The stove is cold and outside is too

[LLigetfa]

-14°C this morning and the wife won't let me light up. She hasn't let me keep the fire going overnight either this past week despite overnights dipping to -28°C. She claims that the wood burning is affecting her respiration. According to her, the slightest hint of wood smoke smell and her allergies kick in.

It's not smokey in here by any means and I do my best to not let in any smoke. Granted, my chimney could be a bit taller but I'm very careful to open the stove slowly and I always open a window first. I try to maintain a large enough fire so that the flue stays warm enough to draw well. No matter how careful I am, a little bit of smell will get into the room off the end of the poker and the inside surface of the door, which when open, is exposed to the room. If you burn wood, you cannot avoid the smell 100%. I cannot believe that such a tiny amount of smoke smell can affect her allergies.

On the other hand, she will never open a window before she opens the stove and she lets in far more smoke than I do. I think that through the day she probably has an upstairs window open which further exacerbates things by creating a negative pressure situation. I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't run the exhaust fan too to remove the smoke smell while the clothes dryer is going. Since it's warmer through the day, I don't think she keeps a hot enough fire going to service the draft so when she opens the stove, she's probably getting a nasty hit of smoldering creosote stench. I noticed that she manages to dirty up the glass through the day.

I've tried to explain to her the dynamics of how things work WRT stack effect, fans, open windows upstairs etc. but she doesn't get it. It's not for not wanting to understand, it's just that her eyes glaze over when I try to explain it. The other week she asked me why it is that when she opens a window downstairs, she gets an inrush of fresh air but upstairs, no fresh air comes in. I might have to build a model of our house out of plexiglass and demonstrate with a candle and incense.

At least she still lets me burn for a few hours in the evening and claims her breathing has improved as a result. Now she is suggesting though that when my stockpile of wood is gone, there will be no more wood burning, that we will not be buying any more wood. I went through all this a couple years ago when the price of natural gas was at an all time high and she wanted to stop burning wood then. I was planning to order anothe 12 cord next Winter so time will tell. I was also planning to add another 3 feet of SS chimney height this Summer.

The funny thing is that if/when she cranks up the NG furnace, it affects MY breathing. I think we have a pet dander problem and the furnace kicks it up. We have wood and tile floors throughout and only a few area rugs. Anyone know how to hack into a Honeywell programmable thermostat? I want to set an upper limit so that she can't crank so high.

 

[SolarAndWood]

I have crazy allergies too and sometimes it doesn't take much to set the respiratory reaction off. Although, I have a much harder time in dry houses with a forced air furnace running. Our long term plan is a boiler with radiators.

 

[BrotherBart]

The only comment from my wife this year came while the power was out and it was nine degrees outside. 74 inside downstairs and 71 upstairs.

"I am so glad that we have a wood stove."

 

[BrowningBAR]

-14°C this morning and the wife won't let me light up. She hasn't let me keep the fire going overnight either this past week despite overnights dipping to -28°C. She claims that the wood burning is affecting her respiration. According to her, the slightest hint of wood smoke smell and her allergies kick in.

It's not smokey in here by any means and I do my best to not let in any smoke. Granted, my chimney could be a bit taller but I'm very careful to open the stove slowly and I always open a window first. I try to maintain a large enough fire so that the flue stays warm enough to draw well. No matter how careful I am, a little bit of smell will get into the room off the end of the poker and the inside surface of the door, which when open, is exposed to the room. If you burn wood, you cannot avoid the smell 100%. I cannot believe that such a tiny amount of smoke smell can affect her allergies.

On the other hand, she will never open a window before she opens the stove and she lets in far more smoke than I do. I think that through the day she probably has an upstairs window open which further exacerbates things by creating a negative pressure situation. I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't run the exhaust fan too to remove the smoke smell while the clothes dryer is going. Since it's warmer through the day, I don't think she keeps a hot enough fire going to service the draft so when she opens the stove, she's probably getting a nasty hit of smoldering creosote stench. I noticed that she manages to dirty up the glass through the day.

I've tried to explain to her the dynamics of how things work WRT stack effect, fans, open windows upstairs etc. but she doesn't get it. It's not for not wanting to understand, it's just that her eyes glaze over when I try to explain it. The other week she asked me why it is that when she opens a window downstairs, she gets an inrush of fresh air but upstairs, no fresh air comes in. I might have to build a model of our house out of plexiglass and demonstrate with a candle and incense.

