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It depends on where you live and your home. If you live in Northern Michigan like where I grew up and your home is not modern and well insulated then it may not be worth burning wood. It can take anywhere from 10 face cord to 30 face cord depending on the winter and home you have. If you can't cut it its way too expensive to burn. Even if you cut it yourself its getting hard to find it. We burnt wood through the 70s and 80s and 90s, but the dutch elm bug killed off a lot of standing wood that people could cut on state land. Wood now is not as easy to get. You can not heat a home of any size on wood you bring home form the building site. Its pine and way too dry to do much more than give off a bit of heat and look nice for an hour or so.
When its 10 below or even 5 above the difference between your home inside at say 70 and outside is 80 degs. at 10 below. Thats a lot of pressure to keep warm at. It takes tending a fire all day and stoking it at night. Also you have to contend with high insurance or risk not being covered if you don't disclose your heat with wood.
Next is the mess. If you don't have an outside unit that pumps in hot water from the wood burning boiler than its smokes up the house. Wait till you take a few pictures off the wall and see what I mean.
Wood is not the end all to heating a home. Its not cheap anymore unless you own at least 10 to 20 acres of hard wood forest. I could get most of my years wood to heat a well insulated home off my 20 acres. There was enough dead fall each year to get seasoned hard wood to the tune of about 15 to 20 cord. I gave it up as it was too much work and trouble.
Now I live in Fla. where I don't worry about heat. hehehehe
Not eveyone lives in MI where wood is hard to find... I do not need to tend to my fire all day and night stoking it constantly either. I load it up before work, get it going, come home, load it up again, and then before bed load it up one more time, i never wake up in the middle of the night to reload it and i always have enough coals to start a fire easy in the morning.
As for insurance, i think my rate went up like 20 dollars a YEAR when i told them i had a wood stove.....
smoke inside the house? nope. never get smoke inside the house unless its 55 and rainy out and i open the door way too fast. even then i rarely get smoke inside the house... yes the wood is a mess when you carry it in to the stove, but it is what it is..
Not cheap? i beg to differ, even if i had to pay for all my wood cut/split and delivered, worst case 4 cord of wood would be around 1,000 dollars in NH, to heat my house with oil would easily cost upwards of 1,800$ a winter. if not more, and thats a worse case scenario, I can find wood for free or buy green logs and process it myself to save even more. The real benefit here isnt even the money saved. its the fact that im 1000x warmer with the wood stove then i will ever be with the oil furnace.
So if the house already has fireplace, but when we install the wood stove, the insurance will go up? Why?
My Guess would be, because you are using the chimney and the stove as your houses primary source of heat, aka more chance for pipes far from the stove to freeze, more chances of a chimney fire since your using the chimney EVERY day accumulating creosote vs. a few times a month. Thats just my guess tho.
I never want to give the insurance company any reason to deny my coverage. So, I checked with them before we installed our stove, and let them know when it was in.
I never want to give the insurance company any reason to deny my coverage. So, I checked with them before we installed our stove, and let them know when it was in.
So if the house already has fireplace, but when we install the wood stove, the insurance will go up? Why?
My insurance did not go up when I replaced the fireplace with a wood stove. However, I had the stove and pipes installed in accordance to the local fire codes. Photos of the pipe installation were taken and given to the insurance company, and that was it. Also, the heat pipes and boiler contain residential-type antifreeze to prevent freeze-ups, since I burn wood for several hours each day when -20 and colder outside.
But if you burn wood at the right temperatures, and inspect and brush the stove pipes as needed, there should not be creosote building up. Creosote builds up when the wood you burn is not properly seasoned, burning at low temperatures, or smoldering fires. The latter happen when you load the stove and choke the air to let it burn slow through the night. I always monitor the wood stove, and never go to bed unless the fire is dying down and the stove is cooling.
My insurance did not go up when I replaced the fireplace with a wood stove. However, I had the stove and pipes installed in accordance to the local fire codes. Photos of the pipe installation were taken and given to the insurance company, and that was it. Also, the heat pipes and boiler contain residential-type antifreeze to prevent freeze-ups, since I burn wood for several hours each day when -20 and colder outside.
But if you burn wood at the right temperatures, and inspect and brush the stove pipes as needed, there should not be creosote building up. Creosote builds up when the wood you burn is not properly seasoned, burning at low temperatures, or smoldering fires. The latter happen when you load the stove and choke the air to let it burn slow through the night. I always monitor the wood stove, and never go to bed unless the fire is dying down and the stove is cooling.
I took the advice of others and the first thing we did was get a thermometer for the stove! I always keep the fire temp within the "no creosote" range. AND we also let it go out at nite and don't smolder it.
I took the advice of others and the first thing we did was get a thermometer for the stove! I always keep the fire temp within the "no creosote" range. AND we also let it go out at nite and don't smolder it.
Can you tell me more about these, I'm learning and about to have one wood burn stove insert into our fireplace soon.
My insurance did not go up when I replaced the fireplace with a wood stove. However, I had the stove and pipes installed in accordance to the local fire codes. Photos of the pipe installation were taken and given to the insurance company, and that was it. Also, the heat pipes and boiler contain residential-type antifreeze to prevent freeze-ups, since I burn wood for several hours each day when -20 and colder outside.
But if you burn wood at the right temperatures, and inspect and brush the stove pipes as needed, there should not be creosote building up. Creosote builds up when the wood you burn is not properly seasoned, burning at low temperatures, or smoldering fires. The latter happen when you load the stove and choke the air to let it burn slow through the night. I always monitor the wood stove, and never go to bed unless the fire is dying down and the stove is cooling.
May I ask, you did everything by yourself or had someone do it?
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