Help choosing a wood stove (Missoula, Bozeman: home, buying, minimum wage)

[ElkHunter]

Originally Posted by CaspariNorth

How is that enforceable unless you invite Big Bad Brother into your home? It seems we have a 4th amendment for that.

Well, I would think that if a person wanted to burn in an older wood stove, there wouldn't be much reason for you to have enforcement show up.

However, like MTSilverTip said, insurance folks want to take a look see. There are currently places in the US that enforce wood burning. They drive around with infrared sensors to see if there is a hot box in the house. This is in area's of the mountains of Colorado where everybody has a wood stove or fireplace. They set a fire ban while there is an inversion. Then they drive around and search our places that have an infrared footprint. Then there's a knock on the door. Doesn't take long before they've mapped out every house in the area and who has wood/coal stoves or fireplaces. The infrared footprint is grounds for a search warrant and then you are stuck with a hefty fine.

Here's a new one that really shocked me this summer. Where I live, in the Big Horn Mountains, they set a law that says you have to "Take it with you." Remember setting around the campfire, tent set up off to one side, cookstove set up and suddenly you have the urge. So you grab the shovel and wander out in the woods and dig a small pit and squat down. When you are done, you cover it up and head back to camp. No more. Can't be leaving those pits anymore. You have to use some sort of porta potti, and take it with you when you leave. So now days, when you wander out of camp, that set of eyeballs you see in the bushes, isn't a bear, it's a forest service person watching for a possible ticket.

[rambrush]

We are still in the process of finishing our place up, the insurance company has refused to allow us to use a wood stove. They require a thermostat controlled heat source. To top it off they sent a inspector up to take a look. Keep in mind we are 8 miles up a logging road with no street signs and not many neighbors but come they did.
Also Montana has this website and when you search for somebodies property it brings up all details including the heat source. So we have to comply as the county/state inspector still has to issue the Certificate of Occupancy.
but whats to stop someone from changing things out has soon as they have left?

[historyfan]

Allstate and Farm Bureau provide coverage on prof installed wood stoves.
Also a good idea to have chimney prof cleaned annually and keep receipts.

[Threerun]

You can but if it burns down and they find or determine a wood stove was to blame you are SOL.

Most building regs do require a thermostat controlled heating device as the main home heat source, however there have been some exceptions granted especially for off-grid homes. At least there were in WV- not so sure about MT.

I burned wood for over 10 years in WV, and now I burn pellets. I consider myself fairly on top of things and cleaned my appliance and chimney regularly. We did have a chimney fire back in WV that started from creosote that accumulated on the smoke shelf of our fireplace. Even though the stack was clean, there was still enough glaze to make the house look like a Roman candle was going off.

Whether you want to believe it or not, they do cause a lot of fires. And yes- the older smoke dragon stoves do belch off a lot of smoke, especially when they are banked for the night.

Not saying they should be banned, but the cleaner burning models are really good at eliminating a lot of that heavy particulate smoke. It was amazing to see that cat converter heat up red at 1500deg and fry the smoke. Just a little wisp coming out of the chimney, even banked.

[Reziac]

The one pellet stove I've been next to, the owner said how well it works depends entirely on the quality of the pellets. Some jam up, others make a lot of smoke and not much fire. I suppose one needs to test what's available.

Is there such a thing as a stove that eats wood chips?

[historyfan]

There are sawdust stoves. I have not seen one for years though.

[ElkHunter]

Originally Posted by Reziac

The one pellet stove I've been next to, the owner said how well it works depends entirely on the quality of the pellets. Some jam up, others make a lot of smoke and not much fire. I suppose one needs to test what's available.

Is there such a thing as a stove that eats wood chips?

Wouldn't all wood stoves eat wood chips?

We have a pellet plant here in town. I haven't been down there for years, but I'm curious as to how they are operating now. A few years back, our sawmill closed down and they were a big supplier of scraps for the pellet plant. We also had a molding plant going here, they made wood molding for houses. They would also make custom molding, say you had a 1903 house and you wanted to replace some ornate molding. You could take a piece in to them and they would custom make a set of knives so they could cut some molding for you out of whatever kind of wood you wanted. I built some buildings for those folks, they were good people.... Anyhow, they shut down too. So now, there are no suppliers for scraps to go to the pellet plant.