At least she still lets me burn for a few hours in the evening and claims her breathing has improved as a result. Now she is suggesting though that when my stockpile of wood is gone, there will be no more wood burning, that we will not be buying any more wood. I went through all this a couple years ago when the price of natural gas was at an all time high and she wanted to stop burning wood then. I was planning to order anothe 12 cord next Winter so time will tell. I was also planning to add another 3 feet of SS chimney height this Summer.

The funny thing is that if/when she cranks up the NG furnace, it affects MY breathing. I think we have a pet dander problem and the furnace kicks it up. We have wood and tile floors throughout and only a few area rugs. Anyone know how to hack into a Honeywell programmable thermostat? I want to set an upper limit so that she can't crank so high.

Sounds like my first marriage.

 

[Battenkiller]

That's funny, LL, because I was just talking to my wife about her allergies and she says they haven't been that bad. Wood and coal were part of her entire childhood, so she's just glad I never mention coal (though I've thought about it). But if your wife is anything like mine, once she gets something into her head it's probably hard to demonstrate otherwise. A friend's wife won't let him use his prized cast iron fry pan. She says she can tell as soon as he takes it off the wall by the way her allergies start to kick in.


One thing to consider. Do you ever get small chips of wood left on top of hot surfaces? Happens all the time with my top loading stove. It kinda dark in the basement and I don't always see them with my aging eyes. I usually brush them off with a horsehair bench brush, but sometimes I forget. Even a few of them the size of a grain of rice put out a fair smell once they get roasted brown on the stove top.

 

[Highbeam]

Well, you're going to have a choice to make. The wood pile will carry for a while but if wood burning is out and if that includes pellets then I would be all over replacing the stove with a gas stove. The propane won't stink up the house, will work during a power outage, will be vented through your current chimney, thermostatically controlled, won't blow around dust like a ducted HVAC, will be more efficient than your HVAC since you won't have duct losses, and will "feel" warm with actual radiant heat if you choose the right stove.

It's not wood but it is a hearth heater. No maintenance or moving parts.

 

[LLigetfa]

I have crazy allergies too and sometimes it doesn't take much to set the respiratory reaction off. Although, I have a much harder time in dry houses with a forced air furnace running. Our long term plan is a boiler with radiators.

Ja, any other sort of hot surface heating could produce some sort of smell, sounds, and air currents with no dust removal and no easy method of humidification. I don't care for hot water or steam radiators. When I was drawing up the plans for this house, I was trying hard to incorporate in-floor heating but we cheaped out and got forced air instead. I still have open access to the underside of the main floor from the crawlspace to retrofit in-floor heat tubes but not the upstairs floors.

As for dust filtration, I would consider an electronic air cleaner but I cannot tolerate even the slightest amount of the ozone they tend to generate. The wife thinks the dust from ashes are affecting her too. Does anyone know if wood ash dust is an allergen? I put a high quality 3M Filtrete furnace filter on my fireplace blower so I'm constantly filtering the air as it circulates but any ash that spills out when the door is open still settles on her Chip and Dale furniture, clear evidence of another potential allergen. Mind you, there is probably human and pet dander in the dust as well, not just ashes.

My humidifier only runs when the NG furnace does and the extra humidity could be a factor with the wife having reduced symptoms. I suggested she get a HEPA filter/humidifier combo for the bedroom but she doesn't want the noise and doesn't want unnaturally conditioned air. As for humidity, there is a tradeoff. More humidity means more dust mites, a common allergen. I set my humidifier to 30%, below what dust mites need to flourish but since the humidifier only runs with the furnace, it is usually much lower than that.

As for indoor air quality, we chose low VOC paints, building materials with less off-gassing, and run the HRV 24/7 for a constant supply of fresh air. For the first 10 years, I was piping the fresh air from the HRV directly to the bedroom but the wife claimed that it was making her sick. Granted, the HRV makeup air is dry and not well filtered but I think it is a phsycological thing, that she thinks air processed by the HRV somehow changes its composition. She prefers to keep the bedroom window open, thinking it is more "natural". I now pipe the makeup air to the furnace cold air plenum in the crawlspace.

