What to expect?

[Highbeam]

Oh and since your house is a rambler. Pay attention to the minimum chimney height requirements. 15' of vertical chimney is required above all of the BK stoves. Not sure about the insert but the manual specifies.

My chimney is only 12' since my single story house is so low.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

Here are a couple of pics from the real estate listing for some reference.

A woodstove is a point source of heat so it's often counter-productive to go bigger. What usually ends up happening is the stove area is so hot it's un-inhabitable while the furthest rooms are still chilly. Especially in a large rambler.

I would put a Blaze King in main living area and use the central heating to maintain a lower temperature in the rest of the house. Don't worry about max btu's.

 

[maple1]

A woodstove is a point source of heat so it's often counter-productive to go bigger. What usually ends up happening is the stove area is so hot it's un-inhabitable while the furthest rooms are still chilly. Especially in a large rambler.

I would put a Blaze King in main living area and use the central heating to maintain a lower temperature in the rest of the house. Don't worry about max btu's.

I would normally agree, but that is a lot of glass with a 12' ceiling. And it looks pretty open. Although I'm not sure where the stove spot is.

 

[begreen]

FWIW, this is in Maryland, not Massachussetts. On average, a steady 25-30K BTUS is going to make a good dent in the oil bill.

 

[Highbeam]

FWIW, this is in Maryland, not Massachussetts. On average, a steady 25-30K BTUS is going to make a good dent in the oil bill.
View attachment 197958

To be fair, a steady 30k btu will make a good dent in any heating bill. The $ savings is just a function of the cost of fuels. Once you decide to just partially heat with wood the stove selection process becomes much easier.

The stove will constantly be pooping money into your bank account every second that it is running instead of the oil burner.

 

[begreen]

Difference being that due to the mild climate, for maybe 4 months of their heating season the stove may be able to heat the whole place as compared to the same setup in a New England winter.

 

[Devonian]

Thanks for all of the input and comments. I think the princess insert is my best option and I'm pretty sure thats what i'll be firing up this winter. hopefully i'll have a positive update to post here this winter!

 

[Devonian]

So I started looking at the Woodstock Ideal Steel and I'm really liking it. I actually find it attractive where I never was excited about the looks of the princess insert. Im concerned if it will fit since the hearth is raised and only 22" wide so some of the stove will project over the edge. I'd also need so form of heat shield for the mantle and a hearth extension on the floor.

 

[Devonian]

I've been putting off buying the stove until my old house sells. We are supposed to settle next week so I'm trying to work out the final details before I take the plunge.

I'm still focused on getting a Woodstock Ideal Steel but I'm not sure what to do about the hearth. It's raised 12" and only 20" deep. The IS legs are 20" apart so a portion of the stove will hang over the hearth... are there any good resources on building out a raised hearth? I can't slide the stove into the fireplace because the fire brick is built up a few inches above the hearth top.

I imagine I'll rip the tile off the hearth top, build out a section of the hearth in front of the stove with block. And then top the whole thing with bluestone or something similar. Any better ideas out there?

Here's a crappy pic of the fireplace. The opening height is 33" from the hearth top and it is 34" wide.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

I imagine I'll rip the tile off the hearth top, build out a section of the hearth in front of the stove with block. And then top the whole thing with bluestone or something similar. Any better ideas out there?

What's preventing you from removing the firebrick?

 

[Devonian]

What's preventing you from removing the firebrick?

It's mortared in there and I'm not sure what's underneath it. I just assumed it would be too difficult to get it out and I really haven't fully explored that option. I'll take a better look this weekend.

 

[Highbeam]

Down with the masonry! Replace with a nice vertical pipe!

 

[Devonian]

I meet with a mason Tuesday night and he's going to lower the hearth to floor level and I ordered an Ideal Steel which should be here mid October! I'll post updates here as they happen for anyone interested.

 

[Devonian]

Hearth is coming down, liner is on site and the stove should be here next week!

 

[Devonian]

The stove was delivered last week and I'm trying to install it this week. I'm running double wall insulated pipe to the smoke shelf and then planing on single wall flex through the smoke shelf and damper.
I bought a sooteater and was planning on cleaning the chimney with it before the install. My concern is the smoke shelf/chamber area. What's the best way to clean this area? Should I just call a sweep? And how clean is clean? Im sure some left over deposits are to be expected right?

 

[Devonian]

I installed the stove last Sunday and I've been running it since. So far so good I've been able to run the stove very low and heat the stove room to the low 70s. The kitchen is adjacent to the stove room with an 8' wide entry way and I'm not getting much heat in there. It's running about 10* cooler which is concerning given how mild it's been here but not totally surprising given how much glass there is. I ordered a floor fan so I'll try pushing cold air out of the kitchen.
The other furnace which heats the bedrooms has been running like usual so I'm obviously not getting heat back in that part of the house. Once it gets cold, well at least cold relative to Maryland, I think I'll have to run the stove pretty hard to keep up. All of the glass in this place just sucks the heat up! I think the next steep is looking at replacing the glass panels but that's going to be a slow process because financialy I can only do a few at a time. I might also look at the insulating window films but I think replacing the glass diy will be cheaper. I haven't yet found a diy insulating window film.

 

[begreen]

Take a basic 12" table fan and set it on the kitchen floor, pointed toward the stove room. Run the fan on low speed. In about 30 minutes you should get a notable temperature increase in the kitchen.

