Please, what is a wood burning stove? (Colville: sales, power lines)

[trix4u]

Okay, please don't judge, I am not from Washington so I have no clue but can someone tell me what a wood burning stove is? How does it work? Thanks

[j_k_k]

Originally Posted by trix4u

Okay, please don't judge, I am not from Washington so I have no clue but can someone tell me what a wood burning stove is? How does it work? Thanks

It's a fireplace, but made of metal and elevated above the floor. You throw wood into it, mainly to heat your house, but some people cook on them as well (used to be the only way in the old days). We had one growing up, and I used to have to haul the wood for it every other day. It's a lot of work, but if firewood is plentiful, it can put out a lot of heat pretty cheaply.

[trix4u]

Great thank you so much ☺

[P38]

mod cut:
Anyway, if you go the woodstove route, find out if it is certified or not. Certified stoves can be used during burn bans because they send up less particulates. Get your wood now because it will have a couple months to dry and it is cheaper than it will be after the rains start again. Watch out for yellowjackets in the house when you bring in wood. They drill holes and hibernate in the wood then wake up when they get in the house.

[trix4u]

Cool thanks for the advice. So, it is basically kind of like a wood fireplace then ☺

[LookinForMayberry]

mod cut:

Back to your wood stove question. There are models with open faces, as one post described. There are others that are completely closed. The closed ones (I believe) are safer and more efficient. The iron of the stove -- either type, absorbs the radiant heat from the flames, and continues to warm the area well after the fire dies down. The old-fashioned wood cook stoves were closed. Those that had an "oven" were wider, and the oven portion was still closed from the flames, and had the usual door.

A well installed wood stove will be situated on mortared brick, or poured concrete, which will protect the walls and floor, as well as add to the heat absorption and radiation.

I have not read any information reporting that wood burned in stoves is any less particulate than wood burned elsewhere, and wood-burning is very harmful to the environment, particularly in areas were there is a moisture-laden "marine" layer in the atmosphere. Studies have shown that the damage to lungs is ten times that of cigarette smoking.

There are other heating stoves that burn "pellets" and I am not informed about what these pellets are manufactured from, but imagine they are byproducts of the lumber industry, with some additive to hold the wooden fragments together. I believe they are supposed to burn with greater efficiency -- implying less particulates, but I have not read any literature to substantiate that supposition.

The people I've known to use either do so because it is cheaper than gas or electric heat.

[Robhu]

My parents had a stove when I was growing up that could burn either wood or coal.
It was a Warm Morning, pot belly, cast iron stove. It was very heavy and built to last for years or even generations.
It sure could put out a lot of heat. It had a door in front to put in the wood or coal and a grate for the stuff to sit on.
The grate had a lever attached that could be moved back and forth to break up "the clinkers" so they could fall into a compartment underneath. We mostly used coal because it lasted longer and was readily available locally back then.
You had to "shake the grate" and clean out the "clinkers" everyday. I remember putting them in the driveway to make better traction in the snow.
These stoves had a damper in the stove pipe you could adjust to control how hot or fast the coal would burn. They also had adjustable plates on the door and just below the grate to help adjust airflow to control the burning.
At night you "banked the stove" which meant putting in enough coal to last the night and then adjusted the damper and plates to make a slow burn instead of a fast, hot burn so the stove would at least put out some heat all night.
We always kept a big kettle of water on top of the stove. This helped to humidify the house and some stoves had a separate tray to put water in.
Pouring water on a hot stove to cause a sauna effect is not a good idea. It can cause the metal to crack. Especialy if it is cast iron.
I'll never forget that old stove. We thought we were rich when we finaly got a big oil space heater that had its own thermostat and even a fan. All you had to do was light it and set the t-stat on low, medium, or high. No more carrying coal and cleaning out the "clinkers". (Un burned clumps of the coal, cinders)

[yukiko11]

