New Burner-to-be, Plan critique/questions

[KpR]

Hi all,
I'm trying to put together my plan for my first insert and install and need some feedback/help ironing things out.

About the house: a 1957, 1200 sq ft ranch in Central New Jersey--not airtight, and not insulated extremely well. Insert will be going into a masonry fireplace with an exterior chimney--20' in height, 13x13" flue.
The room with the fireplace is 300 sq ft, with an open doorway to the kitchen on one side and open entryway with access to the hallway and three bedrooms on the other. Ceiling fan in place. (see attachment)

I am very interested in the PE Super insert, and was planning on going with a smooth walled, insulated flex liner all the way up. Block off plate with insulation necessary?

I'm wondering if the Super is too much heat for this kind of setup--so that I'd be unable to relax in the same room as the insert when it's going full speed. I'm hoping to run the HVAC fan to circulate the air around the house if need be, and rely on the ceiling fan otherwise.

The masonry chimney has a metal firebox in it, and a damper that sits on a 45 degree angle with a 6" opening.
I was hoping to not have to cut the box to fit the liner through, but suppose I can if that is the best way.
Can anyone describe the setup I would need if I wanted to fit an oval flue adapter through the damper? Would it look something like 1. stove connection 2. Ovalized adapter 3. insulated liner--connected to each other in that order? Or should I just suck it up, cut, and get a straight shot into the flue?
Also, would anyone recommend going higher than 20' on chimney height?

Sorry for the long post. Any feedback would be much appreciated. I've been reading my way through this site and find it to be simply awesome.

 

[Simonkenton]

That is a good layout for a wood stove. Big living room, plus the kitchen will be well-heated. The bedrooms will be cooler, I like it like that.

 

[Grisu]

Yes to the block-off plate. It is an one time deal and will pay dividends for years to come. Should the fireplace be large enough, consider also putting insulation around the insert:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/finally-got-around-to-insulating-my-fireplace.75755/

Kudos for going straight for an insulated liner; certainly recommended with an exterior chimney. The liner could be ovalized to fit through the damper but f possible I would avoid it. It will impede draft and make cleaning more difficult. The damper can usually be cut out. The Super drafts easily; 20 ft of insulated liner should be plenty.

I doubt my living room is any bigger than yours and I have yet to be cooked out. In the shoulder season load less wood and you should be fine. To get the heat to the bedroom area I would try a small fan on the floor in the door of the top-left bedroom blowing cold air down the corridor towards the living room. Warm air from the living room should flow along the ceiling towards the bedroom to make up for the lost air. HVAC fans can work if your ducting is well insulated. Others find that the heat loss in the ducts negates the gain of moving the warm air. Reason is that your furnace puts much hotter air in there than what it can get from your stove room.

How much dry wood do you have ready?

 

[Bassmantweed]

Since your new burner I think there are a few other things that you need to think about which maybe you already have.

Are you looking for this to be primary heat source?
Being in Central New Jersey do you have a steady supply of wood?
Will somebody be there to tend to it every 4 to 6 hours?
Have you thought about a pellet stove?

Just throwing this out there. I heated my house with wood for a long time before I gave up and went pellet and I would never look back. I load the stove once a day and clean it once a week. It's thermostatically controlled and so it's a nice even heat. If you have a never ending source of wood then no doubt go with the woodstove .......but if you're going to buy wood, then you might as well buy in a bag.

Some people say pellets are hard to find I have never found this to be the case as long as you plan.

 

[Poindexter]

I agree with all of the above that I know about. I have no idea how big a stove you need. Much easier to build a small fire in a big stove than vice versa. Whatever the concesus range is for your house in your climate, I would tend to the large end of the scale without going overboard.

Grisu and begreen have probably forgotten more about inserts and liners than I will ever know. I would try a box fan on the floor in exactly the same place Grisu suggested, likely your ductwork is not very well insulated. Certainly try the existing HVAC fan, but try the box fan on the floor too.

Pellets should be considered rationally before you commit. More expensive than cordwood, but a lot less work. Are in your late 50s with 3 or 4 local pellet dealers in competition with each other? Are you in your mid 20s with 15 acres of forest on your lot? Do you own a chainsaw or a splitter or a truck?

