Heating with woodstove

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Hello all.

Just a note to pass on to any new woodstove people who are heating for the first time. If you can get a blower for your woodstove, get one. I cannot beleive how much difference it makes in heating a 2000 Sq. Ft. House. When we do not run the blower the room that the stove is in ( a fairly big one at that with 2 doors on front.) will heat up that room nicely, but if we run the blower it will heat the whole house! I try to cut back on electric bills as much as I can, but this is worth the power. We do not have insulation in the walls, only in the roof. This is an old cinderblock building, and when the sun goes down, it gets cold fast. We burn 3 year old pine to start the fire, and then oak, or some other hardwood, but the blower gets the most out of our heating dollor.

Beth (NC)

-- Beth (NC) (craig@icu2.net), March 01, 2000

Answers

I second the advice, and add this; if you can hang a regular box fan behind your stove pipe, at a safe distance where too much heat will not melt it, that helps, too. But I like my thermostatically controled fan. Whe the stove gets cold, the fan stops! RealGoods, the alternitive power company, had a fan that you mouned directly on your stove pipe and the heat from the stove turned the fan. It was almost $100 a few years ago, and it might be more now, but it might be worth it if you are off the grid, or are concerned about heat distribution when the power goes out.

-- Leann Banta (thelionandlamb@hotmail.com), March 02, 2000.

Hey Thanks,

I will look into the stovepipe fan. I am not off the grid, but I don't want to take the electric company out to dinner either.

Beth (NC)

-- Beth (NC) (craig@icu2.net), March 02, 2000.


My father-in-law made a sort of a pinwheel-type thing to sit on top of his wood stove. I wish I could remember better how it was made. The rising heat from the stove made the vanes turn and it did a surprisingly good job of moving the air. Not like an electric fan, of course, but not bad for no electricity.

-- Peg (jnjohnsn@pressenter.com), March 02, 2000.

I once put a small squirrel cage fan on a wood stove I built. I put a regular rheostat in line to control the speed, but it had trouble keeping the speed at anything besides very low or full blast. I was later told by an electrician that it was because I should have used a variable speed motor, and that the one I used was designed to spin at only one speed, and that when I added resistance to the line (the rheostat), I was making the motor strain, and it would keep trying to run at full speed unless it was so choked down it was barely able to run.

Long sentence, eh?

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@echoweb.net), March 08, 2000.


I don't have an answre but I sure have a question. I'm a new home owner and for the first time a wood burnng stove. I had wood deliver and tried last night to start it, with paper,kindling, but it never really took off. How do I start a fire? Do I keep the doors open with the screen insert to allow heat to come out, or keep the doors closed? Also, I was told to use the fan on control panel for the furnace and it would put the heat in all the rooms.Now I'm wondering if I did the right thing in buying wood and not sure how to use the stove properly. It does not have the brick inlayed, the stove is 18 years(Fisher).. Can anybody take me by the hand and help me with this? otherwise I'm stuck with a core of wood. Thank you, Susan

-- susan sharp (sharps@idhw.state.id.us), October 10, 2001.


Hi, Susan, this is my 1st year with my new kuma stove, go to www.woodheat.org the site is full of what you need to know.

-- Thumper (slrldr@yahoo.com), October 17, 2001.

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