 

[Battenkiller]

Granted, the HRV makeup air is dry and not well filtered but I think it is a phsycological thing, that she thinks air processed by the HRV somehow changes its composition. She prefers to keep the bedroom window open, thinking it is more "natural".

I feel the same way about filtered air compared to fresh air. Even in a tent outside, I have to keep the screen door opened if there's no bugs out. I feel like I'm suffocating from the stale air. For some reason, though, AC doesn't bother me too bad. Maybe because I hate to be hot and humid so much I don't think about the "unnaturalness" of it. I think a lot of these things are psychological in origin (or my psychologist wife convinces me that is so), but it doesn't make the symptoms any less real for the sufferer.

I have a friend who is "lactose intolerant". Took him out for breakfast before a fishing trip one time, first thing he does when we get to the stream later is run into the bushes to relive his roiling bowels. From the butter on the hard roll, he said... except I clearly remembered passing on the butter because I looked at the packets and they said it was margarine, and I can't stand that stuff. Another time he had three bottles of my home brew before I remembered that I had added lactose to that batch, probably more than you find in milk. No problems with that, however. He even admits to me that it may be mostly in his head, but he still believes he's lactose intolerant and he still almost soils himself about ten minutes after he knows he's eaten dairy.

 

[BrowningBAR]

Granted, the HRV makeup air is dry and not well filtered but I think it is a phsycological thing, that she thinks air processed by the HRV somehow changes its composition. She prefers to keep the bedroom window open, thinking it is more "natural".

I feel the same way about filtered air compared to fresh air. Even in a tent outside, I have to keep the screen door opened if there's no bugs out. I feel like I'm suffocating from the stale air. For some reason, though, AC doesn't bother me too bad. Maybe because I hate to be hot and humid so much I don't think about the "unnaturalness" of it. I think a lot of these things are psychological in origin (or my psychologist wife convinces me that is so), but it doesn't make the symptoms any less real for the sufferer.

I have a friend who is "lactose intolerant". Took him out for breakfast before a fishing trip one time, first thing he does when we get to the stream later is run into the bushes to relive his roiling bowels. From the butter on the hard roll, he said... except I clearly remembered passing on the butter because I looked at the packets and they said it was margarine, and I can't stand that stuff. Another time he had three bottles of my home brew before I remembered that I had added lactose to that batch, probably more than you find in milk. No problems with that, however. He even admits to me that it may be mostly in his head, but he still believes he's lactose intolerant and he still almost soils himself about ten minutes after he knows he's eaten dairy.

That's... um... an odd individual.

 

[JustWood]

She may be mildly asthmatic.
I have mild asthma and severe allergy problems.
This last summer I moved my furnace so that I could section off a wood and loading room to contain the dust and smoke while loading. I also added an exhaust fan in the wall about 3 feet above the loading door . It has helped alot.
I Also close the bedroom door at nite to keep the room cooler.

 

[LLigetfa]

Granted, the HRV makeup air is dry and not well filtered but I think it is a phsycological thing, that she thinks air processed by the HRV somehow changes its composition. She prefers to keep the bedroom window open, thinking it is more "natural".

I feel the same way about filtered air compared to fresh air. Even in a tent outside, I have to keep the screen door opened if there's no bugs out. I feel like I'm suffocating from the stale air. For some reason, though, AC doesn't bother me too bad. Maybe because I hate to be hot and humid so much I don't think about the "unnaturalness" of it. I think a lot of these things are psychological in origin (or my psychologist wife convinces me that is so), but it doesn't make the symptoms any less real for the sufferer.

I have a friend who is "lactose intolerant". Took him out for breakfast before a fishing trip one time, first thing he does when we get to the stream later is run into the bushes to relive his roiling bowels. From the butter on the hard roll, he said... except I clearly remembered passing on the butter because I looked at the packets and they said it was margarine, and I can't stand that stuff. Another time he had three bottles of my home brew before I remembered that I had added lactose to that batch, probably more than you find in milk. No problems with that, however. He even admits to me that it may be mostly in his head, but he still believes he's lactose intolerant and he still almost soils himself about ten minutes after he knows he's eaten dairy.

Ja, a reverse placebo effect.
http://warofillusions.wordpress.com...f-voodoo-the-reverse-placebo-effect-detailed/

BTW, don't ever tell your wife that it's all in her head.

