Last year, we bought our first house and it’s turned out to have some problems. It’s heated by a ground-referenced heat pump (aka American geothermal) which returns air just a degree warmer than the intake air. While, over time, it will raise the ambient temperature up to where you want it, it never feels warm and frankly feels downright cold while the furnace is running. Add to this the fact the first owner/builder didn’t seal any of the sheathing so we leak like a sieve, have 2 skylights, and have 300sqf of single-pane glass on the end of the house, and the result is a house that’s pretty uncomfortable in the winter. For several years prior to moving here, we’d been using kerosene heaters to heat my shop (I’m a mechanic) in the winter. Out of desperation, we brought one in last winter when the temps went to -20F plus wind and the furnace couldn’t keep up. Turns out to be one of the best things we ever tried because my wife LOVES the little radiant heater. We have both a large convection and small radiant kero heater and it’s the smaller radiant that she loves. We tend to run it any time the outdoor temps are below 50F. When it’s between 30F and 50F, she’ll usually come home from work and let the heat from cooking make the house warm for a bit. Then, I’ll light the heater after dinner and it’ll run for 2-3 hours while she showers, dries off by baking in front of it, and then she gets ready for bed (at which point I put it out). When the temps are below 30F outside, or if the wind is really blowing, I tend to light it when the sun goes down at about 4:30pm and burn it until I go to bed at 3-4am.
The problem we’ve run into is that kerosene has become extremely expensive around here and it’s getting increasingly hard to buy. The last place we could buy 55 gallon drums of 1-K from just changed their policies and we have to give them way more personal information than we’re willing to just to hand them a stack of cash and buy a drum. Tonight, we drove 2 hours to get to a place that sells 1-K at the pump and I’m a little worried about that because it was cloudy orange (not dyed, more like rust colored). Hopefully, that’s something I can filter out so we have enough kero to get us to the end of the heating season. In other words, we’re sick and tired of dealing with sourcing kerosene.
On the other hand, we have 2 wooded acres and enough logging to do to get the property back to health to provide a significant amount of fuel for a wood stove over the next few years as it dries out. There’s also a family about half a mile down the road who sells firewood professionally and their price per cord is quite good. Using the calculator provided here on hearth.com, it looks like heating with hardwood should cost about 12% of what we’re currently paying for kero and about 60% of what we’re currently paying to run the heat pump. Even spending rather a lot on a wood stove, that leads to a pretty quick payoff!
Summary of conditions: 1400sqf somewhat leaky house, stove installed in 2.5-story cathedral ceilinged great room with open floor plan to kitchen/dining (1st floor) and loft (2nd floor). Hardwood available both for free and from pros down the road. Install will be free-standing.
My concern is whether or not we’re a good fit for a wood stove, and that’s why I’m coming to you all. Here’s how my questions and priorities break down:
1) Most important: Wife must feel warm when sitting near or in the same room as the wood stove. She gets this feeling from sitting right in front of the radiant kero heater and to a lesser extent from sitting 20 feet away from it in the same room (obviously with it pointed at her) but doesn’t get this feeling even being right up close to the convection kero heater.
2) If we have a wood stove anyway just to feel comfortable in the evenings, we may as well use it to offset some of the main furnace heating cost.
3) If we have a wood stove anyway, it needs to function as emergency heating when the power is out. Note that under these conditions, I’m perfectly fine with the stove only being able to keep the house at 50F. There’s no need to get it all the way up to 70F. Basically, if we can wear warm clothes but avoid needing hats and gloves even while just sitting, it’s good enough.
1+2+3 leads me to the first main question I have: I see this forum strongly recommends convection stoves for general house heating, which is important for emergency heating and for offsetting some of our furnace load. However, my wife definitely prefers radiant heat to convection heating. Do most of the wood stoves labeled as convection throw enough radiant heat out the big pane of glass on their front to keep my wife happy?
4) While we’re totally ok doing regularly scheduled maintenance, neither of us tolerate having to fuss with things all the time. The kero heater needs a little attention for the first 10 minutes to get it set just right as it reaches thermal equilibrium, but after that, it’s perfectly happy to be left untouched until its tank runs dry. While I don’t expect a wood stove to get the 16 hours of full-output heating that the little kero heater does, I would at least like something that I can get started, adjust as necessary while it’s warming up, and then leave alone for many hours (preferably for the whole evening). Do modern wood stoves fit this use profile?
Basically, does a wood stove fit the way we want to use it and will one make us happy, or are we hoping for things that are unrealistic for a wood stove?
Thanks!
The problem we’ve run into is that kerosene has become extremely expensive around here and it’s getting increasingly hard to buy. The last place we could buy 55 gallon drums of 1-K from just changed their policies and we have to give them way more personal information than we’re willing to just to hand them a stack of cash and buy a drum. Tonight, we drove 2 hours to get to a place that sells 1-K at the pump and I’m a little worried about that because it was cloudy orange (not dyed, more like rust colored). Hopefully, that’s something I can filter out so we have enough kero to get us to the end of the heating season. In other words, we’re sick and tired of dealing with sourcing kerosene.
On the other hand, we have 2 wooded acres and enough logging to do to get the property back to health to provide a significant amount of fuel for a wood stove over the next few years as it dries out. There’s also a family about half a mile down the road who sells firewood professionally and their price per cord is quite good. Using the calculator provided here on hearth.com, it looks like heating with hardwood should cost about 12% of what we’re currently paying for kero and about 60% of what we’re currently paying to run the heat pump. Even spending rather a lot on a wood stove, that leads to a pretty quick payoff!
Summary of conditions: 1400sqf somewhat leaky house, stove installed in 2.5-story cathedral ceilinged great room with open floor plan to kitchen/dining (1st floor) and loft (2nd floor). Hardwood available both for free and from pros down the road. Install will be free-standing.
My concern is whether or not we’re a good fit for a wood stove, and that’s why I’m coming to you all. Here’s how my questions and priorities break down:
1) Most important: Wife must feel warm when sitting near or in the same room as the wood stove. She gets this feeling from sitting right in front of the radiant kero heater and to a lesser extent from sitting 20 feet away from it in the same room (obviously with it pointed at her) but doesn’t get this feeling even being right up close to the convection kero heater.
2) If we have a wood stove anyway just to feel comfortable in the evenings, we may as well use it to offset some of the main furnace heating cost.
3) If we have a wood stove anyway, it needs to function as emergency heating when the power is out. Note that under these conditions, I’m perfectly fine with the stove only being able to keep the house at 50F. There’s no need to get it all the way up to 70F. Basically, if we can wear warm clothes but avoid needing hats and gloves even while just sitting, it’s good enough.
1+2+3 leads me to the first main question I have: I see this forum strongly recommends convection stoves for general house heating, which is important for emergency heating and for offsetting some of our furnace load. However, my wife definitely prefers radiant heat to convection heating. Do most of the wood stoves labeled as convection throw enough radiant heat out the big pane of glass on their front to keep my wife happy?
4) While we’re totally ok doing regularly scheduled maintenance, neither of us tolerate having to fuss with things all the time. The kero heater needs a little attention for the first 10 minutes to get it set just right as it reaches thermal equilibrium, but after that, it’s perfectly happy to be left untouched until its tank runs dry. While I don’t expect a wood stove to get the 16 hours of full-output heating that the little kero heater does, I would at least like something that I can get started, adjust as necessary while it’s warming up, and then leave alone for many hours (preferably for the whole evening). Do modern wood stoves fit this use profile?
Basically, does a wood stove fit the way we want to use it and will one make us happy, or are we hoping for things that are unrealistic for a wood stove?
Thanks!
