Old house renovation-new wood stove?

[EbS-P]

Just going to throw this out, have you considered a wood cookstove?

I like my heatpump wood stove combo. I would not not worry as much about my stove being oversized if I had a heatpump for the milder weather. @SpaceBus heats about 1000sq ft in Maine with a morso 2b and a wood cookstove. I bet if he had spray foam he could he could the whole place on just one appliance even in the dead of winter.

0.5 Exchanges per hours is tight. I’d be looking at ERV and and outside air kit if you aren’t already. Drolet has some cheaper smaller stoves. Pacific energy has some 1.5-2 cu ft models that I personally would be considering. Woodstock makes a good stove.

 

[begreen]

Yes, with the house that tight, plan on the stove having its own outside air supply.

 

[SpaceBus]

Just going to throw this out, have you considered a wood cookstove?

I like my heatpump wood stove combo. I would not not worry as much about my stove being oversized if I had a heatpump for the milder weather. @SpaceBus heats about 1000sq ft in Maine with a morso 2b and a wood cookstove. I bet if he had spray foam he could he could the whole place on just one appliance even in the dead of winter.

0.5 Exchanges per hours is tight. I’d be looking at ERV and and outside air kit if you aren’t already. Drolet has some cheaper smaller stoves. Pacific energy has some 1.5-2 cu ft models that I personally would be considering. Woodstock makes a good stove.

We also got a pair of portable heatpump AC/Heat units and that really helped maximize the heat gain from the wood stove. Even when the stoves would be too cool to provide meaningful heat that little heat pump (we only used one in the stove room) extracted every little BTU out of their thermal mass. By itself the heat pump can't keep the downstairs comfortable once it gets below freezing and dark, but they really extended the useful burn time of our stoves. Some days I just used the cookstove and heat pump and kept the whole house comfortable. This winter I'll probably be using the heatpump a lot less since we will be home more, but I like not having to load stoves in the night anymore!

 

[Zach Hoyt]

I am planning to have someone install a mini-split, as I said before. I am planning on an ERV, if that is the same as what the foam guy told me I would need. I was told it was a fresh air circulation unit with a heat exchanger but have not gotten a specific model and make recommended yet, and I'm not familiar with the acronym. The stoves I have been looking at are OAK ready, and I had assumed that would be needed for a spray foamed house. I don't want a catalytic stove, it's more expense and more things to go wrong and have to be replaced. My house repair budget is already strained with the cost of all the materials going up so fast, so spending $3750 on a wood stove is not in the cards now.

A cook stove is an interesting idea, but probably takes a bit more space than I would want to commit to it in a house this size. I'm hoping to build a house someday and will certainly keep that idea in mind for when that day comes.

 

[Zach Hoyt]

I thought it was time to post an update, and thank the kind folks who answered my questions before. I got the Century 2800 into the house this week and we did our first two small fires yesterday and a bit bigger one today to start curing the paint. It seems to draw well. The tile hearth is not too great because the floor under it is a little bit non-flat, and the tiles are a bit irregular in size, but it's good enough and will do the job of keeping the floor safe from embers. The stove draws well and seems to do fine burning the wood I bought in May and have had stacked in the woodshed with a roof but no walls yet(they will be going on in October, before we start getting snow). It's supposed to get down to 34 tonight and a high of 45 tomorrow, and the mini-split guy hasn't gotten us done yet, so I'm glad for some wood heat.

Back in July I bought a SBI (I presume Drolet) Columbia, serial number 577, made in 2013 for $500 from someone on Facebook. This is going to be the workshop stove, and I put down the cement board and tiles for the ember protector tonight. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get the chimney installed, and grout the tiles in the evening. I've failed so far to find much mention online of the Columbia, but have found lots about the Columbia II. The plate on the back shows the required clearances, so that's good, but I'd like to find an online manual to get more details about air control and such. It's built to the 1990 standard, so I'll be curious to see if it visibly smokes more. It's about the same size as the 2800, but on legs instead of a pedestal.

Another thing I'm wondering about is how or whether to lubricate the door handle pivot. It is quite stiff, as the stove has been sitting for a while. I don't know if there is an appropriate high-temperature product or not.

 

[begreen]

Looking good. Drolet gives names to different products that share common fireboxes but have different trim or stove shielding. I'm not positive, but the Columbia may be the same as the Blackcomb inside. Have you checked Drolet's website for the manual? Looks like it's there:

https://www.drolet.ca/file/45638A_09-07-2018.pdf

Graphite powder or Nevr-Seez are good for stove lube applications.

 

[Zach Hoyt]

Thank you, that's great. I will check the model number in the morning as it's raining hard now. I had just been googling the name, and I didn't think of going to the Drolet site. I'll get some graphite at the hardware store and see if I can get it in there. Thanks very much for your help.

 

[EbS-P]

I used high temp copper anti seize. It probably has more uses around my house than graphite. I did the door handle threads and the hinge pins.

Is your Handle threaded? I recall another thread where the the handle wore out the threads in the door. I think it may have been welded/brazed and retapped. Not sure.

 

[Zach Hoyt]

I just wanted to post a final update and say thanks again for all of the help. I got the stove in the workshop hooked up and before I got to the hardware store I made a couple of fires and the door handle got better by itself. I guess maybe the heat helped. It is indeed threaded, and the threads were a bit rusty. Both stoves are working great and I'm enjoying wood burning a lot more with the pretty visible flames and no smoke. It's the opposite of the indoor gasification boilers at the farm where I lived for 21 years which kept the fire hidden most of the time and smoked like crazy whenever their doors were open.