The funny thing is that opening the upstairs window doesn't really let in fresh air (by her own admittance re: her question, albeit unacknowledged). What is does is to channel all the stale dirty indoor air to pass through the bedroom and go out the window. The fresh air comes in via the makup air from the HRV to the furnace cold air duct in the crawlspace.

When I discovered a year ago that she was blocking the fresh air vent in the bedroom prior to my rerouting it, she was actually upsetting the balance of air to the house. The HRV would suck air out of the building and the open window added to the stack effect making it difficult to open the stove and not let smoke in. The year before, I discovered the screen on outside air intake of the HRV was clogged and that too had the same effect. All last Winter I kept checking the bedroom window and checking the HRV outside intake screen and the filters trying to figure out why I had such an imbalance. I was really PO'd when I found she had blocked the vent in the bedroom.

To try to prove my point about the direction of air flow out the bedroom window and to show that the indoor air is polluted, I showed her the plume of dirt above the window on the white siding. The warm dirty humid indoor air hits the white siding and condenses on it. I also showed her the dirty siding around the HRV exhaust from the exact same cause. Of course, it backfired on me as she is convinced that the dirt is from the wood stove.

 

[azsteven]

BTW, don't ever tell your wife that it's all in her head.

You go that right...

To try to prove my point about the direction of air flow out the bedroom window and to show that the indoor air is polluted, I showed her the plume of dirt above the window on the white siding. The warm dirty humid indoor air hits the white siding and condenses on it. I also showed her the dirty siding around the HRV exhaust from the exact same cause. Of course, it backfired on me as she is convinced that the dirt is from the wood stove.

And don't try to reason with facts when the wife is telling you how she feels.

 

[LLigetfa]

Oh well... I lit the stove. -4°C now going down to -8°C tonight.

 

[BrotherBart]

Oh well... I lit the stove. -4°C now going down to -8°C tonight.

Sounds like our nights.

 

[NothingLikeWood]

Three of us have the allergy/asthma combo (on maintenance puffers). Our asthma specialist explained that when you have asthma and/or allergies you are basically a bucket and every trigger fills to your bucket. When your bucket overflows your allergies and/or asthma kick in. Triggers can be stress, dust, pollen, smoke, mold etc. We tore out all carpets three years ago (doctor's orders) and my daughter's asthma attacks disappeared along with my son's nasal polyps.

We installed a woodstove this fall with trepidation as the asthma specialist said it may trigger the attacks again. We didn't think it would make things worse as our HRV sometimes brings in our neighbour's smoke already. So far so good. We keep about 2 week's worth of wood indoors and heat 24/3 and at night the other 4 days of the week. So far no asthma attacks & polyps. I do lose my voice on occasion but I'm not sure if its the stove or the dry heat it produces. I have noticed that the dust level is down (we had baseboard before) but I do agree that there can be a light film of ash around the stove.

Daughter would have asthma attacks that needed ER care every time she visited my mother-in-law or sister-in-law but never had them when she visited my mother who kept the messiest house out of the three. I never understood this until the specialist said that excessive CLEANING was the worst thing for an asthmatic. Extended family would always frantically clean in advance of visits putting all of the allergens into the air. Forced air heat has the same effect.

One last note that could help as you seem to indicate that she feels the worst at night (the fresh air while she's sleeping). We invested in dust mite covers (zipped up cover with tightly woven material) for all our pillows, duvets and mattresses. Gross out alert: dust mite poo is a very bad allergen. Old human skin & above 45 percent humidity is what they are looking for so a pillow and mattress are heaven for them. I was told if you weigh a mattress when its new and then re-weigh it 10 years later it can double in weight due to their waste. We found that breathing was A LOT easier at night. If we feel stuffed up before bed a pure saline nasal (sea water) spray will clean the sinuses. A couple of last hints. Wash sheets/ towels in hot every week & don't wash any dust rags with bedding. Tumble any bedding that does not like hot wash (quilts etc) in a hot dryer every month. Anything that cannot tolerate a hot wash use some borax in the load as that kills the mites.

A last statistic for your case...a woodstove will help to dry out your house which reduces the number of dust mites in your house.

Best of luck in reducing the triggers and keeping the stove as there is NOTHING like wood heat.

