DESIGNING A NEW HOUSE FOR WOOD HEATING

[Montanalocal]

Following up on the subject of new construction in a recent post, I wanted to post this article I wrote some time ago. I am not new to wood burning, having over 25 years of experience in the house I draw these examples from. I heat it exclusively with wood which I get all myself. Please jump in with your additions.


DESIGNING A NEW HOUSE FOR WOOD HEATING

While most people have to make do with what they have when it comes to wood heating, for those building new and planning on heating with wood, there are a few things to keep in mind during the design phase.

Site Placement.

Firewood storage and splitting should be an integral part of the placement and landscaping. You will want access by pickup, and plenty of room to expand, and a place to use and store the splitter. Think of a place for several piles, one for green wood seasoning, and one for split ready to burn wood. The green pile can be some distance from the house, but the ready to burn should be easily accessible to the house.

An ideal set up would have additional short term places to store wood. An attached garage or wood shed could have room for a good amount of wood kept dry, and the stove room a day's worth.

It is also good during the initial placement to keep in mind passive solar gain. With large windows oriented to the south, on sunny days it is possible to let the stove go out during the day. Calculate the roof overhang according to your latitude so that you get the low winter sun, and are shaded during the hot summer. Proud roofs are good. Make sure no trees interfere with the sun.

House layout.

It is much easier to distribute heat in a two story structure. You would want your stove room to be on the first floor, with a wide staircase leading to the second floor for natural air convection.

The stove room.

This is the room you will have your stove in. It should not be a room that you spend a lot of time living in, as normally you will have to overheat this room in order for the rest of the house to be warm. You can use this for activities that do not require one to be there for long periods of time.

Also, think of the path that you will use to bring wood into this room. That path, and the room itself will inevitably accumulate bits of bark and wood chips from bringing wood in on a regular basis. The path should probably not go through the whole house. An ideal situation would be a small hallway connected to an attached garage to bring wood in.

The Chimney.

The chimney should be in the center of the house and come up through the peak of the roof. Chimneys at the ends of the house will radiate and lose heat to the outside. Chimneys coming up through any place except the peak will have to be much higher because of draft considerations, and will be much harder to access for cleaning. In addition, the roof should be as flat as possible to facilitate walking on it for cleaning. Another consideration for roofing is not to use metal roofing. They have very unstable footing, especially with snow on them. There are currently available fiberglass 50 year elk shingles that carry a class A fire rating that have very good traction.

Ideally the chimney should incorporate the maximum amount of thermal mass possible. If possible and financially affordable, it could consist of a large cement block outer layer, with rock or brick facing on the cement blocks. Inside this would be rock rubble, with a masonry flue, lined or not as the case may be. This would extend on up through the second story and out the roof. One can additionally pile rocks around the stove and use rock for the hearth. When all this mass heats up, it will radiate heat for a considerable period of time. The chimney base should be designed from the start to have its own footings.

Upper living area design.

The majority of your living area should be on the second floor, and should have a very open design to allow heat to move freely. It is a good idea to wire in ceiling fans in some of the larger rooms.

 

[Mag Craft]

Been there and have already done this. The only difference is my house is a walk out basement so I put a wood stove down stairs and up stairs both. Since most of my living area is up stairs that is where I do most of my heating. The up stairs is a open floor plan and the heat dissipates very well. I like the fact that the master bed room stays alittle cooler then where the stove room is. It makes for better sleeping when cooler.

 

[firefighterjake]

I concur with a lot here ... some advice though ... not so much.

Flat roofs in places with high snow loads tend to be exceptionally bad ideas and metal roofs are ideal for places with lots of snow. Access to the chimney for cleaning can be accomplished through alternative methods ... such as cleaning from the ground.

Also while most folks tend to agree on the ideal placement of chimneys as close to the center of the house ... I would guess the main reason is for the draft. Me ... with a modern stove ... I tend to gain the majority of the heat from the stove and not the chimney. That said, your point about thermal mass makes sense to me.

Final counterpoint ... a properly sized and set up stove should be where folks spend the most time ... as mentioned ...,whether it be on the first or second floor. In my own case most of the first floor where the stove is located is warmest ... the second floor however is warm enough due to the aforementioned natural flow of the heat upstairs.

 

[wardk]

I don't know your insurance rates in MT , but I got a $500 reduction in my premium for removing a wood burning appliance from the house. I built a boiler building away from the house insurance on it is $16 a year.With new construction I would include hydronic tubes in the slab best heating ever.The boiler was expensive but my electric bill for the cold months went from $900 to $150 Still a long payback but the house and shop are warm.

