Bought my 1st wood stove today

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MAD777

Member
Jul 6, 2016
101
New Hampshire
I'm building a home in New Hampshire and ordered a Woodstock Ideal Steel for it today. They are having their 40 year anniversary sale, so I took advantage and got all the bells & whistles with it.

However, the install will be a couple of months from now, but I promise to post pictures.

The stove will be delivered to my builder's warehouse. A local wood stove shop will install the chimney, as my builder gets to that point, and then the stove.

The land is heavily forested. The trees that had to be cut for the house, driveway & leach field have been cut to about 12' lengths and stacked in piles. Bucking, splitting & stacking all that will keep me out of trouble for good while.

Eco-bricks will have to provide my entertainment for the first year as my wood seasons. In the future, I'll post install sequence pictures here, and eventually, the final setup with a fire in its belly.

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Sounds like you’ve really done your homework. Can’t wait to see the photos!
 
Cut some standing dead on the property now and burn from your stacks the first season. We cut and split over a cord of SD within 30 yards of our cabin in one day. If we go to 50 yards we'd have 4 cords. All cherry.
 
Here is the update on my new stove that I promised. Starting home construction in September on 4 acres a heavily forested, steeply sloped property in the White Mountains of New Hampshire has been a challenge. We even have a creek crossing thrown in for fun. Anyway, as luck would have it, my property has received 3 feet of snow so far this season and temperatures for the last month have mostly been single digits at sunrise, sometimes with a minus sign in front! But onward we press with our corner install.

The house is framed and sheathed and the roof is finished. We just had the chimney installed by local certified chimney sweeps. The stove itself, a Woodstock Ideal Steel, will be installed after the 16" high hearth is built and near the end of construction. The chimney is a Class A, double wall, stainless steel affair. The entire process took 2 guys about 2 hours. After the chimney was installed my carpenters built a chase around the chimney where it passes through the second floor.

The attached pictures, starting in the upper left, show the 1st floor with the Outside Air Kit duct entering where the hearth will be constructed in the corner and the ceiling thimble for the stove pipe at the ceiling. Next is a shot of the stovepipe ceiling thimble. Top right shows the Class A chimney through the 2nd floor. The mid left picture shows the chimney going through the roof trusses, followed by two pictures of the chase constructed around the chimney. The bottom left picture is a close-up of the chimney passing through the roof. Finally, two exterior pictures of the chimney.

The house will be finished around 1st of March, but the ground is frozen, which will delay completion of septic system, 400' driveway, propane tank installation, etc. until spring thaw. So, by the time I can move in, there won't be much reason to burn this year. But that will give more time for the wood to season. I'll be following up once the stove is installed.

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Looking good!

Pull some pine out of your logpile and get it split and stacked now, and it will be ready to go next year. If there isn't any, maybe you have some standing dead, or maybe there's a bordering woodlot owned by someone who knows that you can't burn pine... ;)
 
Hi from up in Gorham. November was definitely a surprise for the snow pack that built up. December was a nice respite and now we seem to be going back into normal winter. Your best heating project is buy a can of spray foam and chase the builders filling in every little crack and gap you can find. Doesn't do much for this winter but will save you bucks for the long term. The other thing is find a source of cheap bins with covers and collect every piece of scrap 2by4 and stash it somewhere, always nice to have good stash of kindling.

If you have white birch and ash on the property and good sunny spot, both species dry quick once you get it split into small pieces. Do single rows in the sun and rig up a top cover and they will be remarkably dry in the fall assuming we don't have repeat of the soggy 2018 (which was mostly soggy due to short intense storms.
 
Thanks guys. My cleared wood, which is in log piles now, is predominantly Ash & Hemlock. I understand both species dry relatively quickly. And, I do have standing dead here & there on the property. Yes, never enough insulation. The exterior walls are 2x6 and windows are rated near the top for energy efficiency.

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That furring on the ceiling is a waste of time and materials IMO, but hey if thats what the code wants I guess.
 
That furring on the ceiling is a waste of time and materials IMO, but hey if thats what the code wants I guess.

Yes, my question is what is the reasoning behind it? Looks like it would allow fire to travel between bays if something happened in the ceiling.
 
That furring on the ceiling is a waste of time and materials IMO, but hey if thats what the code wants I guess.
Funny story about that. My wife saw the geometric pattern and liked it so much, she asked me if it could be left like that, LOL.

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Yes, my question is what is the reasoning behind it? Looks like it would allow fire to travel between bays if something happened in the ceiling.
The rockers probably lobbied the Gov for it so they had a bigger target to hit with their screw guns.
 
Here's a few details about the planning for the stove. I used all the clearance requirements plus 1" in every case. Therefore the stove placement can be off at least 1" in any direction and still be good. The chase around the chimney on the 2nd floor was constructed with 3" clearance vs the 2" required.

The floor joists and roof trusses were layed out with irregular spacing (still meeting code) to accommodate the chimney going straight up from the stove top, no bends.

The total chimney length will be 27 ft. from stove top to cap, (5' double wall stovepipe, plus 22' of Class A). Nine feet is exposed on the roof, therefore the two bracing rods.

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Nice when you plan ahead. Good job.
 
Sounds like you will have alot of draft with that chimney. Id suggest putting in a key damper.
 
No experience with hemlock, but if you get that ash bucked, split, and stacked, at least some of it could be ready for next winter if you keep the top under cover. It'll be even better for year 2 and on. IMO, best firewood with drying times and BTUs...I'd take ash all day long if I could.
 
You must be getting excited. Looks very clean so far. You can cut a small 4x10" vent in the top and bottom of the chase to extract a little more heat for the room it's in.
 
Great idea on the vent! Although it is insulated double wall pipe, every little bit of heat helps here in New England. People ask me why I didn't leave it exposed in order to get heat out of it, and I told them the women-folk in the family vetoed that option, LOL.

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Great idea on the vent! Although it is insulated double wall pipe, every little bit of heat helps here in New England. People ask me why I didn't leave it exposed in order to get heat out of it, and I told them the women-folk in the family vetoed that option, LOL.

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Pshaw . . . with a modern woodstove one heats with the woodstove and not the flue. I suppose one can scavenge some heat off an exposed flue, but with the modern stove most of the heat will come off the stove anyways.
 
It depends on the floorplan and stove location. Sometimes heat doesn't convect too well to some upstairs bedrooms. In that case a little extra heat is noticeable.
 
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