I encourage you to improve your air seals and insulation no matter what fuel you use for heat. Not saying you need to drop $30k on new windows, but a few hundred bucks in caulking and expandable foam and maybe some blown in cellulose in the attic will save you money next winter no matter what.

If you sit down with pad, paper and calculator you should be able to figure out how may BTUs you used for heat last year and how much you paid for them. Then you can look at your local prices for cord wood and pellets and figure out how much you can save, then figure out your purchase and installation price, and with those numbers you can figure out how long it will take to break even if you put the savings out of your heat budget towards your install price.... Most likely you will break even fastest but have to do the most manual labor if you go with cord wood.

Psst: if you go with cordwood you can likely get pine cheap cheap cheap and if you get on it now (have it split and stacked by late March or so) you can have it plenty plenty dry by Autumn 2015.

 

[KpR]

Thanks for the help.
I will definitely look into insulating around the insert, just a few more measurements. The fan placement is a great idea because the AC ducts are definitely not as insulated as they'd need to be.
I considered pellet, but for now (early 30s) the manual labor of splitting myself is part of the appeal, and wood supply won't be a problem. I'm on 55 acres of forest, mostly green ash, red oak and red maple, with an adjacent 300 acres that I have access to. (NJ is fortunately not all strip malls and housing developments...yet)
I've got about 1 1/2 cords of ash and oak that have been split for a year and half. Hopefully by March I'll have 4-5 cords stacked, and be able to sit and watch the evaporation. I'm hoping to have a solid base of the hardwoods, with some softer stuff for burns in the shoulder season.
For those gaps in tending greater than 6 hours, the oil furnace will back me up. But hopefully this will slow the draining of the tank to just a trickle -- improving the house insulation is also on the list.

It seems all the PE dealers have the same quote for the insert, with the online rogues a couple hundred less. Dealers all come in at about $2335. I'm waiting to hear back from PE about whether or not their warranty is still honored if I buy online. Any suggestions?

 

[KpR]

I seem to have mistaken the measurements of my chimney height. It's actually 15', not 20' as I had previously wrote.
Any thoughts on draft problems with the shorter height, but still using the insulated liner? Would a flue extender up top help?

 

[Poindexter]

Sounds like you are on track. I will encourage you a second time to harvest a pine or spruce if you can justify and get it split before spring thaw. The cord and half you of hard you will have ready this fall is a 1.5 cords most new burners don't have, so that's good.

But it is also probably too late to season any more hardwood before Oct 2015. If you want to burn more than 1.5 cords next winter and start with live trees rather than buying seasoned splits, go cut some evergreens and get them split in the next eight weeks or so. I find softwood splits about the size of a 2x8 sixteen inches long is about as big as I can get good and dry in one summer.

 

[KpR]

Thanks for the advice Poindexter. I'll make my way out after this storm we've got brewing here in the NE and see what I can find. Maybe the felling will already be done.

 

[Grisu]

I seem to have mistaken the measurements of my chimney height. It's actually 15', not 20' as I had previously wrote.
Any thoughts on draft problems with the shorter height, but still using the insulated liner? Would a flue extender up top help?

15 ft is the minimum given by PE. For reference, I have only 13 ft of liner and no problem whatsoever with draft and regularly run the insert with the air all the way closed. I would try it without extension and when it seems lacking then you can add some more ft of class A pipe on top.

 

[KpR]

Thanks for all the input so far everyone.
Given what I've been reading the mantra of going one size larger than what I think I need has really sunk in.
Does anyone think the PE Summit insert would be too much for my setup--1200 sqft ranch (rough layout design above), in an attempt to use it as a primary heat source?
I was convinced by the Super, but the price of a used Summit has gotten me thinking again.

 

[Grisu]

It is not "too much" since you can always load it only half full and/or once or twice a day. Nevertheless, you will need to make room for a stove that you will rarely if ever fill to capacity. I also think that half loads or frequent startups from a cold stove are not as efficient as running a smaller stove continuously but I am sure opinions differ about that. FWIW, I heat 1300 sqft of a moderately insulated home in Vermont with a Super insert until the outside temps reach single digits. At that point, some additional heat may be needed in the early morning hours since I am too lazy to get up at 4 am to reload the stove and what it puts out at that point is just not sufficient anymore. The Super covers about 80% to 90% of our heating needs and I have no problems with the furnace doing the rest. Some people take pride in heating only with wood, I rather do what I find convenient and fits my schedule. It will be your choice.

