Location for a new Wood Stove

[Hass]

I've been a lurker for quite a while now, but I figure it's probably time to come out and sign up/post!

Anyway, I have a little bit of a dilemma. I'm confused on placement of a new wood stove, although I pretty much have a good idea of what type of wood stove I'll be getting.
I was very interested in the Blaze king Queen, but now I see they've came out with the new Chinook CBT. I'm waiting for a response from them on what the actual minimum BTU output is, since that is what actually is my main concern as far as the stove goes. Doing a little math guesstimation, the Princess has roughly the same firebox size with a 20 hour burn time at 6,400 BTU... The Chinook has a 30 hour burn time, which should place it somewhere around 4,200 BTU... By using the math from the princess. But there's so many variables, I can't really go by that.

My house is only 827sq/ft, so I don't want to get roasted out especially when it's only 40-50 degrees out, but still need heat. Technically it's only 727 sq/ft that gets heated, as I have an unheated laundry room... but I would like to heat that if possible, especially if I'm using wood heat. It's a small add on that the owner did 30+ years ago, with a concrete pad and 2x4 walls/ceiling. So that's only R-13 all the way around, which is kind of costly to keep up with using LP to heat it when it's not needed.
Currently the ceilings in my house have approx 3-4 inches of insulation in the ceiling, so figure R-13 there, and the walls/floors are uninsulated. I've already gutted/rebuilt the Kitchen/Bath/Laundry rooms last season and intend on doing the rest of it after the heating season is over.

So that brings us to the placement of the new wood stove... I have two locations in mind, maybe someone else has a better idea. I've an image here of the house laid out with the current heater position on it. The previous owners of the house used to heat with wood, but a year before they sold it they switched over to a LP stove. The wood stove was in the same location as the current stove.
I can either put the wood stove where it has been, or move it over to the Dining room area, and use the fans on the stove to blow the heat in to the main living area, instead of blowing all of the heat in to a wall.
The other reason for relocating it, is to just get it out of the way. It would take up quite a bit of usable floor space in the middle of the house, after you account for clearances and hearth pad.

Anyone have suggestions on what the best location would be for it? Since nearly the whole house will be gutted, it can really be placed anywhere.

Pardon my sloppy handwriting.
The drawing was done in inventor '09 in a few minutes.

Direct link to view dimensions if you wish, just remove the period of course.
.http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e372/Leety/scan0002.jpg

 

[snowleopard]

Hi Hass, welcome aboard! Ah, dilemmas! we cherish a good dilemma here.

I thought I wanted a stove tucked away in a corner when I planned the install. Circumstances intervened and I had to make an on-the-fly decision about another location. I was pretty upset about where it ended up, and thought I'd hate it right out in the middle of our living room space. I love it there. It's a gathering place--kind of a `heart of the home' feel to it, so instead of begruging it the space it takes, it's a welcome addition. So you can guess from this poster's p.o.v. that I think the central living room location is a good spot. Other considerations are where the wood is coming in, where it will be stored, where the ashes will go out, and where the mess from the wood chips, etc. will be easiest to deal with. You want to have some open space that is easy to sweep up around it. If you have a nice hearth and chimney installed already, and think you can live with that spot, I'd say you're ahead of the game.

One of the possibilities to consider so that you don't feel so overwhelmed by the size is to continue to insulate and beef up that way so that you could get by with a smaller stove. Getting that R13 up to an R60 is usually a pretty cheap and easy fix--sounds like you're working on that.

Taking advantage of south facing windows for heat, covers for them at night, making sure skirting is adequate, etc., can go a long way to reduce the need for a big stove. It's pretty amazing what a difference that can make in the stove you need.

Good luck, come out of the woodwork more often, and let us know what you decide.

 

[begreen]

The current stove location is fine, but if you want to move it to the dining room area, heating shouldn't be a problem with it located there either. You won't need a fan to heat the living room. This is an open area that is small enough for convection to work well. If you want to heat the pantry, just put a fan in there, blowing toward the stove location. However, if this is a food storage area it might be better off on the cool side.

As for stoves, if you don't decide on the BK, it looks like a Woodstock Keystone or Palladian would take care of the space.

 

[Woody Stover]

Doing a little math guesstimation, the Princess has roughly the same firebox size with a 20 hour burn time at 6,400 BTU... The Chinook has a 30 hour burn time, which should place it somewhere around 4,200 BTU... By using the math from the princess. But there's so many variables, I can't really go by that.

My house is only 827sq/ft, so I don't want to get roasted out especially when it's only 40-50 degrees out, but still need heat. Technically it's only 727 sq/ft that gets heated, as I have an unheated laundry room... but I would like to heat that if possible.
Currently the ceilings in my house have approx 3-4 inches of insulation in the ceiling, so figure R-13 there, and the walls/floors are uninsulated. I've already gutted/rebuilt the Kitchen/Bath/Laundry rooms last season and intend on doing the rest of it after the heating season is over.

Yeah, the numbers on the Blaze King site are confusing. They give different spec parameters on the Princess and the Chinook, so you can't compare head-to-head numbers. I'm not sure why the burn times would be so much greater in the Chinook, since it and the Princess have about the same size firebox. Maybe you can cut the air back more on the Chinook? Also not sure why the EPA numbers and "Real World" numbers are different. I thought I read in a Battenkiller thread that EPA used Douglas Fir; Maybe that accounts for the higher EPA low-burn output.
When you get the insulation finished in all rooms, I'd think you could heat them all sufficiently, including the laundry. With my small Dutchwest (convection cat stove,) I could heat our place (log walls, 3/4" wallboard, no insulation except attic, couple of bad air leaks) pretty well, and the blower helped on really cold nights. It's a 720 sq.ft. main room and 260 sq.ft. bedroom, vaulted ceiling, which is closed off when either of us is sleeping. You may have colder overall temps in NY though...
I don't think you'll have to worry about getting roasted out with either stove, since they will run low output with the combustor, half-loads, and blower off.
And I'd leave the stove where it is. I agree with snowleopard about it adding a coziness to the main gathering place.

 

[shawneyboy]

Personally I would keep the location right where it is. As others have said... open area, so dining room would also work, but it seems like you would not gain that much space by moving it. By your drawing it would seem in the current location you would be right in between the main living space and could enjoy the stove most of the waking hours. The biggest concern I would have with the current location is the storage and mess concerns previously mentioned, but if that can be addressed the location you have marked is almost ideal IMHO.

Shawn

 

[snowleopard]

One more thought--and interestingly, I only picked up on this after I took pictures and posted them on this site--is that I could have created a lot more traffic flow space around that stove (and saved my ds the stubbed toes he's prone to) by rounding off the front corners of the hearth. I think that small change could make a big difference (it's driving me nuts now that I didn't think of it before--oops!) too late for me, but not for you. Just a thought.

ETA: Or cutting them off at an angle. That would be a lot easier to execute. (Getting smarter by the minute here--still too late.)

 

[begreen]

Good point, we all learn from experience. Hindsight is 20/20 vision.

 

[snowleopard]

Good point, we all learn from experience. Hindsight is 20/20 vision.

Yes, but it's usually easier and cheaper to learn from someone else's experience. :coolsmile: