Wood stove opinions, please (Franklin, Hope: credit, homes, tile)

[RANGER.101ST]

Originally Posted by boonelsewhere

has any one use Creosote Remover when heating with wood stove.

i don't use any thing.every morning my wife opens the door for some draft and lets it rore for 5 or so minnets.keeps the chimney clean as can be.took me 2 years to teach her that.if you keep it burned out you wont have creosote.hence no fire.

[wordsmith680]

Originally Posted by RANGER.101ST

i don't use any thing.every morning my wife opens the door for some draft and lets it rore for 5 or so minnets.keeps the chimney clean as can be.took me 2 years to teach her that.if you keep it burned out you wont have creosote.hence no fire.

Some even put newspaper up the pipe to get er goin'....I have a catalytic that will be damaged by over heating. Yes, I did learn the hard way...$$$.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by boonelsewhere

has any one use Creosote Remover when heating with wood stove.

We do not.

Dont really care if it builds creosote.

Steel stove pipe, steel roof, no combustibles touching the stove pipe, and snow outside.

No creosote fire is going to melt steel. So I am not entirely sure why I would care.

Consider an outdoor wood furnace. Do you care if ti builds up creosote?

With any secondary combustion chamber you are giving the fusil oils and wood alcohols a chance to burn for you in the stove.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by MadJack

First have your chimney checked to see if it can handle a woodstove. Also make sure that it is high enough to get the draft needed to run a new stove correctly. Higher is always better as long as you can clean it from inside!

Checked?

... Then buy or cut enough wood for two heating seasons . . .every year! If you get hurt, break a leg/arm, have a heart attack, whatever, you'll be ready for winter and always have DRY wood! You can always sell some after a couple years to 'rotate old stock' and the $$$ comes in handy mid-winter too!

I agree.

Always store up enough fuel [wood, peat, WVO, chips] top last you for 2 seasons.

[MadJack]

Most new chimneys in newer houses are built with a furnace in mind and are built to minimum standards, i.e. minimum height requirements and mortar between the flue sections.

Very old chimneys, most often made of brick, have serious maintenance issues like missing cap mortar or missing mortar between the bricks all the way into the attic space.
This 1820's house I live in (for now) had such a chimney with an oil furnace entering one side and a woostove entering the other side. I removed the furnace, woodstove AND the chimney!
Our other chimney, 25+ years old has a deteriorated mortar cap and rain gets down between the block & flue, has in the past frozen and split the block in places. This one will get replaced this spring.

Flue sections should be joined with refractory cement.
Mortar should be checked and re-pointed when needed.
The cap should be checked every time the chimney is cleaned, and should be recoated with Thompson's Water Seal as needed.

Even stainless or metalbestos chimney's should be checked for deterioration as they can & do go bad over time.
Sound reasonable?

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by MadJack

Most new chimneys in newer houses are built with a furnace in mind and are built to minimum standards, i.e. minimum height requirements and mortar between the flue sections.

Looking at places I often see liners.

... Very old chimneys, most often made of brick, have serious maintenance issues like missing cap mortar or missing mortar between the bricks all the way into the attic space.
This 1820's house I live in (for now) had such a chimney with an oil furnace entering one side and a woostove entering the other side. I removed the furnace, woodstove AND the chimney!

It was likely burning fine for 40 years.

One week of maintenance every decade is not really a lot of maintenance.

The issue I see is that folks tend to forget about them, so they often go 30 years without any attention.

... Our other chimney, 25+ years old has a deteriorated mortar cap and rain gets down between the block & flue, has in the past frozen and split the block in places. This one will get replaced this spring.

And had someone looked at it every 5 years it would still be in good condition today.

...
Flue sections should be joined with refractory cement.
Mortar should be checked and re-pointed when needed.
The cap should be checked every time the chimney is cleaned, and should be recoated with Thompson's Water Seal as needed.

Even stainless or metalbestos chimney's should be checked for deterioration as they can & do go bad over time.
Sound reasonable?

Sure

[boonelsewhere]

Thanks Ranger, the guy at the store i bough the stove from pretty much say the same thing, just the though of burn it hotter seem like ask for troble, now i think i got reason behide it.

Originally Posted by RANGER.101ST

i don't use any thing.every morning my wife opens the door for some draft and lets it rore for 5 or so minnets.keeps the chimney clean as can be.took me 2 years to teach her that.if you keep it burned out you wont have creosote.hence no fire.

thanks forest, may be I should not be too worry about it and stop using wood stove.
But i will have the chimney sweep prior to starting wood stove season.

Forest wrote;

We do not.

Dont really care if it builds creosote.

Steel stove pipe, steel roof, no combustibles touching the stove pipe, and snow outside.

No creosote fire is going to melt steel. So I am not entirely sure why I would care.

Consider an outdoor wood furnace. Do you care if ti builds up creosote?

With any secondary combustion chamber you are giving the fusil oils and wood alcohols a chance to burn for you in the stove.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by boonelsewhere

... thanks forest, may be I should not be too worry about it and stop using wood stove. But i will have the chimney sweep prior to starting wood stove season.

I do recommend that every summer, every woodstove operator clean everything and do a thorough inspection. The stove, flue, piping, everything. These are all components that will wear-out given enough usage.

If a stove pipe passes through a wooden or flammable roof, then it would be a concern. Triple walled piping needs to be used and extreme care with anything of a flammable nature being near it.

The top is supposed to have a screen or grill to stop hot embers from passing out to the environment. That should be inspected.

If roof shingles are flammable that would provide more reason for concern. Whereas a metal roof, not so much.

IMHO, In my mind, anytime a person has a chimney fire, they should really do some serious consideration. What burned? Why is flammable material so close to the heat? How did the heat reach flammable material?

If hot and fuel are meeting somewhere; it needs to be fixed.

Hot and fuel and air; form a combustible triangle. It is hard to remove the air from a house. But you can entirely control the hot and the fuel.

A stove pipe should be able to reach 500* if it wanted to, it should not be in contact with anything flammable. Only when heat reaches something flammable does it become a problem. That is the problem that needs to be addressed in home design.

[jzinckgra]

We're looking at buying a house in Maine soon and really want a woodstove. Most of the homes we're looking at don't have them or have the traditional fireplace and that's it. Approximately how much would it cost to install a woodstove and have a stainless steel pipe run to the ceiling and through the roof, assuming we can't use a fireplace insert.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Wood stoves cost from $150 to $3,000 depending on how fancy you want your stove to be. Metalbestos or similar insulated chimneys are becoming more expensive all the time. Last time I looked the sections were $85 each. There are many installers who can put your chimney in for you, but the average homeowner in Maine does it himself.