Electric bill. How much do you pay? (car, place)

[David Kennedy]

40 to 50* house in the winter will keep a person healthy as many virus's cannot survive ...another trick, but not used in this country is to rinse out your nose every morning with warm tap water...too gross for Americans...but I've done it for years and hardly ever get a cold...chlorine kills the germs...takes a little getting used to, by the way...

Old people lived in homes with only a 'roof over their heads and survived very well...and Benjamin Franklin 'took the air...everynight before bed...stood naked at his window for about 20 minutes and took an 'air bath...as he called it...considering everything...the chill to his skin must/would have been invigorating...like stepping from a Swedish Sauna and rolling in the snow...

Winter will soon be here in all her glory...about Jan 10th...what does the Farmers Almanac say?

[Hinton Bound]

Originally Posted by David Kennedy

...chlorine kills the germs...

Chlorine kills more than germs in your nose! Chlorine and flouride have very serious long term health risks. You might be surprised to know that as a nation, our dental heath has deteriorated since flouride was introduced. Chlorine in water supplies has been proven to cause colon and bladder cancer.

I'll take my chances with well water!

My electric bill last month? $17. Love it!

[Threerun]

I wish my wife would subscribe to the 50deg house. She's always cold. Sleeps under a down comforter in the summer.

We keep the winter termostat to 65-68deg on most occasions. Running the heat pumps at that range isn't too bad on the wallet, but I sure do cringe when the gas back-ups kick on

We fixed the chimney so I'll be looking for a woodstove in the spring when people who just bought them figure out it's too much work for them. Found a guy west on Rt.50 that has a pick-up your own firewood (split and dried) for $40 a truck load. That's not a bad deal and he'll let me fill my full size 2500 Dodge to the top of the rear bed cap.. I don't think I could travel, cut and split that much myself for any cheaper. Hmm- time to build a few wood racks me thinks...

[Hinton Bound]

regarding installation of a wood stove...
I've been reading quite a bit about different set ups and their efficiencies. It seems that if you can set up the air supply to come from outside, the overall efficiency increases dramatically. Makes sense to me, but I don't see it in practice. Any reason why more people don't use a set-up like this?
~Mark

[Threerun]

If you're running a wood fired furnace that's tied into your existing system then a fresh air intake is extremely important. You can quickly cause a negative draft in your home if you use internal air for combustion. Additionally drawing in fresh air will help your home 'exchange' air efficiently, which is generally a wise thing to do.

With a freestanding woodstove it's not required to have a fresh air intake, especially if your home is older and not considered 'air-tight'. It's still wise to have a window cracked elsewhere in the house, somewhere opposite of the stove. Natural drafting will draw fresh air in.

In our last house we had to have a fresh air intake 'port' built into the fireplace (by code) however we never used it. Since our stove was in a great room with cathederal ceilings, we simply cracked a window upstairs in the loft and mother nature provided the fresh air exchange for us.

[Threerun]

Here's a typical freestanding woodstove installation in an existing chimney, which is how we had our old stove ported.

[vec101]

Make sure your chimney is the correct height on the roof. At our cabin (before remodeling) the wood burning fireplace (which we used as a main heat source) was on the main floor, TV room in walk-out basement and furnace was in a "closet" in that room, chimney wasn't correct on roof, at times smoke got sucked back down into TV room and sorta choked me. Don't ask me how that happened, I'm not a builder, just know it did and an expert said that was why. When remodeled we corrected the problem.

[Threerun]

Sounds like negative pressure causing backdrafting. The chimney should be a min 3ft above the roof where it penetrates, and two foot higher than the roof within 10 ft (or something like that). The 2,10 rule comes to mind.

As I understand it, if the chimney is too low sometimes the wind hitting the roof creates a low pressure zone which fights the rising smoke, pushing it back down into the home.

We used to get some back-puffing when low pressure systems moved in.

What's the old saying? "When the smoke is low look for snow, when the smoke goes high the sun is nigh"

[snorpus]

It appears this is called the 10/2/3 rule: fireplacesnow.com.

The chimney must extend at least two feet above any part of the roof that is within 10 feet (horizontal), AND must be 3 feet above the point of penetration of the roof.

Normally, air (and smoke) will vent naturally up the chimney, because hot gasses rise, and this will result in a low pressure region at the top of the stack (relative to the pressure at the firebox). The air next to the roof can become turbulent (swirling), and become higher than the firebox airpressure, and thus force the smoke back down the chimney. This is the "backdraft".

The air flowing up the chimney has to come from somewhere (otherwise, eventually the interior of the house would become a vacuum ). Most older houses aren't sealed very well, and outside air is drawn in around windows, doors, etc.

Providing this makeup (or combustion) air directly to the fireplace or woodstove is energy efficient, since it goes directly into the fire. My oil furnace actually came with diagrams for how to provide combustion air directly from the outside (which I haven't gotten around to doing yet).

[David Kennedy]

Sandy's has a nice little cast iron box stove for $165.00....saw it in all that debris yesterday...I may get it next week...