ToastyToes said:
This is for nights/weekend burning only. ... So the main goal here is supplemental heating, plus sitting around a fire sure beats watching TV as a family activity at least in my opinion. The house is well insulated but not airtight as the newer homes. The house was built around 1969. The floor plan is not great for airflow. The lower level will be OK, and we do have an open stairwell so some hot air will go up to the living room and kitchen/dining upstairs. The upstairs bedrooms will not benefit much. I've heard that you can put in floor grates for air movement to upstairs. Has anyone tried that and how well does it work?
Careful - this is how many folks get started, the addiction starts as 'just nights and weekends to supplement' then well.. next thing you know you break out in a cold sweat if you hear the central heat kick in during the night
How large is this room? Do you have much concern about clearances around where the stove is going to be placed - i.e. have you measured out the space yet to visualize just how much room on the floor it will take up once you consider the buffer of safety space around it? Different stoves will have considerably different requirements so if you don't have a good amount of space this will likely come into play, best to know up front. (more later in next section).
If your objective remains to just enjoy the stove on the one level then you will be easily satisfied. If you go to trying to push the heat up then it may get complicated, reality is that you will want to help move the cold air down. What you need is the ability to create a nice flow of cold air down to stove and warm air up. Largely you are going to be limited or enabled by the architecture of your home now unless you want to go making renovations. From my reading over the last year or so, some folks have had (some rather limited) drying to add floor grates etc to help here. Then you get into code concerns etc since putting holes between floors could allow a fire to spread more easily - apparently this isn't necessarily standardized everywhere so YMMV on how big a deal that is.
ToastyToes said:
There is an existing chimney but it is located on an outside wall. ... In fact they could not even get the pipes/liner to connect to the stove. So we are going to tear the bricks out and rebuild the wall behind it.
Post some pictures and drawings here - I'm sure you will get some interesting (and perhaps even useful) second, third, forth... opinions on how to approach this. May save yourself some cost and/or end up with a nicer end result. If you are redesigning the hearth area anyway then you can customize it for the stove of choice - so definitely either have your stove picked out well before doing this or make sure you over-engineer the area. Again, different stoves have varied requirements for floor protection (amount and size). Consider making it larger than minimum required if you have the space, it will not only look nicer in many cases but depending on how the rest of your flooring is it may help make messes easier to contain and/or make it a bit safer too.
ToastyToes said:
Another question: if I get a stove that is too big, will overheating be a problem? Is burning a smaller load an option or will it mess up the efficiency of the stove? We get below freezing temps here for 3-4 months out of a year, and generally we need to turn the heat on from October to end of April.
I think the general consensus around here is the "it is easier to build a smaller fire in a larger stove than a larger fire in a smaller stove". Given your general plan of burning I don't think that efficiency would be my primary concern, however getting good clean burns easily and quickly from the time you light up the fire would be. This is of course somewhat related to efficiency. Depending on exactly how your chimney ends up being - how tall etc, it may or may not provide 'ideal' draft. Some stoves care more about this than others. Get more details about your chimney on here and if there are any red flags I'm sure if a stove you are looking at is sensitive someone will likely pipe in.
The other thing you should at least understand, if not consider, is whether you want a catalytic or a non-catalytic stove. My guess is that for your stated objective of enjoying the ambiance and not burning much for long term heat the right non-cat would perhaps be nicer for you (lots of visual to look at), however a cat stove can be 'turned down' more for longer burns that run cleaner - in the ultra-low burns you won't get the same amount of bright flame action.
As to size of stove to buy - If you have space in that room, I'd consider getting one that may be large enough to 'in theory' heat the whole house and that is designed well enough to run 24/7. Unless you are set against it there is a chance you may find yourself moving in that direction in a couple years once you get the hang of burning and if you have the right stove it may not be nearly as difficult to do as you imagine. Of course the economics of it depends on your wood sources and how much you enjoy working with the wood.
So - how is that wood pile looking?
