Help me not hate my Regency F3100.

[weatherguy]

It's our house! $8,000-$10,000 of foam coming our way!

(Though our wood is still not good too.)

More insulation and drier wood and you'll be sweating in your house with that stove, did your new wood guy come by yet?

 

[pearlgirl]

More insulation and drier wood and you'll be sweating in your house with that stove, did your new wood guy come by yet?

I sure hope so!

We are meeting him tomorrow I think.

 

[corey21]

Hope this helps things out for you.

 

[begreen]

Thanks weatherguy. I hope he's got good wood!

Down to 650 now but still rolling. I'm leaving it and heading to bed! 76 in the room, 33 outside.

Considering the house was 62F last year with that temp, I'd say that qualifies for success and a bit of overkill. You will save some wood and get longer burns by throttling back a bit. The stove is working well and with dry wood you are going to love it. It's a good unit. The fact that by morning the room was back to 61F is an indication of heat loss which it sounds like you are going to address.

Tell us more about the energy audit and outcome. Tightening up the house and insulating is one of the best investments you can make. It will payback year round in energy savings and a quieter house.

PS: Sorry to hear about the unexpected operation last spring. I hope the outcome was successful and positive.

 

[Waulie]

You are going to be loving your results with new insulation and dry wood!

You've spent and are spending a lot of money, but your going to much, much warmer and with the cost of oil you'll be recouping some of that every year.

Plus, I don't care how tight your home is, you can't beat wood heat.

When you're all set up and sweating in your stove room, ask more about moving heat around. There are great suggestions to be had here.

 

[pearlgirl]

Considering the house was 62F last year with that temp, I'd say that qualifies for success and a bit of overkill. You will save some wood and get longer burns by throttling back a bit. The stove is working well and with dry wood you are going to love it. It's a good unit. The fact that by morning the room was back to 61F is an indication of heat loss which it sounds like you are going to address.

Tell us more about the energy audit and outcome. Tightening up the house and insulating is one of the best investments you can make. It will payback year round in energy savings and a quieter house.

PS: Sorry to hear about the unexpected operation last spring. I hope the outcome was successful and positive.

I get what you are saying for sure. It is better than 62! It's just that the furnance directly carries the heat to other areas of the house where of course we are needing it to escape from here to reach those places. So I do feel like it needs to be roasting in here to get that same 62 other places that we were getting with the furnance or higher ideally.

I just got it going again and the thermometer working right is extremely helpful and I've got it going good now. Just explained to my husband how it's running perfect now but with more air than is most efficient because of our wood, and it took longer to get to that point than it should because of the wood, but right now, it's doing what it should. I haven't gotten it over 625 this run either.

The energy guy actually came out with an infrared gun, it was really cool. He just walked around pointing that thing and you could see all the places where the cold was coming in (which wasn't so "cool", ha!), or places even behind walls where the insulation was not as it should be. It was really neat. He did not do the fan in the door and get a score from that process or anything, we had that done on our last home. He just went around with the gun. He seemed extremely knowledgeable, and does a lot of jobs in the city in crazy old homes that need a lot. Our main culprit is definitely underneath the house, and it did not surprise me at all. I was surprised though just how cold it really is down there and all the ways it's creeping up here into our living space. I really have a ton of hope that once they do all this work it's going to be so wonderful in here!

Thank you about my son, he was 3 at the time, and actually had an auto-immune attack on his brain and spine called ADEM, it was horrific, but he is doing fantastic now and is back to about 90% and still improving which is nothing short of a miracle at this point. It has been an unbelievable experience and we are just so thankful he is ok.
I took pictures of our setup, going to try and figure out how to get them here now!

 

[pearlgirl]

Ok, this is our house. So you can easily see how the living room is in the middle (which is where the stove is, pipe is on the back) and then the two sides going up from there. Just doing one right now to see if this is how I want to do photos, or if I want to try the URL thing!

 

[Waulie]

Thank you about my son, he was 3 at the time, and actually had an auto-immune attack on his brain and spine called ADEM, it was horrific, but he is doing fantastic now and is back to about 90% and still improving which is nothing short of a miracle at this point. It has been an unbelievable experience and we are just so thankful he is ok.
I took pictures of our setup, going to try and figure out how to get them here now!

Wow. I have a 4 and almost 2 year old and I can't imagine! So glad he's doing so well.

Can't wait to see picks of your setup. Post a couple of that cook stove too. It's sounds pretty cool.

 

[Waulie]

Ok, this is our house. So you can easily see how the living room is in the middle (which is where the stove is, pipe is on the back) and then the two sides going up from there. Just doing one right now to see if this is how I want to do photos, or if I want to try the URL thing!

Very cool house! Er, I mean "nice".

 

[pearlgirl]

Here is the stove.


Going into the ceiling, they originally had single wall there!


Coming out of the ceiling into our attic.



Going out of the attic.


The rest outside.

 

[pearlgirl]

Here is the other stove.





This is the back from one end, where we were told it is too close to that wall.



Same thing, just other end.



And here is where the pipe is very close to the shelf. That pot looks like it is touching but it is in front of it, closer to me taking the photo I mean.

 

[pearlgirl]

Very cool house! Er, I mean "nice".

Thank you! It's cooler than we knew! ha! We do love this house, which is in part why I think this has all been so upsetting to me and frustrating, and why we will do what we need to do take make it work. Freezing our bums off has been making me hate this house and I do not want to hate it! I want to live here forever!

 

[pearlgirl]

This is in the living room, so you can see the stairs going up there to the left of the stove on this end, that's the 3 story side.



This is the other end of the room, with the other set of stairs going up into the other part.