 

[tjcole50]

Ice on the back side of thay gutter? Add flashing/drip edge. Sorry had this issue recently and solved water problem behind hutter. Any it seems the interior chimney thing isnt as important anymore. I know a couple people with older style setups and the center chimney helped. Now they have a modern epa stove with insulatEd liner now it doesn't work like the old setup if that makes sense

 

[mark cline]

All these ideas have been taken into consideration in the planning and building of my custom log home . The 2 flue chimney goes up through the center of the house , all block and stone , about 35 tons plus an 8'x12' x2' concrete footer .Radiant tubing throughout the basement/ man cave and first floor . The mansfield will do the bulk of the heating with another woodstove in the basement. The floor plan is wide open , only a loft up stairs , so 26' ft to the ridge , 26500 cu ft about equal to a 4900 sq ft home . South facing , large energy efficient windows , R65 roof , basement walls made from insulated concrete forms with an additional 1" foam insulation R21. So no rooms to overheat just wide open space , 5 large ceiling fans to keep the warm air circulating , overhangs to shade the summer sun and to allow in the winter sun. Metal roof overall with 12/12 pitch to shed the snow , over 140 " of snow so far this year.

 

[DougA]

This is the room you will have your stove in. It should not be a room that you spend a lot of time living in, as normally you will have to overheat this room in order for the rest of the house to be warm. You can use this for activities that do not require one to be there for long periods of time.

I can't disagree more strongly. If your stove is sized correctly, it should heat the room your family spends most of the time in. We have an open plan with a 900' living/dining room and no walls to the kitchen. The bedrooms are attached to this area and get some heat but are not as warm by design. We like our living area in the 74F range but the bedrooms in the 65F range. Cooler air makes for better sleep.

I also don't agree that a stove placed in the middle is any better than on the outside. We put our stove in a 4' wall between the glass section, where the main roof supports are. Why? Placing a heat source in the middle is disruptive in design but more importantly, having it closer to the windows, negates the cool air that will always be a problem with a large expanse of windows at night.

We looked at a cement/stone chimney and opted for double walled stove pipe with real stone veneer behind it. You gain a lot of heat from the stove pipe and the stone helps re-radiate the heat. We have a high mass house with tons and tons of cement and I have to admit that I would not repeat that if I built again. Even with most of the cement exposed to the heat from the sun, once the sun sets, the heat dissipates quickly, so the net benefit is negligible. IMHO, mass is not worth the cost.

I do agree that south facing windows are a major asset. We've got 200 sq ft of glass facing south, with proper overhangs, that heat the room perfectly on sunny days, even if it is bitterly cold and windy outside.

One design factor that I would love to add is from a discussion with a neighbor. I have a single outside door, 12' from the stove to the outdoor wood pile for wood hauling. He put in patio doors, wide enough for a a wood bin. He stores all his wood in large bins in the barn, then grabs a bin with his tractor/loader and places the entire bin inside the house at the patio doors. No more hauling wood by hand! Ingenious.

 

[OHutton]

Interesting thread. I've thought a lot about how I'd do it if I ever built my own house.

I always have liked a cooler bedroom as well. My wife and I keep our living room where the insert is closed off to the rest of the house until we go to bed. It helps keep the heat where we want it and we consume less wood. Once we do open the doors up, all the heat goes rushing upstairs and it's hard to keep our leaky house warm at that point.

We don't heat 100% with wood though, so that does factor in. Thermostat is at 65 with natural gas normally and then the stove takes it from there into the mid 70s. We don't burn 24/7 either unless it's real cold and let's face it, the NorCal valley does not get real cold.

I like seeing everybody's ideas. Good things to chew on until I get it all figured out.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

I don't know your insurance rates in MT , but I got a $500 reduction in my premium for removing a wood burning appliance from the house. I built a boiler building away from the house insurance on it is $16 a year.With new construction I would include hydronic tubes in the slab best heating ever.The boiler was expensive but my electric bill for the cold months went from $900 to $150 Still a long payback but the house and shop are warm.

If I could get a $500 reduction on my (yearly?) house insurance premium for removing my wood burning appliance I'd only be paying about $75 a year.
I've heard of getting a surcharge for having a wood stove in your house, but $500 extra seems a bit excessive.

