Tag: Wood Stove

Consider This When Buying a Wood Stove

wood stove
My Little Jotul

After living through the ice storm of 2008 without any alternate heating source and freezing for eight days, my main goal when I moved into my new home was having a wood stove. In 2008 I was renting a duplex and the people next to me had a wood stove which kept us somewhat warm, but in my own place I knew it would be up to me to make sure we didn’t freeze if and when a storm takes away our power.

The living room has a fireplace, but the room itself is the smallest one in my house. After the winter of 2008 I had purchased an old, large stove to use in the basement of my rental and that one was far too large to use in the living room of my new place. We would have roasted.
I sold that one and I bought a small wood stove. It fits into the fireplace well, and it won’t cook us when we are sitting in the room. But….

I did not take into consideration the fact that the wood I buy may not fit in it! And that is the trouble I am having.

The little Jotul is a great stove, but much of the wood I had purchased last year is too big. Places generally deliver 16 inch logs – and some of those measure longer. It’s a front loading stove, and the opening is quite small. The pieces of wood I burn need to be narrow enough to easily fit into the opening when the stove is going. Who wants to have to try to jam a piece of wood over an already burning log in hopes that it will fit?
I did not take this into consideration and now I wish I had thought about it and maybe bought another type of stove.

I’ve had to hire someone to come and split the wood for me – I wish I could do it myself. I have some dead trees on my property that I plan to use (and have already used) which means the pieces can be made nice and short using the chainsaw, which is very helpful.
Just something to consider if you are planning to buy a stove for a small space.

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The “New” Wood Stove

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.

Staying Warm and Happy New Year!

thermometer
Wood Stove Thermometer

I’m not sure I get the point of having a wood stove in the basement. It seems like the house would be nice and warm much sooner if it was upstairs.
Not that I have any choice, but it seems goofy to have to heat the basement first for little reason. I know that the heat rises and I am sure it helps, but I don’t think it would be my choice, but the living room is way too small for any size stove so it had to go in the basement.


For now, I run (okay- walk)  up and down the stairs a hundred times a day to turn the dampers on my stove, play with the coals, add wood and check the temp. At least I am getting some exercise since the days are too cold for walks lately.
The cat (Richie) follows me up and down each time so I will probably trip over him at some point….

snow covered wood pile
My Snow Covered Wood Pile

My outdoor woodpile is quite frozen and piled with snow (thanks to the snow sliding off the metal roof) but I managed to get some pieces and threw them in the back door to dry out.
I read one time that wood makes you warm twice – the handling- cutting, moving, stacking, lugging and then the burning.
At least I finally figured out to put the temperature guide facing the stairway so I could just glance at it from up in the kitchen… duh…I catch on eventually!

Happy New Year to all! I will be watching the Stooges marathon tonight with my son. I hope you will be doing something just as exciting. 🙂

The Cost of a Used Wood Stove

Wood stove
My wood stove is in the basement

I took this photo right after two strong guys brought this stove into my basement. It is now hooked up and running…I had my first good fire in it last weekend.

It took a couple of hours, but the house warmed right up except for the bedrooms, which I don’t care about during the day. It’s in the basement at the bottom of the stairs and situated under the living room. So I leave the basement door open and the heat comes up through the floor as well.
I am relieved to have the alternate heat source – and I have a new grill sitting on the deck, both of which will come in handy in the event of a bad storm.

Last year my neighbor and I (I am in a duplex) melted snow on top of her stove to use for flushing toilets during the 8 days we were without electricity. I also used her stove to heat the soups and food thawing out in my big freezer (I lost a lot of it).

New wood stoves are very expensive, so I went the used route. And I learned some lessons.

I bought this one (an All Nighter) for $450. Paid the guys who went to pick it up -about 30 minutes from my house-, bring it here and slide it down the sloping back yard into the basement (what a job!) $100. Oh and the stove pipe and install was $70 for the pipe and $20 for the install. Then I discovered that I needed fire brick for the inside since most of it was broken and missing (the guy who sold it to me said it wasn’t necessary to have brick- what did I know). But I found out that without bricks, the stove could warp if it gets too hot. 2 boxes of fire brick cost $70 and $50 to install it. So my total output for the used stove was $760.

I still made out well since new stoves – small ones – are around $900 and thats not including delivery and installing. And my stove is big.

I also just found out about a new kind of burning material – sawdust compressed logs of some kind. I went by the fireplace store in Hillsborough “The Heat is On” and the guy there gave me some to try. He said they can be burned in place of wood. Anyone heard of these? They break apart and can be used as fire starters too, which is what I will use my little pieces for. By the way, now that I don’t need a stove I have found that he sells consignments and new stoves. If you live in the southern NH area and need a stove, check out his little place in Hillsborough.

***WHAT’S THE BEST KIND OF wood to BURN? Check out this chart.