Hello. I have spent a whole lot of hours the past week reading threads related to my concerns but still have many questions. Hopefully you can be of help. What follows is very lengthy and detailed, but that information should provide context so you can better assess my situation.
I've read that the prevailing opinions are: a) you can't heat a small cabin with a woodstove (except maybe a tiny cat stove or if you open all your windows), and b) you can't heat a regular cabin with a cook stove (that one guy in PA with the KC 480 disagrees, and I like that he does just fine using that stove for his heat). I am not sure about these opinions given what I plan to do.
I am building a very small 200sq ft LOG cabin this summer (I refuse to use the term "tiny house"). I plan in the future to add on, perhaps a small bedroom and likely a "three season" porch that I might actually want to heat after insulating roof and floor and sealing its' windows well then opening all the windows of the main cabin and blowing air out (I use 2 heat-powered fans on top of my current stove to move air around; the cabin will perhaps have a ceiling fan). So max sq footage may be 400 something when I am all done. I live in hardiness zone 4A. It can get to -30F here. For 3 months straight there are only a handful of days above freezing. I lived here the last two winters (had to travel for work last summer) in a canvas wall tent with a basic but heavy duty camping stove made of steel and single wall stovepipe & chimney out the tent jack. I know I am not burning efficiently but that's the only way to achieve a long burn, which I need given living in a tent--load it full, let it get hot then close the damper and air intake to keep it about 300. With no secondary burn on this stove and closing the air flow, a lot of smoke is created. I slap the stove pipe with a dishrag and creosote flakes fall down, and if we get a warm day I remove the pipe and clean with a brush. It's worked so far, there is buildup in there but never to the point where I worry about a chimney fire. So there's the some context.
The cabin will have highly insulated floors (minimum R21), the roof will be minimum R30 but possibly R40, and the walls may only be R11 or R12...but...they will be solid logs, hemlock about 10" where they abut one another, which have a lot of thermal mass, in addition to an exposed beam under the roofing system. So unlike heating a traditional insulated stick frame I will have a lot of heat absorbed by the timbers that will radiate for a while after. So I figure with all that mass and good insulation, a true "overnight" burn may not even be necessary. Plus, I usually get up once to go the bathroom anyway so loading a big split or two onto coals isn't an issue. In the current setup I keep it about 60F or so when going to bed. If it's real cold I usually get up if it falls below 50 and stoke. That's not an issue. I don't, however, want to wake up in 40F, that's a bit too cold. For those who suggest I find an alternate heat source: I live on 40 acres of northern hardwood forest, mostly sugar maple with some hemlock stands and some beech and oak mixed in with the maple. So the only cost of wood fuel is sweat. I don't have propane, I don't have running water, I don't have anything but a small solar setup. Other heating sources are not an option.
So one question is: given the thermal mass, small square footage, and my tolerance for it dropping to 50F overnight, does it not seem reasonable to heat with wood? Also, might it be helpful to have a stove with more cast iron components than just steel, or perhaps also soapstone to help retain heat? I've seen a lot of videos of off-grid homesteaders heating small log cabins with regular space-heating wood stoves of varying quality and they seem to do okay.
Another question is: with walls absorbing heat, and cast iron and soapstone absorbing heat, why would a cookstove not be a realistic heating method? If one heated well during the morning, then when cooking dinner, the walls would continue to get heat, and then before bed throwing in a large split would also continue to provide heat to those walls. I understand a small 1.5cf firebox isn't going to allow a lot of wood, but I can't safely burn a lot of wood because it would get too hot. But the thermal mass should help offset that, eh? Also, I love cooking and don't want to sacrifice a large cooktop. Yes, I could get the smallest possible cat stove for longer burn and use a dutch oven with rack or trivet for any baking, but a real small space-heating stove just won't have the space for more than 2 small pans on top and that's just not going to cut it for me. Another option could be to get cast iron stove top and oven components and have a mason build me a small stove to add even more thermal mass.
Lastly, the cabin is of course small, with a single sloping roof with one wall 7' and the other wall 10' and 12' horizontal between them (3/12 pitch). So the high point of the roof will be about 11' plus a few inches. With that wall space and a 3' tall stove, where would be the best spot to put the stove and what kind of ratio of class A chimney outside relative to stove pipe inside would work best, and how high? 3' above the highest point means the total length from stove to that point 3' above the top of the roof would be 11' which I've read is insufficient. And could I get by going through the wall (so as to have more chimney and less inside pipe) or is it going to be a whole lot better to go through the roof? Double wall or single inside? Am inclined to double wall just to get it closer to the wall for space considerations. But on that note, can one reduce stove to wall from 18" to 6" by putting up a 1" spaced fireblocking substance against the wall? Any input here would be helpful.
On a related note to all this, hunters/trappers/frontiersmen heated small log cabins with just a fireplace for many years, and then woodstoves after that, and did just fine. It's a hard life, sure, but nothing I'm averse to. People built log cabins for centuries in very cold areas on nothing more than rocks on top of the ground as a foundation and the structures lasted (I'll be doing it "right" though, with sunken piers). Just wanted to raise the point that people have made things work throughout time even though they may not have been "optimal."
