We will soon be building a new home on our farm in Kansas.
My maternal grandparents moved back to Dickinson Co. Kansas after WW the 2. One thing I haven't seen mentioned here is wind. No matter what, you probably ought to start out with whatever special wind deflecting chimney cap your local dealer suggests and be prepared to upgrade if it doesn't work well enough to suit you.
We are a family of 5; husband, myself, five year old twins and a two year old. Our home will be a ranch style with an open floorplan...approximately 1600 square feet up plus same amount finished in the basement. I think we have decided on a Woodstock stove, specifically the Ideal Steel Hybrid. My question is regarding optimal placement.
There are a LOT of really good stoves on the market right now. Who are the three wood stove dealers closest to you that you will be forced to rely on somehwat, and what brands do they carry. I would rather have a pretty good stove with excellent support...
We will have 3 bedrooms upstairs and 2 downstairs. We will spend much of our time downstairs,
Mmm, maybe kinda sorta. My youngest is 23, my oldest 32. Kids don't stray far from the television until they get their own wifi devices, but they don't get very far from the refrigerator either. I think there is going to be a fair bit of pressure on your floor plan for the great room to be the place where the family hangs out together.
so my thought is we should put the stove downstairs and utilize the rising heat on the main floor as well. Is this a good plan?
have you thought about an HRV system? Retrofitting an HRV is a pain in the neck, and they aren't cheap, but they can give you a lot of benefit over time.
We will have a propane furnace as well, but the less propane we use, the happier our pocketbook will be.
Nobody on this website is going to disagree.
If we do place the stove in the basement, do we route the chimney up the interior of the main floor as well or elbow to the outside at some point?
Interior. This has been about beat half to death above. Let me try to explain a different way. Historically wood stoves would put about 75% of the BTUs in the fuel load out into the house, and the other 25% would be 'wasted' up the chimney. Currently you won't have to look very hard to find stove efficiencies in the 88% range, a nice incremental change right? You have to burn less wood to keep your house the same temp. But your chimney is screaming, because half the energy it had available to pump smoke out of your house is gone.
For a modern stove, keep your chimney inside your insulation envelope as long as possible. Put your pierce through the roof as close to the peak as possible - so that the length of pipe out in the weather is as short as possible. And in Kansas, start with a wind cap.
This will be our first wood stove in a home we plan to live the rest of our lives in...the land has been in my family since 1877. I want to make sure we get this right. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Well you asked. I have been an RN for twenty years. I spent the last year, and 2018 coming up, in home health. I go to the houses of people who aren't sick enough to be hospital inpatients, and aren't well enough to go see their doctor. Stairs is huge.
To be independent at "home" as long as possible you really 'need' to get from your bed to the toilet, the refrigerator and a vehicle. On crutches, or in a wheelchair, or with a walker. Lose the 2-6 door to the master bedroom. I would suggest 3-6 doors throughout on the main level. 42". If you blow out your ACL tomorrow playing raquet ball and find yourself in a knee immobilizer on crutches for six weeks you won't need any further explanation.
Also, can you grade a driveway into the front lawn so 40 or 50 years from now you can hobble out the front door with your walker, no stairs, and climb into a minivan driven by one of your now 45 year old twins? I think having the garage downstairs is fine. When it is too much effort to walk up and down the stairs it might be time to stop driving.
Find a physical therapist and have them look at your master bath floor plan. Put your grab bars in now. Figure out how you can take a shower when walking out the front door is a taxing effort. Having a chair or other place to sit in front of the bathroom sink while you shave, put on makeup or brush your teeth is the difference between staying at home or moving to an ALF for a tragically high number of people. Mount your bathroom sink to the wall, with no vanity under it. That way later you will have 50 years experience taking care of business when you roll up to it in a wheelchair.
I would definitely put the stove on the upper level - no stairs - and position the annual wood pile outdoors somewhere with no stairs involved for that part either. My kids expect I am going to mount a bicycle basket on my (eventual) walker so I can load the basket with cord wood, hobble back indoors, and make a big enough pile to reload the stove before it is time to reload.
And put in an ENORMOUS hearth. Feet. The minimum US fire code is like 16 or 18 inches, its just ridiculously small. Make your hearth big enough that you can roll your wheelchair up on it with your toes maybe a foot from the door of the stove, while your whole body is basking in the heat coming up off your expanse of ceramic tile around the stove. Or cut slate, whatever.
When your kids finally move out you can pull the padding off your summertime chaise lounges, lay those side by side on your big hearth and spend quality time with your spouse side by side in the glow of the woodstove while you are laying on fire warmed rocks... just saying, my wife and I never actually do that. Nekkid, On days ending with a Y.
If you really love research, go to woodheat dot org and read all the articles in the "all about chimneys" section. I don't see prevailing winds labeled on your blue print, but I expect you have enough prevailing wind for it to matter. They have a pretty good explanation of stack effect there. I think if you understand stack effect you will do fine even with prevailing winds.
I got to add my g-g-g grandfather Bernt moved from Appleton, WI to Kansas when Henry Clay got the KS-NE act through the senate. He brought his 10 voting age sons with him to vote for KS to be admitted to the union as a free state. His one daughter, Emilia, was my g-g grandma. As much as I would like to say "Go Jayhawks" without coughing, I am an alum of UNC-CH and Roy WIlliams came home.
Best wishes and God bless.
I do think the idea of opening up the stairwell and putting the stove in the basement is brilliant. It is a coruscating concept and will give years and years of pleasure, until hobbling down the stairs to load the stove requires more strength than you have.
