Wood stove in front of windows?

[AVLguy]

Hello all - new guy here - enjoying browsing for info but haven't found what I am looking for so here goes:

We are looking at having a Green Mountain 40 installed in our home. The home has no fireplace or woodstove at present. This will be a totally new build. The best place for the unit is in the center of three windows in a wall in the living space with the metal chimney going straight up through the ceiling and the roof. It seems we have the floor space for it to work, but are concerned that it will look off / goofy / out of place if positioned in front of the center of the three.

Any input experiences or photos of a similar set up would be much appreciated.

Thank you for having me.

Bruce

 

[begreen]

A Google image search shows several examples.

 

[AVLguy]

I appreciate that but figure a lot of google stuff is staged / promotional and wonder about real world application. My inclination is it will be fine but it's a big expense and we are being extra cautious I guess.

 

[stoveliker]

There are apps where you can upload a pic of your situation (room) and then add an item to it to see how it looks.

I don't think it's an issue - no one can say whether it looks out of place; only you. Aesthetics is in the eye of the beholder, which is you....

 

[Ctwoodtick]

It should look cool I think. I have a similar set up. If in doubt you could make a mock up of stove using cardboard if you feel like you need to set it visually.

 

[AVLguy]

I will give app idea a go that will be a big help.

 

[peakbagger]

FWIW, IMHO wood stoves in front of windows without very thermally effective blinds really drops the effective heating value of the stove to the room. A stove is a mix of radiant and convective heat. Convective heats the air in the room but radiant is just a slightly longer wavelength than visible light and it goes in all directions including right out the windows into the outdoors. When there is a wall or insulated blinds, most of the radiant heat heats up the wall or inner surface of the blind and then turns some of it into convective heat plus reradiates some back into the room. So more heat in room, less to the outdoors.

From a decor perspective, walls of glass are an architect's dream but an engineers nightmare in many cases, they look great and sell houses on a sunny day but from a heating and cooling perspective, they are a disaster in most climates. Using the example in post 2, very nice looking, but that room is going to be a bear to heat and folks will complain about "drafts" and stay well away from the windows when its cold out due to radiant transfer from their skin to a cold window. The owner will need to keep the tstat higher to compensate but might as well skip any seating along that wall. In the case of the example, a 2 to 3 foot section of wall running from the floor to the lower window casing would still give good sight lines as those lower window sections inevitably get cluttered with furniture and reduce the radiant loss although it still will be steep. Same with the upper eyebrow windows, they look great but they looking out at the sky which is not a typical sight line.

If someone just has to have glass, going with double cellular light blocking blinds with side tracks integrated into the window casings will really help (if they are closed at night). Unfortunately for the eyebrow windows in post 2, they are only good for rectangular windows. The reason to specify light blocking is how they block the light is sandwich a very thin layer of foil into the materials of the blind. It reflects a lot of the radiant heat back into room. Insulated blinds are somewhat less effective for cooling, ideally the best option is shading on the outside of the windows but far better than nothing.

 

[stoveliker]

If one is concerned about IR, I suggest to have a simple noncombustible kneewall directly behind the stove (and only of the size of the stove. Not of 2x4 thickness, but 1/4" or so, so less intrusive.
The heatloss of the IR that gets to the window outside of that will quickly decrease due to the shallower angle.

This does not block the view (as the "wall" is only the size of the stove), and does help.

This is an interesting thread with some thoughts about radiative versus convection heat output.

Stove temperature vs thermal radiation

According to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_radiation Where P is energy radiated and T is temperature in Kelvin. 300F = 422K 600F = 588K 588^4/422^4=3.77 If I have this right, a stove at 600F is radiating 3.77 times the heat of one at 300F. I've noticed my stove doesn't consume...

www.hearth.com

 

[begreen]

Many stoves have rear shielding to keep the radiant heat down in back of the stove. This helps reduce clearances. The rear heatshield helps the GM40 drop to 9.75". As an alternative, look for a convective stove that has 10" or less rear clearance and connect with double-wall stove pipe. Example, the Quadrafire Millenium 3100 or Discovery II @ 6.5". Or the Jotul F45 @ 9".