 

[rdust]

My wife and I both have mild asthma/allergies and we worried how we would handle the stove before we installed it. We've been burning since Nov. and neither of us have had any issues. I think mine are triggered more by pets and outside allergens. Everyone is different so I could see the slightest hint of smoke causing issues.

 

[SolarAndWood]

I don't care for hot water or steam radiators. When I was drawing up the plans for this house, I was trying hard to incorporate in-floor heating but we cheaped out and got forced air instead.

The radiators are extremely inexpensive compared to infloor as there seems to be an endless supply of people ripping them out of their old homes. The other nice thing about radiators is you don't have to worry about floor coverings or wood floors and you have a place to dump the Carhartts at the end of the day. But, the real driver is cost and ease of installation.

 

[PA. Woodsman]

That's a touchy situation you have there, heating with wood or keeping your happy homelife from going down the drain. A few posts earlier they mentioned sea salt water spray-let me take it a step further and suggest Neilmed Sinus Rinse which has helped me a lot and possibly will help your wife. Tell her to use it twice a day, morning and evening-not right before bedtime. It is also a very tough time of year when everything is closed up; I'm sure that there is a real problem there but it might not be as bad as she thinks it is, as our minds can really "amplify" situations. Best of luck with your dilemma....

 

[LLigetfa]

I don't care for hot water or steam radiators. When I was drawing up the plans for this house, I was trying hard to incorporate in-floor heating but we cheaped out and got forced air instead.

The radiators are extremely inexpensive compared to infloor as there seems to be an endless supply of people ripping them out of their old homes. The other nice thing about radiators is you don't have to worry about floor coverings or wood floors and you have a place to dump the Carhartts at the end of the day. But, the real driver is cost and ease of installation.

We didn't want anything obtrusive. The wife would never approve cast iron radiators or finned baseboard radiators. I've lived in rentals that had them.

We have in-floor electric heat in the tiled bathroom floor and absolutely love it. We have reasonably warm wood floors too as I push cold air up from the crawlspace to the wood stove which in turn pushes/pulls warm air down into the crawlspace. The air in the crawlspace stratifies, rising to warm the underside of the floors, cold falling to the floor to be picked up by the blower again. Only problem is that the 650 CFM blower moves dust/allergens around and the mere sound of the blower triggers the wife's symptoms, just like the sound of the furnace triggers mine.

I probably should research electronic air cleaners again. Perhaps the technology has improved to not produce ozone anymore. I thought a combo HEPA filter/humidifier for the bedroom would help too since a quarter of our time is spent there. If only I knew how quiet they run.

 

[stanleyjohn]

I have noticed that my throat feels more dry when i burn the wood stove but thats a minor tradeoff for all the oil i save and the fun of burning it.Humidity inside the home is sooo low in the winter and burning wood means more heat making it feel even more drier.Your wife may feel more comfortable if you can buy some humidifiers to add moisture into the home.maybe a cast iron tea kettle filled with water placed on top of the wood stove would help.PS some people cant take AC in the summer time because it makes the home too dry for them.

 

[hareball]

Man I'm really sorry to hear about your situation. How many months of the year do you burn? Sounds like you need Hypo-allergenic wood. There has to be species that effect her more than another though. Would she be willing to go to an allergy doctor?
Best of luck to you.

 

[Nicholas]

And don't try to reason with facts when the wife is telling you how she feels.

In my 21 years of marraige, that it the truest thing I have ever heard.

 

[savageactor7]

LLigetfa what about water conditioning ? Got any water simmering on the stove to make it easier to breath? Last week I put the pot on the lower step of the stove and we've using twice the water...much easier breathing.

Otherwise you may have to get one of those remote wood burning furnaces that pump heat threw the ducts. Then fire the freestanding stove when ever she's really cold.

 

[begreen]

How much flue is on the RSF now? What are the possibilities of adding a few more feet to increase draft? That combined with a HEPA filtration unit may do the trick.
http://www.consumersearch.com/air-purifiers/hepa-air-purifiers

 

[Battenkiller]

I was told if you weigh a mattress when its new and then re-weigh it 10 years later it can double in weight due to their waste.

Well that sentence just cost me $1000. Read it to the wife, who informed me that our current mattress set was 11 years old. Went out this afternoon and helped her pick out a new Simmons Beautyrest. It'll be here next week. Hope the delivery/removal guys don't get hernias carrying out all that dust mite crap.