derspielmann said:
I am really appreciative of the advice from various people replying to my original post. Several things confuse me:
1. Cast iron heats different from soapstone
SOMEONE PLEASE ELABORATE HERE--IS ONE MORE POWERFUL THAN THE OTHER? COMPARATIVELY WHICH WILL GIVE THE BIGGER BANG FOR THE BUCK?
2. A chimney is necessary? Maybe this is just different terminology, but I always thought of a chimney as a brick structure left when the rest of a house burnt to the ground. The reason I say "direct vent" is that we do not have a brick chimney, but understand we will have to run a pipe up from the stove through the roof.
3. Permits--in my rural location, there is no such thing as building permits
In regards to the outlay of the house, there is a relatively open area consisting of:
family room with stove is 12 X 20
adjacent dining area 10 X 12
kitchen 14 X 10
A ceiling fan in the family room circulates air down the hallway and into the bedrooms.
Thank you all once again!
Frau--Derspielmann
First off, tell your husband to mellow for a bit... Seems like some haven't been responding as much to your questions as they should have...
1. You need to check with your local government types about what, if any permits are required, and you should also check with your homeowners insurance company to see what they will want. It is likely that one or both will eventually want to see the manuals on the stove, do inspections, etc. but you should be able to find out now what is REQUIRED it can save much time and agravation to do so before you start doing the install - note that if you skip the permits, you may have difficulty selling your house later, and if disaster does strike, your homeowners insurance can get really nasty about paying out if the fire has anything to do with a woodstove they didn't know about.
2. The requirements for what you will need to install a stove are NOT going to change very much regardless of what you are going to install for a stove, there are minor detail changes, but the outline will stay the same, and so will most of the costs other than the stove.
In addition to the stove, you will need a venting system (aka "chimney"). You will need a hearth pad for the stove to sit on. You will need smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. You will need a wood supply. More on these things later...
3. WE CARE ABOUT YOUR SAFETY! Yes, you can do a "Mickey Mouse", unpermitted install, and short circuit the safety requirements, and this will save you some money. It will also potentially let you get first hand experience of your local fire department, or learn what CO poisoning feels like. We don't drop dimes on people, but we won't tell you how to do an unsafe install, and if we see you doing something that looks bad, we will let you know about it in no uncertain terms.
4. If you and your husband are good at DIY projects, you can do all the installation yourself, nothing about installing a stove is "rocket science" but it does require a lot of different skills. You can also sub out some or all of the job, but as mentioned earlier it can sometimes be a challenge to find a competent person to do the work. Be aware also that there are a lot of "hack" sweeps and installers out there that do less than stellar work, along with some very good folks. We can help guide you through the process so that you can make sure your installers do what they should.
Now, your questions...
1. There are three major different types of stove materials, and two main design styles, each has it's own heating properties, advantages and disadvantages. Soapstone is the "Cadillac" material - it tends to take a long time to warm up, but it delivers heat in a very smooth and uniform manner. A wood fire inherently has a lot of variation in it's heat output, soapstone tends to smooth them out so that you have a more constant output. However because it takes so long to warm up, I suggest that it is only good for 24/7 burning - it does not work well for part time burners. Also it has a tendency to overheat you in the "shoulder season" when it's cool enough to need a fire, but not COLD...
Plate steel stoves tend to be very fast responding - they heat up fast when you build the fire, and cool down fast when the fire does. Cast iron is in between, it responds faster than soapstone, but evens out the peaks better than steel.
The other big difference is "radiant" vs. "convection" heating. Radiant is the heat that comes directly off the stove - essentially it is infrared radiation or heat waves. Convection is when the stove warms the air and the air gets blown around. ALL stoves do both, but can be designed to do one more than the other. Soapstone is mostly radiant, cast iron or plate steel can be either depending on the way the stove is designed. (This was the "Cliff Notes" version, ask if you need more explanation...)
2. A chimney will be required. It will be approximately the same REGARDLESS of what stove you get. - Definition: A chimney is a structure that attaches to a wood stove for the purpose of getting rid of combustion byproducts. It may be made of masonry OR METAL... It contains "flues" which are the actual passages the smoke goes through. It is also sometimes referred to as a "stack".
REGARDLESS OF MATERIAL, it must be installed in accordance with strict standards for proper materials, construction, and installation method, or serious fire risk can result.
In your case, what you will almost certainly want is a straight up chimney made with "Class A" chimney pipe, which is a specially designed metal chimney that is heavily insulated to protect it as it goes through your ceiling and roof. It is not cheap, but you must use it and install it properly.
(will continue in next post...)