As to designing a house for wood heat, I think in order for anything to work well you first need make sure your house is well insulated. I agree with having large thermal mass to absorb the excess heat while the stove is going, and re-radiating again slowly during periods when the stove is not active is a good idea, but that mass should not be exposed in any way to the outdoors because a lot of that stored heat will simply be lost to the outdoors, so a concrete exterior wall, or an exposed brick chimney and flue would not be an efficient mass for storing heat.

What I'd like to see would be in floor heating lines run throughout the house with a large fluid mass storage reservoir strategically located somewhere in the house and lines built into alcove walls to absorb the excess heat from a wood stove placed in the alcove. Having a system like that I believe would be the most efficient way of distributing the heat from the wood stove throughout the house because water mass is one of the best thermal masses you can have, and you could silently control the system flow to the rooms that needed it the most and restrict it where you don't need it. I have always felt that in floor heating is the most comfortable heat there is, so to be able to use that in combination with a visible wood stove I think would be the best of both worlds.

 

[JustWood]

Designed an addition I put on my house about 15 years ago around wood heating and ease of wood handling present and into future as I aged.
Glad I did. Reaping the benefits of it already.
Had I known I would be burning/mixing coal I would have designed differently.

 

[wardk]

If I could get a $500 reduction on my (yearly?) house insurance premium for removing my wood burning appliance I'd only be paying about $75 a year.
I've heard of getting a surcharge for having a wood stove in your house, but $500 extra seems a bit excessive.

As to designing a house for wood heat, I think in order for anything to work well you first need make sure your house is well insulated. I agree with having large thermal mass to absorb the excess heat while the stove is going, and re-radiating again slowly during periods when the stove is not active is a good idea, but that mass should not be exposed in any way to the outdoors because a lot of that stored heat will simply be lost to the outdoors, so a concrete exterior wall, or an exposed brick chimney and flue would not be an efficient mass for storing heat.

What I'd like to see would be in floor heating lines run throughout the house with a large fluid mass storage reservoir strategically located somewhere in the house and lines built into alcove walls to absorb the excess heat from a wood stove placed in the alcove. Having a system like that I believe would be the most efficient way of distributing the heat from the wood stove throughout the house because water mass is one of the best thermal masses you can have, and you could silently control the system flow to the rooms that needed it the most and restrict it where you don't need it. I have always felt that in floor heating is the most comfortable heat there is, so to be able to use that in combination with a visible wood stove I think would be the best of both worlds.

I want your Insurance company , just got this years quote $ 2720.00 with $1000.00 deductible.

 

[sportbikerider78]

An older couple that we are friends with build their home with a large masonry furnace in the middle of the home that is fed from the basement and come through the center of the main level. There is zero smoke smell and it was quite beautiful. They feed it 2 times per day in the most bitter cold.
Cost about $15k but well worth it in the long run. First time I have ever seen something like that.

 

[JrCRXHF]

In-floor heat and outside boiler room with lots of storage for both hot water and wood. Maybe setup a TV and bar top in that building just because.

 

[firefighterjake]

Always have liked the look and concept of a loft . . . until I saw my Uncle and Aunt struggle with keeping the loft and upstairs bedrooms from getting overly hot while having the first floor be quite cool despite the use of several ceiling fans. I know it can be done . . . but I suspect lofts are not really all that great if the goal is to have a more even heat in the entire home.

For the record, when they built a new home I noticed that in their living room they now only have a slightly vaulted ceiling . . . it gives a little more "open-ness" but not at the expense of "losing" a lot of the heat into an area not occupied by a human being.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

That's been my experience with lofts too, not only with heating the house, but also during the heat of the summer, lofts tend to get uncomfortably warm.

 

[sportbikerider78]

I love the high ceilings in my home. All the common rooms have 12-20' and the bedrooms are 10'. Very spacious feeling and only 2,000 sqft.

The loft is a great way to not get taxed for an extra bedroom, but still have the space. When my brother is in town, his kids love sleeping up there.

 

[iluvjazznjava]

I want your Insurance company , just got this years quote $ 2720.00 with $1000.00 deductible.

Ouch - shop around a bit more. I'd be surprised if you couldn't do much better. You are in Canada too, so give TD Insurance a call. That's who I use. I do get a corporate discount through my work (about 30% I believe), but for my entire house (3,000 sq ft) its only about $800 a year. That includes the roughly $60 extra that they charged me for having "dual source heat." They did require me to send in a picture of my wood stove, but there are no mandatory annual inspections or anything.

