all nighter – New England's Narrow Road

wood stove in basement — My new used wood stove

Last year I was lucky to find a good, used wood burning stove to buy and put in my basement. This picture was taken right after it was moved in by a couple of strong guys who did have quite a bit of trouble, since it’s very heavy. That is the hardest thing about buying a stove. It’s not something that you just go and get and bring home, lots of preparation is involved and deciding where to put it is something to consider before bringing one home.

This stove was purchased from a stranger who took out an add in the paper and my landlady is the one who told me about it. The price seemed right, and at the time I didn’t know about the importance of having fire bricks inside. I’d never had a stove with a brick lining. In fact, the previous owner told me it didn’t matter that they were missing. I found out that the bricks are necessary for holding the heat and keeping the sides of the stove from warping when the heat is high and no matter how hard I tried, the fire would occasionally get hotter than it should. I feel that if I hadn’t added the bricks myself, that the structure of the stove would have been affected.

Since buying this stove, I’ve written a page about my experience and all I’ve learned along along the way, including the exact amounts of money I put into the pipe, hook up, and bricks needed to get the stove up and running. And remember that pellet stoves require electricity to run, and that is why I am not interested in them. I need to have heat when the power is out and so went with the wood-burning type.

Last December the northeast had a horrific ice storm and the electricity was off for 8 days at my place. I had just moved in and although there was a spot in the basement for a wood stove, I didn’t have one.

So due to the kindness of my landlord and neighbors, I didn’t freeze, but I sure was cold. Inside my house the temp. hovered around 38-40 degrees. In fact one day it “warmed up” enough that I opened the windows because it was warmer outside.

So I made it my quest to find a wood stove before the next winter arrived.
I also don’t have much money, so a used one was what I hoped for and I ended up with a good size “All Nighter”, but it was missing most of the fire bricks inside.

I was told that it could be run without the bricks, but if the fire was too hot the sides could warp so I got some bricks just to be safe.

The bricks just set in along the sides and it’s not difficult to do if the bricks are the correct size and if there are not old bricks, broken off and stuck to the sides already! That was my problem.

So someone came out and put them in for me. I don’t know for sure, and information online is hard to find, but a friend bought a new stove and had to burn on a low temp for 40 hours to “cure” the bricks so I will do the same just to be safe.

I just found lots of helpful info at the UNH Cooperative Extension site, so go there if you have questions about heating with a wood stove.