Antique Stove/House with Beehive Chimney

[gleifheit]

the wife and I just bought the oldest house in town. Built in 1749. There is a new (100 years ago) kitchen addition which houses our Lange & Co. stove pictured below. Ordered two cords seasoned from Marc on craigslist and ended up getting shorted and wet. But that's another post.

First question:

Anyone dealt with this type of stove before?

Second question:

There is a central Chimney in the main part of this house which has 3 "working" fireplaces. Two on the first floor and one on the upstairs bedroom. I would like to add another woodstove to one of the fireplaces downstairs to use as a main source of heat. Would the pipe running up the chimney allow for the other fireplaces to be used or would they be rendered decorative?

 

[begreen]

Nice little stove. We see about 1-2 Lange owners come through here a season. If there are separate flues for each fireplace, then yes, an individual liner can be put in for the stove.

I'm going to guess that the lower vent is like the primary start air and the upper is for introducing a simple secondary burn as the fire rounds the baffle. If so, start the fire with the bottom one open, top one closed. As the fire and stove get hotter, open up the upper one a little, and close down the lower control to regulate the fire. A stove top thermometer will help guide operation. Too much upper air will cool the top and flue. Too little may show as smoke from the flue cap. Too much lower air will lead to very rapid wood consumption and an overall too hot stove.

 

[k3c4forlife]

That is a cool looking little stove. Cool how it has the two independent air vents.

Two wood stoves or a wood stove and a fireplace cannot share the same flue to the roof. If the fireplaces are directly inline, sharing the same path to the roof, it would kill the potential for using the higher fireplace. Possibly one downstairs and one upstairs fireplace share while the second downstairs fireplace runs to the roof on its own? I would think about installing in that one, if possible. Big if. I am installing a liner kit pretty soon. It's not easy if your flue doesnt want it to be.

 

[tickbitty]

I have no helpful advice but just wanted to say that's a neat looking stove! I have seen two beautiful Lange stoves come up on Craigslist around here recently. A taller rectangular model that resembles a tile stove but appears to be all enameled, one was bright blue and one was red. They looked like real quality stoves!

 

[WoodNewbie]

I assume your three "working" fireplaces are Rumford-type. We also have an antique house and I was thinking about installing a wood stove in one of them. Do you believe you have enough clearance to get a pipe through though?

 

[gleifheit]

If by Rumford you mean that it is very shallow, with angled sides then yes. I havent taken a very good look at the damper to see how big a pipe will fit through yet. I think there will end up being some masonry removed.

As for the Lange, got it going pretty hot for the first time last night. BeGreens advice on just opening the bottom vent during ignition seemed to help quite a bit. That and cutting the wood that has been drying on the hearth into dowels. Although it did burn through two normal sized splits during the night. I am getting hopeful.

 

[k3c4forlife]

How much wood does that stove hold if you pack it full?

 

[WoodNewbie]

Yes, this is what I meant. If you are interested, you can have a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumford_fireplace
http://www.rumford.com/
Keep us posted on your progress!

 

[gleifheit]

with a bed of golfball sized coals, it will probably hold 3 decent sized splits. Although this gets tricky with a front load. its a tight squeeze.

 

[k3c4forlife]

I currently burn a Waterford 104. It holds 3-4 good size splits if I recall my good old days of playing tetris and jam them in there. Just be aware that it is going to require a lot of attention to keep that fire going nice and good. Waking up at 3AM to reload the fire isnt one of my favorite past times. Great work so far. Youll learn twice as much today and again tomorrow. It's cool learning how a stove works and getting it to burn efficiently. When you havent looked at the stove in an hour or so and you know what its going to look like when you open the door, youre getting close. Im not even there yet and Im already upgrading to a Regency Insert haha.

 

[elmoleaf]

Congratulations on the new house.
Even though you have an interior chimney, it'd be safest to insulate your new liner because the chimney is most likely not code compliant.
Unless the chimney had upgrades, it probably has exposed brick interiors. It's also probable that the chimney is supporting some of the house's wood structure, or wood is touching the chimney. The hearth extensions may be supported by wood framing.
Be sure to investigate thoroughly and make sure whatever you do is safe.

 

[rkymtnoffgrid]

Wow, now thats a cool little stove, 1747 huh, now thats an old house, is this thing made of stone? You need to get your chimneys checked out, my house built in 1890 has two chimneys with 5 seperate internal chases, due to the fact the internal size of the chimneys was huge, made of simple brick (no clay liner) and the lime from the motar was deteriorating, I had to line every chimney which was attached to a wood/coal appliance in the house, that included the antique cooking stove, the antique parlor stove, the coal/wood boiler, and my new Leyden wood burner which replaced a different coal burner. Not only did the installations of liners require huge retrofits at the bottom of each chase at enormus expence, (my house is three stories) I now know I would not have fooled with the cook stove, parlor stove, or the wood boiler, only because the expence did not justify my use of these gorgeous but antiquated appratisues. In fact, when my new natural gas boiler was installed, they did not even utilize the liner which the original boiler was hooked to, they simply tapped into the raw chimney!( I guess gass is different) I wish now I simply would have left the parlor stove, cook stove and boiler hooked up the original way, I only fire them on special occasions when I'm always at the house.

 

[simca8]

we have a lange stove and have been heating with it for about 30 years, but we would like to have another one
the one you have is red also. they came in blue, black, and green if anyone know of anyone selling one and
sees any for sale any where please let me know there was one on craigs list and i called and it was sold.

thank you any help

 

[jharkin]

You'll have a better idea of what you are in for once a sweep takes a look. If previous owners have been using those fireplaces there is a good chance they have already been rebuilt or at least re-lined, you might luck out. If it was rebuilt any time recently they would have seperated the fireplaces onto seperate flues per modern code. In fact, the Rumford fireplaces are a give away that its not 100% original to 1749 - the Rumford was invented later, something like 1795 or 1800. So at a minimum the hearths were retrofitted at some point.

If you have a chance look for a book called "The Old House Journal Compendium" There is an entire chapter in there about old fireplaces/chimneys, how they were constructed, how to figure out when changes where done, how to update them, retrofit dampers, re-line flues without rebuilding from scratch etc etc.. And the entire book is a good reference for a house of that vintage. I also highly recommend oldhouseweb.com any time you need non-hearth specific info for your place.