Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[goatgurl]

i just picked up a small wood stove for my house just to have as backup. was blessed to find a new "used" one and only had to pay $65. for it. the people bought it in Idaho 25 years ago and have never used it. it still has the warranty and instruction papers inside it. the guy who does my handyman/building work for me said he could fix a way to vent it out of the window so i wouldn't have to cut a hole in my house. I'm a little leery but going to get the info and see if that is doable .

 

[Smart Red]

Good score, @goatgurl! I'm looking for a small wood stove for my garden shed and sauna. A double furnace pipe should work just fine through a window. The important things are insulating materials behind and under the stove.

I can't imagine having such a treasure and never using it. Enjoy!

 

[Britesea]

The things I need to look into regarding a wood stove are:
1: Our county is making it as difficult as possible to install a wood stove (Klamath County is a basin- almost entirely surrounded by very tall mountains. Air quality becomes an issue in the winter with all the wood smoke and no way for it to blow away)
2: I need to check whether our insurance premiums would go up if we get wood heat, and what I can do to lower them if that is so.
3: How much it will cost to install it (I've become very leery of using cheap help-- I've found that you get what you pay for, and this is the safety of our family we are talking about)

It's almost impossible to find anything but pine for firewood here- even if you go out to the woods to cut your own. That means I also need to find a good chimney sweep or learn how to do it myself, because we'll be needing to clean the chimney every year.

 

[goatgurl]

another reason for me to be glad i am where i am. no regs on putting in a wood stove here. if i have to worry about air quality it is because of the forest service doing controlled burns in the national forest not the number of wood stove fires. so true about installation, the man who is going to help me is a builder, built my house infact, and if he did this for his house and felt it was safe then I'm gonna watch but i do trust him completely. the stove i got is suppose to reburn the smoke? to make it more efficient. we'll see. i am however going to check with my insurance company. this will also be mostly for emergency use only and i'll have wall and floor protection in too. most of the trees on my 60 acres are hardwood and i will not have a problem getting deadfall trees for wood. hope you can find what you are looking for. I've looked at a lot of stoves and they are really proud of them. that's why i was so tickled to find this one at such a good price.

 

[hqueen13]

Hope you can get the stove! That would be great! I wish we had a real stove instead of pellets. Someday....
glad you got a lot done despite your back hurting! Take care of yourself!
Yay for more storage, I always love improving storage space!

 

[wyoDreamer]

We burned pine almost exclusively in Wyoming. We burned ponderosa from 8 miles away, the neighbor drove 2 hours each way to cut lodgepole. We did buy some elm from a Nebraska rancher, but I hated that stuff - it smelled like piss when you burned it. The only reason we burned it at all was that it was more dense than the pine and would burn longer through the night.
And we had to clean the chimney 2 times a year at least. Not hard to do, luckily our roof was only a 5/12 slope. Just unscrew the top and run the brush down it - the basement stove took 5 brush sections. We would clean in the fall as part of our getting ready for winter routine. And then we would have to clean it once during February when we had the really cold period and the smoke would condense on the screening and block the chimney. Then in the spring, we did a deep clean.

 

[wyoDreamer]

We decided not to add a woodstove to this house. After we burned wood for 7 years in Wyoming, moving to WI we didn't want to add all the extra work for wood. DH has decided to make this our forever home, so everything needs to be low or no maintenance. Aside from the cutting, splitting, hauling and everything, there was the constant dusting, stove cleaning, and the time away from things we really want to do like fishing, waterskiing, hunting, gardening, camping.

So we added a pellet insert to the cut fieldstone fireplace and I love it so far. It is on a thermostat so it automatically turns on and off as needed. It is so nice to have. No muss, no fuss. Vacuum out once a week add pellets once a day and you're all done.

 

[Britesea]

I like pellet stoves, but I'd rather have something that doesn't depend on outside help to keep us warm (you have to buy the pellets, and if SHTF they might not be available); that's why I don't want to just buy another gas furnace.

 

[hqueen13]

That's my reasoning for not liking the pellet stove. We could get an awful lot of wood for free or dirt cheap. We spent almost $1000.00 on pellets a few months ago to be sure we've got enough for the winter. We didn't want a repeat of last winter when we ran out just after a storm and there were NO pellets to be found for several days because the trucks couldn't get in. Not fun!

 

[Denim Deb]

That's also why I don't want the pellet stove. Now what I would like is a smaller house and a smaller stove. Then I wouldn't have to do as much wood.

I did some comparing though. Even if I had to buy wood, I still come out cheaper than using any other type of heat. And, I'm keeping track of how much wood I'm using. That way, if we are able to move next fall like I'm wanting to do, I'll be able to tell the new owner how much we used this winter. So far, I'm not up to a cord and it's been so cold this week, I'm using more than normal for this time of year.