I'm sure I have some other questions but this should be a good start and I look forward to and welcome all input. Thanks.
I've read that the prevailing opinions are: a) you can't heat a small cabin with a woodstove (except maybe a tiny cat stove or if you open all your windows), and b) you can't heat a regular cabin with a cook stove (that one guy in PA with the KC 480 disagrees, and I like that he does just fine using that stove for his heat). I am not sure about these opinions given what I plan to do.
I am building a very small 200sq ft LOG cabin this summer (I refuse to use the term "tiny house"). I plan in the future to add on, perhaps a small bedroom and likely a "three season" porch that I might actually want to heat after insulating roof and floor and sealing its' windows well then opening all the windows of the main cabin and blowing air out (I use 2 heat-powered fans on top of my current stove to move air around; the cabin will perhaps have a ceiling fan). So max sq footage may be 400 something when I am all done. I live in hardiness zone 4A. It can get to -30F here. For 3 months straight there are only a handful of days above freezing. I lived here the last two winters (had to travel for work last summer) in a canvas wall tent with a basic but heavy duty camping stove made of steel and single wall stovepipe & chimney out the tent jack. I know I am not burning efficiently but that's the only way to achieve a long burn, which I need given living in a tent--load it full, let it get hot then close the damper and air intake to keep it about 300. With no secondary burn on this stove and closing the air flow, a lot of smoke is created. I slap the stove pipe with a dishrag and creosote flakes fall down, and if we get a warm day I remove the pipe and clean with a brush. It's worked so far, there is buildup in there but never to the point where I worry about a chimney fire. So there's the some context.
The cabin will have highly insulated floors (minimum R21), the roof will be minimum R30 but possibly R40, and the walls may only be R11 or R12...but...they will be solid logs, hemlock about 10" where they abut one another, which have a lot of thermal mass, in addition to an exposed beam under the roofing system. So unlike heating a traditional insulated stick frame I will have a lot of heat absorbed by the timbers that will radiate for a while after. So I figure with all that mass and good insulation, a true "overnight" burn may not even be necessary. Plus, I usually get up once to go the bathroom anyway so loading a big split or two onto coals isn't an issue. In the current setup I keep it about 60F or so when going to bed. If it's real cold I usually get up if it falls below 50 and stoke. That's not an issue. I don't, however, want to wake up in 40F, that's a bit too cold. For those who suggest I find an alternate heat source: I live on 40 acres of northern hardwood forest, mostly sugar maple with some hemlock stands and some beech and oak mixed in with the maple. So the only cost of wood fuel is sweat. I don't have propane, I don't have running water, I don't have anything but a small solar setup. Other heating sources are not an option.
So one question is: given the thermal mass, small square footage, and my tolerance for it dropping to 50F overnight, does it not seem reasonable to heat with wood? Also, might it be helpful to have a stove with more cast iron components than just steel, or perhaps also soapstone to help retain heat? I've seen a lot of videos of off-grid homesteaders heating small log cabins with regular space-heating wood stoves of varying quality and they seem to do okay.
Another question is: with walls absorbing heat, and cast iron and soapstone absorbing heat, why would a cookstove not be a realistic heating method? If one heated well during the morning, then when cooking dinner, the walls would continue to get heat, and then before bed throwing in a large split would also continue to provide heat to those walls. I understand a small 1.5cf firebox isn't going to allow a lot of wood, but I can't safely burn a lot of wood because it would get too hot. But the thermal mass should help offset that, eh? Also, I love cooking and don't want to sacrifice a large cooktop. Yes, I could get the smallest possible cat stove for longer burn and use a dutch oven with rack or trivet for any baking, but a real small space-heating stove just won't have the space for more than 2 small pans on top and that's just not going to cut it for me. Another option could be to get cast iron stove top and oven components and have a mason build me a small stove to add even more thermal mass.
Lastly, the cabin is of course small, with a single sloping roof with one wall 7' and the other wall 10' and 12' horizontal between them (3/12 pitch). So the high point of the roof will be about 11' plus a few inches. With that wall space and a 3' tall stove, where would be the best spot to put the stove and what kind of ratio of class A chimney outside relative to stove pipe inside would work best, and how high? 3' above the highest point means the total length from stove to that point 3' above the top of the roof would be 11' which I've read is insufficient. And could I get by going through the wall (so as to have more chimney and less inside pipe) or is it going to be a whole lot better to go through the roof? Double wall or single inside? Am inclined to double wall just to get it closer to the wall for space considerations. But on that note, can one reduce stove to wall from 18" to 6" by putting up a 1" spaced fireblocking substance against the wall? Any input here would be helpful.
On a related note to all this, hunters/trappers/frontiersmen heated small log cabins with just a fireplace for many years, and then woodstoves after that, and did just fine. It's a hard life, sure, but nothing I'm averse to. People built log cabins for centuries in very cold areas on nothing more than rocks on top of the ground as a foundation and the structures lasted (I'll be doing it "right" though, with sunken piers). Just wanted to raise the point that people have made things work throughout time even though they may not have been "optimal."
I'm sure I have some other questions but this should be a good start and I look forward to and welcome all input. Thanks.
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