Now I am worried because of the needed clearances of this larger stove. I will be rebuilding the floors soon.

Carpniels

PS> My oil bill stayed the same because the oil price went from a dollar a gallon to over 2.50 a gallon I used less than half of the year before, but the price went up so much that I still had to spendt the same dollar amount.

That's funny SCFA, it's probably something I will tell my husband to do....