Hello everyone! I am Amy from central Ohio. My husband and I have just started budgeting for a wood stove, and I have just started to gather information. We are not going to purchase the stove for at least two years, so I have plenty of time to gather info and weigh my options, but I would really like to get started so I can prepare myself for the correct amount of money we will need to save up (thinking it will be about $3,000 for the stove and installation along with all the extras).
We live in a two story farmhouse built in 1885. It is insulated pretty well, new windows, but we lose a lot of heat through the floor because the wood floor is original and has a lot of cracks which allow cold air to come up from the cellar. We put insulation in the cellar ceiling, and we have rugs on the floor, but it is still pretty chilly. We currently use propane to run our boiler furncace (radiant water heat) and it is a big expense, the biggest monthly expense we have after our mortgage. We keep our thermostat low, but there is just no way around the expense. We would like to get a woodstove with a cooktop installed in our dining room to make it cozier, and also help us with our heating expense.
Here is the issue. Our home is old and we don't have a nice, large dining/living room with good air circulation that would be ideal for a woodstove. Our rooms are smaller and cut off from one another. I don't know how realistic it is for me to expect a woodstove to help with our heating bills because the heat would probably not be able to heat much more than the room that it is in. I don't want to buy a powerful stove that puts out a lot of heat and then have our dining room be boiling hot while the rest of the house is still cold. However, I am willing to cut vents in the ceiling to take advantage of heat from the stove rising, and install blowers or fans to help move the heat around to other rooms (if that is an option). Even if we can't really cut much of our heating bill, I still want the woodstove for the coziness factor and the versatility of using it for cooking at times. Our home is 1800 sq ft, half on the bottom, half on top.
Right now we have a chimney in our dining room where a stove previously was used. The dining room is not the center room in the house, but it is next to the center room. I would like to put a new stove there, because we do eat there and spend a lot of time in the dining room during the day (we homeschool and the kids do schoolwork there), and it is currently the coldest room in the house. We would have to build a hearth and probably upgrade the chimney.
So that is our situation. I would really love some input regarding the costs that are involved in purchasing and installing the stove, possible stove models, and especially info regarding the heating situation and how much realistically we can expect to cut our heating costs. I would also love to hear some stories about how much you love and use your own stoves and how you make it work for your own living situation (especially if you have an older home with some "issues").
Thank you!
We live in a two story farmhouse built in 1885. It is insulated pretty well, new windows, but we lose a lot of heat through the floor because the wood floor is original and has a lot of cracks which allow cold air to come up from the cellar. We put insulation in the cellar ceiling, and we have rugs on the floor, but it is still pretty chilly. We currently use propane to run our boiler furncace (radiant water heat) and it is a big expense, the biggest monthly expense we have after our mortgage. We keep our thermostat low, but there is just no way around the expense. We would like to get a woodstove with a cooktop installed in our dining room to make it cozier, and also help us with our heating expense.
Here is the issue. Our home is old and we don't have a nice, large dining/living room with good air circulation that would be ideal for a woodstove. Our rooms are smaller and cut off from one another. I don't know how realistic it is for me to expect a woodstove to help with our heating bills because the heat would probably not be able to heat much more than the room that it is in. I don't want to buy a powerful stove that puts out a lot of heat and then have our dining room be boiling hot while the rest of the house is still cold. However, I am willing to cut vents in the ceiling to take advantage of heat from the stove rising, and install blowers or fans to help move the heat around to other rooms (if that is an option). Even if we can't really cut much of our heating bill, I still want the woodstove for the coziness factor and the versatility of using it for cooking at times. Our home is 1800 sq ft, half on the bottom, half on top.
Right now we have a chimney in our dining room where a stove previously was used. The dining room is not the center room in the house, but it is next to the center room. I would like to put a new stove there, because we do eat there and spend a lot of time in the dining room during the day (we homeschool and the kids do schoolwork there), and it is currently the coldest room in the house. We would have to build a hearth and probably upgrade the chimney.
So that is our situation. I would really love some input regarding the costs that are involved in purchasing and installing the stove, possible stove models, and especially info regarding the heating situation and how much realistically we can expect to cut our heating costs. I would also love to hear some stories about how much you love and use your own stoves and how you make it work for your own living situation (especially if you have an older home with some "issues").
Thank you!