I live in NW WA and have a woodstove in my home. It has a flat top for cooking. I save all my junk mail and in the area where I live, I am able to gather enough scrap wood to keep for the winter so I don't have to pay $160/cord (stack of wood 4" x 8') A cord would probably last me 5 years, because I live alone and keep the temp in my house about 60 degrees and make up for it with warm clothes and blankets. In a normal family with children, you would probably use a whole cord.
I also have electric heat in all the rooms of my home with separate thermostats in each room.
I live alone so I don't heat all the rooms in the winter, but I have to be careful that the home doesn't suffer from the dampness in the winter.
I use the woodstove whenever the temp drops below 25 degrees and whenever there is a power outage which happens 5-6 times a year when we have windstorms and the 100 ft pine trees fall on the power lines.
It heats up to about 500 degrees and I open all the doors to totally heat the whole house, plus I usually put a big pot of homemade soup on the cooktop.
Last december, I got snowed in for 18 days and we had 4 power outages from snow laden branches falling on the power lines. Because of the snow one power outage lasted 3 days. We have no natural gas in my neighborhood and I don't have propane. If it hadn't been for the wood stove, I don't know what I would have done.
The downside, is that if you have any other source of heat, you are not allowed to use the woodstove when air pollution problems are an issue unless it is the main source of heat. I have never been challenged on this. The electric or propane cost to heat your home in the winter could be 100-200/mo from Nov-Feb so a woodstove is definately a help.
From my personal point of view, there is nothing as warm and comforting as the heat from a woodstove. It's like being hugged by your mother.

[ladyshasta2]

if you have a Home Depot or Lowes store, the sales people will show you what a wood stove looks like. It is not a fireplace. It is a box, made of steel or cast iron with vents on it and has to be hooked up to a chimney. There will be a place usually on the top of the stove to put the wood in. Incidentally, don't throw water on or inside it! Look up on the net for pictures of wood stoves and good makes to purchase.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by yukiko11

I live in NW WA and have a woodstove in my home. It has a flat top for cooking. ...

...A cord would probably last me 5 years, because I live alone and keep the temp in my house about 60 degrees and make up for it with warm clothes and blankets. In a normal family with children, you would probably use a whole cord. Most homes will require 4-6 cords for 100% wood heat in PNW

...
It heats up to about 500 degrees and I open all the doors to totally heat the whole house, ...BE CAREFUL Opening doors allow more heat to go up the chimney, AND is an extreme risk for a chimney fire. Stoves burn and heat more efficient with limited air flow.


The downside, is that if you have any other source of heat, you are not allowed to use the woodstove when air pollution problems are an issue unless it is the main source of heat. ...Certified 'clean burn' woodstoves (built after ~ 1978) can be used during most burn bans (All but extreme cases) http://www.epa.gov/woodstoves/fireplaces.html

From my personal point of view, there is nothing as warm and comforting as the heat from a woodstove. It's like being hugged by your mother.

I certainly agree with this warm feeling

I have a wood stove and a pellet stove, I much prefer the wood, as the pellet stove is more like an electric heater. It blows warm air, but not a VERY HOT thermal mass.

There are many choices, but I prefer a 'Russian / Norwegian fireplace that has a huge masonry mass to heat up. You burn one load of scrap wood / kindling VERY HOT 1 time per 24 hrs and the heat radiates through-out the next day. ($$,$$$.$$) (can cost $10 - $20k)

For stoves, there is the Franklin type (non-certified, cast iron) ($$$)
Soap stone (heavy mass heater, similar to Russian fireplace idea, but in the form of a stove $,$$$)

and a whole lot of more conventional 'steel plate' welded wood stoves ($$$)

There is a superb woodstove that is made in Colville, WA. Quadrafire It is the envy of many; very well built and very efficient.

There are also wood furnaces for the home and even a remote appliance that sits away from your house and looks like an outhouse. Heat is pumped via water or air to the home, and you feed the stove once / week. Some stoves burn those big round hay bales (~1,000#). There are also corn stoves (similar to pellets) (Whoops, this is a WA forum... Food for fuel is a violation of human rights, even to the farmer who has 20,000 bu laying around that he can't sell for a profit)