For several years I put up 3M inside storm window shrink plastic. It's almost perfectly clear and worked very well. You apply it with their double-stick tape and then use a hair dryer to shrink the film tight.

 

[peakbagger]

Hard to justify replacing glass with glass unless they were cheap windows to begin with and the frames or hardware is gone. Cellular blinds with sidetracks work quite well but they are not inexpensive. They do give a bigger bang for the buck from a R value point of view and most houses needs blinds anyhow. Where I notice them the most is they cut radiant heat loss way down. Even with high performance double panes when I pass my hand in front of a window, I can feel the heat being sucked outdoor. With the cellular blinds I cant tell the difference between the wall and the window.

There were a lot of experiments building passive solar homes years ago which involved installing walls of glass, it sounded good but unless you have the right overhangs and shading plus interior insulated window covers, these homes overheated on sunny days and froze at night. My parents had a home with wall of windows floor to cathedral ceiling. It had baseboard along the walls under the windows. We put in deflectors on the baseboards and ran insulated drapes down the square section of glass right down to the deflector and then installed plastic triple panes in the triangular pieces of glass under the cathedral. It improved things a lot at night.

 

[Devonian]

Take a basic 12" table fan and set it on the kitchen floor, pointed toward the stove room. Run the fan on low speed. In about 30 minutes you should get a notable temperature increase in the kitchen.

For several years I put up 3M inside storm window shrink plastic. It's almost perfectly clear and worked very well. You apply it with their double-stick tape and then use a hair dryer to shrink the film tight.

I thought about the plastic but I have two boys age 5 and 2 and I think it would be destroyed pretty quickly! 3m has a thinsulate film that applies directly to the window and supposedly it's like upgrading from a double pane to triple pane. I haven't seen just the material for sale and the only cost estimate I saw was 4-15$ a sqft installed.
Once I get my hands on a fan I'll post an update.

 

[begreen]

Our boys were 5 and 8 when I put it up, no issues at all with them. The price is only a couple bucks per window so if something happens it is not a big deal to replace. The air gap with the inside storm is very effective. I recommend 3M brand. The film is clearer and most importantly the tape is much better. It holds better and removes cleanly in spring. Some other tapes I tried dried out and lost their stick in late winter. They had to be scraped off instead of the easy peel-off with the 3M.

 

[SuperJ]

Take a basic 12" table fan and set it on the kitchen floor, pointed toward the stove room. Run the fan on low speed. In about 30 minutes you should get a notable temperature increase in the kitchen.

I've found Begreen's tip to work really well. The opening between my stove room and kitchen is fairly narrow. Putting a quiet fan on the floor blowing the cold air into the stove room works wonders. I can feel the hot air dumping into the kitchen thru the upper part of the opening. I run the kitchen ceiling fan on low and the whole side of the house evens out nicely.

I also run my furnace fan on recirc to help move heat around.

Let's see some stove picts/flame show videos...

 

[Devonian]

Hard to justify replacing glass with glass unless they were cheap windows to begin with and the frames or hardware is gone. Cellular blinds with sidetracks work quite well but they are not inexpensive. They do give a bigger bang for the buck from a R value point of view and most houses needs blinds anyhow. Where I notice them the most is they cut radiant heat loss way down. Even with high performance double panes when I pass my hand in front of a window, I can feel the heat being sucked outdoor. With the cellular blinds I cant tell the difference between the wall and the window.

There were a lot of experiments building passive solar homes years ago which involved installing walls of glass, it sounded good but unless you have the right overhangs and shading plus interior insulated window covers, these homes overheated on sunny days and froze at night. My parents had a home with wall of windows floor to cathedral ceiling. It had baseboard along the walls under the windows. We put in deflectors on the baseboards and ran insulated drapes down the square section of glass right down to the deflector and then installed plastic triple panes in the triangular pieces of glass under the cathedral. It improved things a lot at night.

Thanks for sharing your experience. The windows are just fixed panels and are original to the house, so around 45 years old. Doing some quick pricing I can get new windows for about 100 more than blinds.
I'm really just talking out loud here and I haven't done much reasearch on the window thing. You might be right that it doesn't make sense to just replace glass with glass. I'm not sure how much double pane window efficiency has increased since the early 70's if at all? All of the large triangular windows have lost their seal so I will at a minimum replace those.
I'll look into adding plexiglass. I like the idea of something durrible I can reuse every season.

I still have some work left on the hearth. I need to grout the tiles in front of the stove. Right now they're just on a piece of durock. I also want to seal the bluestone and fix the messy mortar joints the mason left.

 

[peakbagger]

My parents left the acrylic panels in year round but due to a wide overhang they didn't get a lot of light. They were on the inside. They originally came with a steel frame around the edge and there was magnetic tape adhered to the wooden window frame, The glue eventually gave out so they held them in with clips from the hardware store. I don't think any plastic window works that well in the long term in full sunlight, they all eventually cloud up plus the optical quality is frequently poor compared to glass.

 

[SuperJ]

That carpet scares me, it could hold a ember unnoticed for a long time.

 

[Devonian]

That carpet scares me, it could hold a ember unnoticed for a long time.

It makes me nervous too. I'm planing on tileing the floor but that's not going to happen soon. I'm trying to come up with a simple temporary solution.