What you could do is get the Summit for a season and when it is too much for you, sell it again and get a Super (or BlazeKing?) afterwards.

 

[begreen]

If it were my house I would be going with the Super. You will only be directly heating about 75% of the 1200sq ft. unless there is some sort of convective assist to get it down to the end of the hallway.

The masonry chimney has a metal firebox in it, and a damper that sits on a 45 degree angle with a 6" opening.

Is this a heatilator unit? Can you post a picture of the full fireplace?

 

[KpR]

If it were my house I would be going with the Super. You will only be directly heating about 75% of the 1200sq ft. unless there is some sort of convective assist to get it down to the end of the hallway.


Is this a heatilator unit? Can you post a picture of the full fireplace?

Yeah, it is a heatilator (at least the damper handle says it is)
Here's the current pic (not sure why it's upside down...tried rotating it, sorry)

 

[begreen]

No problem, I rotated it. Looks good to go. Your wood supply will be equally important. These stoves perform best with dry wood. Keep working on the ash pile for next winter and the oak for the following year.

 

[KpR]

No problem, I rotated it. Looks good to go. Your wood supply will be equally important. These stoves perform best with dry wood. Keep working on the ash pile for next winter and the oak for the following year.

Will do, thanks. Felt like the crazy new neighbor last night, in the dark, shoveling snow off the lawn where the new piles will be stacked this week.

 

[KpR]

I'm off to check out a used Summit and then stop at the dealer to talk about a Super--unused floor model he's selling for 10% off.
Does anybody know if the design of the Super has changed over the past few years? I'm not sure what year the floor model is, but having something extra to bring to the conversation might help me out.
Thanks again for all the advice.

 

[Grisu]

The Summit changed a bit and it would be worthwhile looking into which model (A, B, or C) the used one is. Have not heard of any changes to the Super.

Would you be able to retain the warranty and the one-time baffle replacement when buying the used Summit? Maybe something else to consider when making your decision. 10% off an unused floor model for the Super is not bad. How close are the two inserts in price then?

 

[KpR]

The summit is an A model from 2009. I'd be the third owner, so I doubt the warranty would cover me.
With the discount the super is still about a grand more than the used summit.

 

[begreen]

Check out the front corners of the door opening for cracks. There was a run of Summit inserts around that time that showed up with them.

 

[Hogwildz]

The Summit changed a bit and it would be worthwhile looking into which model (A, B, or C) the used one is. Have not heard of any changes to the Super.

Would you be able to retain the warranty and the one-time baffle replacement when buying the used Summit? Maybe something else to consider when making your decision. 10% off an unused floor model for the Super is not bad. How close are the two inserts in price then?

The warranty only applies to the original registered owner.
There is no "one time" baffle replacement.
Baffle is included in limited lifetime warranty.

 

[BrotherBart]

Baffle is included in limited lifetime warranty.

Which is pretty much legally defined as the life of the product version or ten years.

 

[Hogwildz]

I see nothing about time restraints in the warranty, or amount of replacements.
Of course, they can always say you overfired it, and skate around if they want.

 

[KpR]

Well, I ended up going with the Super.
Thanks for all the assistance/advice in the process.
Install is almost complete, just had a question about extra fire bricks. (pic attached)
Does anybody have an idea about these? I laid out the bricks in the box as the manual shows--8 in the bottom (one cut), 4 on each side, 3 in the back, but have these two leftovers. Any utility to them, or are they maybe for evening out the shape of the package during shipment?
I'll post some pics of the final install soon.
Again, thanks for all the advice.

 

[huauqui]

Don't know on the super but on my Summit the replacement brick set came with everything for a stove with ether an ash dump or without. The two pieces you show look like the ones that would be used if that was a pedestal mount with ash dump instead of the full brick that is used when there is no dump. My guess is that is the case since that firebox size comes in both insert and freestanding style, it keeps them from sending the wrong one out and reduces inventory costs.