New Basement fisher stove - update/how much wood should it burn?

[yetty734]

hello wood burners near and far,

my fisher stove(still not 100% indentified; says MI on the door and is thought to be a mother in law.) in the basement is heating our entire house(2000 square feet and 40 years old) on about 1/4 of a cord of 3.5 year old cherry a week. im into 1.5 year old maple and hope to slow down to maybe 1/4 a cord every 2 weeks.

wat would you guys expect to burn in an older stove like this to heat the whole house?

also have heard talk of second burns a lot on here...what are these.

right now it is a gusty 17 degrees outside, 73 in the main area and 70 ish in the bedrooms which is plenty warm for us. the electric heat pump hasnt turned on once in the two and a half weeks we've been burning... it was 76 and 73 in the two areas yesterday when the temperature was 28


im quite pleased, especially if the wood usage drops drastically with the newer wood.

for any of you that new about our setup that sounded dangerous we had it checked by the local inspector and said it wasnt code but is passing as the chimney is exterior the house. right now the stove is 16 inches out from a concrete wall, with the pipe going up about a foot and then angling back through a large hole from the old brick fireplace and then 16 inches up into the chimney. i had a custom fabricated 1/4 thick peice of metal made to fit over the whole and chimney pipe to cover the large hole...it is attached with 6 heavy bolts holding it to concrete anchors in the wall.


thanks again.


ccb



long p.s-

for sale:
1. craftsman 16" from 1985....runs well for its age and small cc($40???)

2. homelite xl150-16 inch...runs loud...but may need a new clutch(b.o)

wanted-
1. log splitter: 20+ton horizontal/vertical($500 or less)

2. wood in the central ohio area near 43023(granville-newark area)

3. anyone interested in splitting some wood at my house with their electric splitter in trade for reasonable pay back of work on their property.(central ohio)

 

[webbie]

Well, it would take me too long to comment on the Mother in Law stove (picture, please - maybe I can ID) or the building official who says that the thing is not up to code, but OK because your fireplace is not part of the house. I would have to write a book.

That said, the stove installation does sound like it would have passed at the time the stove was manufactured....in other words, it is better than what a lot of folks were doing back then!

But as to your question, I think even a cord in a cold month is not too much, especially for very cold weather and whole house heating. I'm looking at it this way - a lot of Pellet heads are using 2 bags per day in cold weather to heat their homes. That is 80 lbs. Your stove is a lot less efficient than a pellet stove, so let's say you use 100+ lbs of wood, instead of 80. That makes 3000 lbs per month, which is a cord of hardwood (average)......

Hope that makes some kind of sense.