Patio pavers are in

[begreen]

Finally completed the patio last night. This is a major milestone in restoration. It will be nice to not have to walk through dirt to get into the house.

Next are the brick side steps, entry pathway and topsoil + planting around the patio. Interior is getting mudded up now. Residing will be in August I hope. We'll be happy to see this wrapped up. It's been a long haul.

 

[HarryBack]

love it! looks great! congrats!

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

Wow, that does look great!

 

[Shane]

That's awesome. This is the house that the new foundation was poured under correct?

 

[Webwidow]

Nice paving job, also love the detail on the windows

 

[begreen]

Thanks all. it's been a long haul and we're still pushing on. Yes, Shane, this is the house that is now 32" higher on a new foundation. We'll be installing a heat pump in August and I hope to start having hearth pics for the new woodstove location and installation soon after.

I should note that the entry step is made from the old fireplace bricks as will be the steps and landings. They really have a lot of character and 82 years of house karma.

 

[Roospike]

Beautifully done , a touch of class .

 

[Todd]

Nice job. Now you gave my wife some ideas. What stove are you going with?

 

[begreen]

Thanks. My wife is very happy with the new look. We don't know which stove yet. Our 3CB is only a year old. It does a decent job of heating the house until we get below about 35 (not that common), but that was when it was located in the old, leaky entryway (front of the house in the picture). We also had the pellet stove as our primary heater. Now the woodstove will be more central in the house - in the livingroom. And we are doing a lot of insulating and tightening up of the house, so theoretically we should need a lot less btus to heat it. We'll see.

The Jotul is a great little stove, but it requires frequent feeding with our softwood. Without the pellet stove we'll be relying on wood more. But wood heat = some degree of mess each time one feeds the stove. This will be in the living room and we'd like to minimize this, so it looks like we should go up to about a 2 cu. ft. capacity stove for longer burns. We like the Oakwood and some others, but want to keep with a stove that has lower clearance requirements for a corner install. Aesthetics are also a strong governing factor. So far the choices are : Oslo, Shelburne, PE Spectrum Classic, or maybe an Encore.

 

[Roospike]

Thanks. My wife is very happy with the new look. We don't know which stove yet. Our 3CB is only a year old. It does a decent job of heating the house until we get below about 35 (not that common), but that was when it was located in the old, leaky entryway (front of the house in the picture). We also had the pellet stove as our primary heater. Now the woodstove will be more central in the house - in the livingroom. And we are doing a lot of insulating and tightening up of the house, so theoretically we should need a lot less btus to heat it. We'll see.

The Jotul is a great little stove, but it requires frequent feeding with our softwood. Without the pellet stove we'll be relying on wood more. But wood heat = some degree of mess each time one feeds the stove. This will be in the living room and we'd like to minimize this, so it looks like we should go up to about a 2 cu. ft. capacity stove for longer burns. We like the Oakwood and some others, but want to keep with a stove that has lower clearance requirements for a corner install. Aesthetics are also a strong governing factor. So far the choices are : Oslo, Shelburne, PE Spectrum Classic, or maybe an Encore.

"so it looks like we should go up to about a 2 cu. ft. capacity stove for longer burns" When having a wood stove for your main heat you might want to look into a 3 cf fire box . You mentioned the "PE Spectrum Classic" The nice feature of the bigger fire box ( Summit 3.0 cf ) is you can have a good coal bed going and still add wood . Sometimes with the smaller fire box with a large coal bed its not as easy to add wood because as you know you want the coal bed to burn down but as you are doing that it hard to add new wood for the boost of heat and with a smaller fire box you are fighting to burn the coal bed down and add the boot heat of new logs . You said getting below about 30° is not that common so matbe you wont have thiese issues . Just something to think about .

 

[begreen]

Our main heat will be the heat pump. We'll have a fire going most days after about 4pm for the evenings. On cold days, I will likely start a fire in the morning, but otherwise, we're going to see how the heat pump bills are first. However, when we have extended power outages, we'll be relying solely on the stove. These happen about 1-2 times a year, so I am trying to be prepared for that option as well. My concern with the Summit is that we'll always have the stove on low burn and perhaps have creosote problems as a result. Up to now our burning habits have been more towards burning hot.

I have a question about PE stoves. How does the trivet work? They say you can cook on the trivet. Does it contact the stove top to transfer heat better? We've occasionally had to cook on the stove, so this is an important point for my wife. Also, do you have the ash pan option? Is it desirable or not?

 

[Roospike]

Our main heat will be the heat pump. We'll have a fire going most days after about 4pm for the evenings. On cold days, I will likely start a fire in the morning, but otherwise, we're going to see how the heat pump bills are first. However, when we have extended power outages, we'll be relying solely on the stove. These happen about 1-2 times a year, so I am trying to be prepared for that option as well. My concern with the Summit is that we'll always have the stove on low burn and perhaps have creosote problems as a result. Up to now our burning habits have been more towards burning hot.

I have a question about PE stoves. How does the trivet work? They say you can cook on the trivet. Does it contact the stove top to transfer heat better? We've occasionally had to cook on the stove, so this is an important point for my wife. Also, do you have the ash pan option? Is it desirable or not?

My concern with the Summit is that we'll always have the stove on low burn and perhaps have creosote problems as a result. Up to now our burning habits have been more towards burning hot. "

"Not a problem , its like any new EPA stove except the secondary burn chamber stoves is a lot more easy to work than the cat stoves. Just get a coal bed going small or large to fit your needs and throw 1 or 2 logs in and turn it all the way down once they start to coal. No creosote issues , you can turn it all the way down and its going to pull the air needed to fire as it should . We heat our house 100% with wood so when its 50 and below we use the stove to heat . The BTU's is how much wood you use and what kind of wood . THe Summit is 97,000 btu if you run it hot and loaded FULL . We normally dont run the Summit over half loaded ( half BTU power ?)unless its gets below 0° out side than we will fill it 75% for the all night burn. I cleaned the chimney this summer and we had about 1 cup of dry dusty black ash. No glaze ot crust in the pipe and the cap was clean.

"How does the trivet work? "

It sits above the stove like the top and side panels , there are feet on the trivet that touch the stove . I guess one could cook on it but we have not done so . If our power goes out we get out the camp stove to cook on . "

"Also, do you have the ash pan option? Is it desirable or not?

Oh , Yeah ! The ash pan system on the Summit is just awesome , not BS like a lot of the ash pan systems out there. I dont even own a ash shovel , i just use the poker to pull the ask to the dump hole , drop it in and forget it and then next time i will do the same thing and then when the pan gets full i take the pan outside and dump it into a 6 gallon steel bucket , super easy . Very , very little ash in the house with the ash pan option . When you use a shovel & bucket on a wood stove you always get ash in the air when you dump the ash into the bucket , that goes away with the ash pan option . No need to even dump the ash right away. I dont have any regrets getting the Summit. , not one .

 

[begreen]

Thanks for the detailed info Roo. It sounds like you are describing the EBT technology on the Summit. That makes the Summit unique. I wish they put EBT on the medium stove as well. We've never had 0 deg. temps here and can go many years before we see anything in the mid to high teens. But I do like the EBT idea and I do like burning clean without a cat.

 

[elkimmeg]

Begreen Excellent job I'm impressed and I really like the look of the right side windows. The brick round step, what a nice touch?