 

[begreen]

Thanks for posting the pictures. They really help. That's a nice house. I'm surprised to see you are in the Syracuse area. I would have guessed the northwest with that handmade craftsman style.

The livingroom looks like an enclosed breezeway connecting two separate dwellings. That explains why the kitchen side stays warm and the heating challenge. The next step will be figuring out how to get the heat into the main house. Is there a doorway to the first floor from the living room?

Do you have a 12" table fan or a basic box fan? Would it be possible to post a rough sketch of the first floor plan?

Also, you mentioned some safety concerns about the kitchen wood stove. What are they?

 

[pearlgirl]

Wow. I have a 4 and almost 2 year old and I can't imagine! So glad he's doing so well.

Thank you.

 

[begreen]

Just looked at the kitchen pictures. That's a great looking cook stove. There definitely is a safety issue with the flue pipe. Unshielded single-wall pipe needs to be 18" from combustibles in all directions.

 

[BrowningBAR]

It's our house! $8,000-$10,000 of foam coming our way!

(Though our wood is still not good too.)

See! And you didn't believe me!

Seriously, though, good to hear you found the issue. If you seal that SOB up you should notice a big difference, even with wet wood.

If possible, buy/gather next year's wood now. Your goal is to get 2+ years ahead. Many of us shoot for 3-5 years ahead for our fuel. It makes everything a lot easier.

 

[pearlgirl]

See! And you didn't believe me!

Seriously, though, good to hear you found the issue. If you seal that SOB up you should notice a big difference, even with wet wood.

If possible, buy/gather next year's wood now. Your goal is to get 2+ years ahead. Many of us shoot for 3-5 years ahead for our fuel. It makes everything a lot easier.

You are right, I did not think it was that bad, and certainly at least not in the newer areas. And it is the older side that is the worst, but there is a crawl space under this living room that connects the two basements and so it is very cold under here too. When we opened the access to the crawl space in the better basement the cold was really pouring out, you could just feel it. The cellar is just so cold and it's spreading down there and up here too. It was good timing having that guy out to prove you right!

We've got 25+ FC stacked right now! Planning to get more. We really do know and want to get ahead. But boy is it a lot of work! My 3 big kids are earning summer camp next year though stacking, so it works out! And it's still not cheap when you are buying so much to get a head, but once we do we can get to where we are only buying a years worth in a year.

 

[pearlgirl]

Just looked at the kitchen pictures. That's a great looking cook stove. There definitely is a safety issue with the flue pipe. Unshielded single-wall pipe needs to be 18" from combustibles in all directions.

So since we can't move the stove, or the pipe, what can we do? The shelf could come down, but that wouldn't give us enough inches still I am thinking. Can we put something protective on the shelf? Like a shield? Or like if we take down the shelf and tile that wall?

Open to any ideas!

 

[BrowningBAR]

And it's still not cheap when you are buying so much to get a head, but once we do we can get to where we are only buying a years worth in a year.

I feel your pain. I go through 8 cord a year now and I had to buy 10-16 cord the last two years to build up the supply. And I will need to bring in 10 cord a year for the next several years to build up the supply.

 

[BrowningBAR]

So since we can't move the stove, or the pipe, what can we do? The shelf could come down, but that wouldn't give us enough inches still I am thinking. Can we put something protective on the shelf? Like a shield? Or like if we take down the shelf and tile that wall?

Open to any ideas!

Replacing the existing single wall pipe with double wall pipe should solve the issue with the pipe clearances.

 

[begreen]

So since we can't move the stove, or the pipe, what can we do? The shelf could come down, but that wouldn't give us enough inches still I am thinking. Can we put something protective on the shelf? Like a shield? Or like if we take down the shelf and tile that wall?

Open to any ideas!

The first question is how the pipe is exiting the room? Is there a proper support box or an illegal setup like you had in the living room? If it is a legal support box that transitions to class A pipe outside, then changing the interior pipe to double-wall connector and increasing the shelf clearance may be enough. The shelf could have a wide circle cut in it with a jigsaw to make the 6" double-wall clearance requirement. It looks like it would need to be about a 3" deep cut.

You could also attach a pipe shield to the single-wall. That would also reduce the required clearance to 6".

 

[pearlgirl]

The first question is how the pipe is exiting the room? Is there a proper support box or an illegal setup like you had in the living room? If it is a legal support box that transitions to class A pipe outside, then changing the interior pipe to double-wall connector and increasing the shelf clearance may be enough. The shelf could have a wide circle cut in it with a jigsaw to make the 6" double-wall clearance requirement. It looks like it would need to be about a 3" deep cut.

You could also attach a pipe shield to the single-wall. That would also reduce the required clearance to 6".

Here we go, just grabbed a picture of the top!

 

[begreen]

You are right, I did not think it was that bad, and certainly at least not in the newer areas. And it is the older side that is the worst, but there is a crawl space under this living room that connects the two basements and so it is very cold under here too. When we opened the access to the crawl space in the better basement the cold was really pouring out, you could just feel it. The cellar is just so cold and it's spreading down there and up here too. It was good timing having that guy out to prove you right!

Insulating under the living room floor should help. Then I would close the crawlspace access doors. You don't want that cold spilling into the adjacent basement(s). It could freeze plumbing during a bad cold snap. Note that this is common when folks don't run the furnace in the winter. I would recommend letting it cycle once an hour or so during a deep freeze to avoid pipe freezing in the cold basement. If the hot water heater is down there I would also insulate the hot water pipes and give the hw heater an extra wrap of insulation.

 

[pearlgirl]

or an illegal setup like you had in the living room?
.

Are there things illegal about the living room set up right now? As it's shown in the pictures I posted earlier? Or do you mean how I'd described how they'd had it with the single wall before they fixed it?