 

[wardk]

Ouch - shop around a bit more. I'd be surprised if you couldn't do much better. You are in Canada too, so give TD Insurance a call. That's who I use. I do get a corporate discount through my work (about 30% I believe), but for my entire house (3,000 sq ft) its only about $800 a year. That includes the roughly $60 extra that they charged me for having "dual source heat." They did require me to send in a picture of my wood stove, but there are no mandatory annual inspections or anything.

The insurance agent said he shopped all the companies at his disposal, the reasons for the cost , serviced by a volunteer fire dept and no fire hydrants.

 

[dougstove]

If the house has an attic, I disagree about the big masonry chimney.
A masonry mass within the conditioned space makes sense but a masonry column sticking up above the roof is a massive radiator to the attic (probably unconditioned space) and out to space above the roof.

I also disagree with the OP about the stove room. I heat my stove room warm for sitting in the evening, and keep the rest of the house cooler for sleeping.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

The insurance agent said he shopped all the companies at his disposal, the reasons for the cost , serviced by a volunteer fire dept and no fire hydrants.

I'm with iluvjazz on this one, $2720 seems high, even with being out of range of a fire hydrant and the volunteer fire dept thing. Been there before, it only added about $100 extra to my premium. But of course we have no idea of the amount of insurance coverage you need for your place. The more expensive the house, the more coverage you'll need. Going by what your premiums are compared to my premiums, and the replacement value of my home, a little math says your house should be valued at over $1,000,000. Am I close?

 

[Swedishchef]

I'm with iluvjazz on this one, $2720 seems high, even with being out of range of a fire hydrant and the volunteer fire dept thing. Been there before, it only added about $100 extra to my premium. But of course we have no idea of the amount of insurance coverage you need for your place. The more expensive the house, the more coverage you'll need. Going by what your premiums are compared to my premiums, and the replacement value of my home, a little math says your house should be valued at over $1,000,000. Am I close?

My house is insured for $575 000 (contents and rebuild cost)..I have no hydrants and it is a volunteer fire department that services my area. $500 deductible and it costs me $860 a year.

When my house insurance starts costing me more than my car insurance, internet and phone and cable combined..it's time to look at moving into a yurt.

 

[begreen]

This is the room you will have your stove in. It should not be a room that you spend a lot of time living in, as normally you will have to overheat this room in order for the rest of the house to be warm. You can use this for activities that do not require one to be there for long periods of time.

Definitely have to take exception to this statement. If you are designing a house correctly the stove room should be at the center of the house, inside chimney and in a place where people like to congregate and hang out. Ideally one has designed the house with an open floor plan that does not trap the heat in a single room. The stove area may be a bit warmer from radiant heat of the stove, but not uncomfortable. If this area is small, stick with a convective stove. FWIW, our stove is in our living room of modest proportion. The room is very open to the kitchen and dining room and has a large opening to the hall with the stairway. The living room maybe gets 2 degrees warmer than adjacent areas.

Oh, and by all means avoid the temptation to put a cathedral ceiling in. They are heat traps. Cathedral ceiling + loft = baked bedrooms, cool living room down below.

 

[wardk]

My house is insured for $575 000 (contents and rebuild cost)..I have no hydrants and it is a volunteer fire department that services my area. $500 deductible and it costs me $860 a year.

When my house insurance starts costing me more than my car insurance, internet and phone and cable combined..it's time to look at moving into a yurt.

I;m about where you are can you tell me the name of your insurer.

 

[wardk]

I'm with iluvjazz on this one, $2720 seems high, even with being out of range of a fire hydrant and the volunteer fire dept thing. Been there before, it only added about $100 extra to my premium. But of course we have no idea of the amount of insurance coverage you need for your place. The more expensive the house, the more coverage you'll need. Going by what your premiums are compared to my premiums, and the replacement value of my home, a little math says your house should be valued at over $1,000,000. Am I close?

Insurance is a rip goes up $200 a year . agent tells me I'm lucky I get the claim free discount or it could be much more.Not at $1,000,000 about half that.

 

[Swedishchef]

I;m about where you are can you tell me the name of your insurer.

I am not sure what you do for a living..but I have a group rate through The Personal (group rate company of Desjardins bank) https://www.thepersonal.com/Pages/P-Welcome.aspx?MCA=P&LNG=EN
Also check out TD Meloche Monnex.