Home modification?

[FLINT]

Has anyone ever modified their home to better facilitate heating with a wood stove?

We bought our house 2 years ago. its a small 1300 sq. ft. ranch, with not a real open floor plan. It had a big fireplace at one end which I bricked over the opening, made a round hold about 5' up, then extended the top 6' and ran a full stainless steel liner connected to a wood stove. Works pretty good, its one of those old sheet metal stoves with the tin shield all around - doesnt really even look like a wood stove. That thing really cooks though, but its had to run it 24/7 without half of the house being well into the 80's and even 90 or so sometimes, whereas the other end of the house is usually between 60-70.

I would like to be able to put the stove in a more central location and run a insulated stainless steel chimney straight up from it through the roof. However, there is no good location in the middle of the house due to walls and a hallway.

Also its kind of nice where it is now, because it has that huge brick chimney behind it that serves as a nice hearth area, however, the setup is just not ideal.

To do what I want may require some wall modification.

anyone ever do anything similar? or do you just figure out how to best live with your current home configuration?

I dream of a day when we can build our own home - it would be a nice little 1200 sq. ft. open square house with the woodstove right in the middle.

 

[par0thead151]

i lucked out and do notneed anything modified less the stove insert itself.
i like it that way, as if a prospective buyer(when i sell my house) wants a normal fireplace not a stove, the stove can be removed fairly easily.
in my area the stove probably lowers my home value, but i dont care as ilike it and i plan on being here for atleast 15-20 years.

 

[SolarAndWood]

I removed all of the interior walls and put the stove in the center of the house with a straight up steel chimney. My house has 14" steel on 2 ft centers to hold up the old flat roof, so none of the interior walls were load bearing.

 

[pyper]

I raised the opening over the doorway to our livingroom, but that was really more about my bagpipes than the stove.

Our house has about the worst possible layout for heating with a stove. It's a series of rooms, connected to each other basicaly in a line (but shaped like a "C"). Here's the floorplan if you want to see: i97.photobucket.com/albums/l211/pyper_2006/home/plan.jpg

Anyway, I'm thinking about modifying the duct work to allow me to blow air directly from the warmest room to the coolest room. This would involve making a hole in the back of the return, mounting a blower, and a filter. I'd probably make it so I could simply close a door over it when it wasn't necessary.

 

[LLigetfa]

I designed my home with wood heat in mind. Open concept with central open stairway.

 

[FLINT]

Yes, I think we need to decide whether or not we ever plan on selling the house. That would really determine what we do to it.

The other night I was thinking of opening up the doorways on either end of the hallway so that it was just a big opening, wall to wall, floor to ceiling - but that would eliminate any future ability to put doors there.

also, i don't have any other form of heat or cooling, so i have no duct work to take advantage of.

wow, i wish i had some sweet steel beams holding my roof up!

yes, pyper, your house is definitely laid out worse than mine!

its not that its not ok they way it is, I mean, we are plenty warm. it just could be better.

 

[SolarAndWood]

wow, i wish i had some sweet steel beams holding my roof up!

I wish that I could have come up with a practical way to get them out before I put the trusses up last fall. All they are now are spacers for insulation.

 

[Chad S.]

I am ripping out a pre-fab in the basement and putting a stove directly above it on the main floor where the chase for the old chimney used to be. It's your house have fun and tinker, just don't rip out load bearing walls and youll be fine ;-)

 

[Chad S.]

Has anyone ever modified their home to better facilitate heating with a wood stove?


I dream of a day when we can build our own home - it would be a nice little 1200 sq. ft. open square house with the woodstove right in the middle.

I would want a 40-50' geodesic dome home with a giant custom masonry heater with benches and ovens built in

 

[LLigetfa]

I dream of a day when we can build our own home - it would be a nice little 1200 sq. ft. open square house with the woodstove right in the middle.

When I was designing our home there was much heated discussion WRT the location of the hearth. My wife wanted it more central arguing that near the central stairway was the only way the heat would reach all areas of the house. I was sure that locating the stove at the far end of the ell would work. It does.

{edit} added a south elevation

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I put a chimney on the back of my house. Does that count?

Matt

 

[lowroadacres]

In anticipation of a basement wood stove installation we made certain that the stove would be located in our largest room in the basement. As well the open stairway up to the large open upstairs creates a large opening for upward air movement. As we have put in high cold air returns at the opposite corner of the large room in which the stove is installed. Furnace fan will be running on circulate the majority of the time to create airflow throughout the home.

With all of that in mind my hope is still to eventually upgrade the existing traditional fireplace upstairs to an EPA insert. The trick there will be getting one that will provide enough viewing area to please those in our home craving the ambience created by the large fireplace opening. If we can make the one install work properly it will allow us to save enough on the heat bill to facilitate the second 'stove'.

One step at a time though as we battle through our install process that one can read about elsewhere in the forum.

 

[begreen]

Yes, we move the wood heater out of the kitchen entry during a remodel. Then we tore out the complete old fireplace system including chimney. The wood stove was relocated with a new SS flue system to the living room corner. Doing this rotated the entire orientation of the living room 180°, but it has worked out well and the house heats quite evenly with the new stove location. However, later I did add a false division ceiling division between the living room and the hallway to slow down the airflow upstairs as a final tweek.

 

[BrowningBAR]

or do you just figure out how to best live with your current home configuration?

I have three chimneys. My solution was three stoves.

 

[FLINT]

, just don't rip out load bearing walls and youll be fine ;-)

ok, so say a wall is load bearing. is there a way around that? put up columns or posts - or maybe some rustic looking oak beams floor to ceiling. this is never going to happen, haha.

 

[SolarAndWood]

, just don't rip out load bearing walls and youll be fine ;-)

ok, so say a wall is load bearing. is there a way around that? put up columns or posts - or maybe some rustic looking oak beams floor to ceiling. this is never going to happen, haha.

Horizontal beams are the way to get around interior walls and clumsy columns in the middle of your living space. LVLs will clear span most interior spaces without requiring a lot of height. There is a guy somewhere in a back room at the places that make them that might even do the load calculations for you.

 

[pyper]

, just don't rip out load bearing walls and youll be fine ;-)

ok, so say a wall is load bearing. is there a way around that? put up columns or posts - or maybe some rustic looking oak beams floor to ceiling. this is never going to happen, haha.

You may need someone to do real calculations, but there's a PDF on ilevel.com that has a wide variety of span tables in it to give you an idea of what you can do.

To give you an idea of the cost, we bought two 22 foot long 1.75 x 14" beams (to nail together) for our house recently. About $300 delivered. The lumber yardhad them in 44 foot lengths.

 

[begreen]

We did this when we first moved into the house to leave the passage between the living room and dining room fairly open. It worked out very well. Just be sure the beam is engineered to support the load, strongly supported on the ends and tied well to the house structure.

 

[LLigetfa]

No need to take down the walls. Just take off the lath and plaster leaving the studs.

 

[FLINT]

No need to take down the walls. Just take off the lath and plaster leaving the studs.

haha, yeah, I thought of that but my wife would NEVER go for it.

you know, i bet this wouldn't be bad at all. my house is so small. the two walls I'm thinking of removing are 10' long or less, and I'm sure that span could easily be supported with beams - there is no upstairs or anything, only a roof.

 

[firefighterjake]

Well my wife and I tore down a wall (non-load bearing) and backed it up 18 inches or so since we were losing a bit of space due to the hearth . . . since we were in the process of renovating our living room it was not a big deal and since it made my wife happy. . . .