Don't know what you folks pay for pellets, but I've seen it around here for around $200 a pallet, which I have been told is a pretty good price. Not having a pellet stove, I couldn't tell you if that's a good deal or not.

[Reziac]

Murdoch's here carries two kinds of pellets and the brand-X stuff that looks like it's probably better quality is cheaper, I think it was $190/ton (probably one pallet worth). The namebrand stuff was about $20 more a ton. I've heard up to about $250/ton so yeah, seems that's a decent price, as it goes. How long does a ton last? Might not really be that much of a bargain as heat goes.

How the heck would you feed chips, which are random sizes, without either a big auger or lots of jams? not to mention some sort of drying mechanism, cuz they tend to hold water in a pile.

I've been looking for pit run sawdust (for mud control), the coarse stuff from the big ripper saw, and no one has it anymore. It's either big chips, fine sawdust (which probably didn't catch on widely for heating in part cuz of the dust explosion hazard), or splinters.

The custom molding thing sounds cool. I imagine they had a set of mechanical sensors that controlled the lathe, so it would follow the old pattern.

State Farm in Calif told me they couldn't cover a house with a woodstove, so if I put one in, just don't tell 'em about it. I think they're probably safer than some of the newer gas wall heaters, tho... I had to put a fan on mine or the wall would almost smoke, it got so hot, and it was brand new pro-installed in 2001. Some of the problem is for a while you couldn't get 'blue flame' heaters, it was either FULL BLAST or OFF.

[MTSilvertip]

Originally Posted by Reziac

Murdoch's here carries two kinds of pellets and the brand-X stuff that looks like it's probably better quality is cheaper, I think it was $190/ton (probably one pallet worth). The namebrand stuff was about $20 more a ton. I've heard up to about $250/ton so yeah, seems that's a decent price, as it goes. How long does a ton last? Might not really be that much of a bargain as heat goes.

How the heck would you feed chips, which are random sizes, without either a big auger or lots of jams? not to mention some sort of drying mechanism, cuz they tend to hold water in a pile.

I've been looking for pit run sawdust (for mud control), the coarse stuff from the big ripper saw, and no one has it anymore. It's either big chips, fine sawdust (which probably didn't catch on widely for heating in part cuz of the dust explosion hazard), or splinters.

The custom molding thing sounds cool. I imagine they had a set of mechanical sensors that controlled the lathe, so it would follow the old pattern.

State Farm in Calif told me they couldn't cover a house with a woodstove, so if I put one in, just don't tell 'em about it. I think they're probably safer than some of the newer gas wall heaters, tho... I had to put a fan on mine or the wall would almost smoke, it got so hot, and it was brand new pro-installed in 2001. Some of the problem is for a while you couldn't get 'blue flame' heaters, it was either FULL BLAST or OFF.

When I had one of those )$*%)&%@&#$)(&%@ pellet stoves, it ate about a bag per 24 hours unless it was really cold and then it would eat up to 2 bags per 24 hours.Funny thing, it still produced the same amount of heat, (negligable) at all settings, the only difference I noticed besides the higher use was more smoke.If you are looking for coarse sawdust, it could be difficult to find as most mills (the few that are left anyway) are using band saws now instead of circle saws, so the sawdust is finer as the kerf is narrower.My father still uses a circle saw on his mill, we get LOTS of sawdust, but we haven't run it for a while and the sawdust that is there is all started to compost as it is in a very wet spot.As to burning sawdust, you could use an auger just as the pellet stoves do, most I have found are designed basically as rocket stoves.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj7X9X8LTe0I would think you would need to store your sawdust in a grain silo type situation to keep it dry so it would burn, and you would need to make sure it was dry prior to putting it into the silo or you could get spontanious combustion.Probably easier to just use wood....

[Reziac]

Oh, I'm looking for the coarse sawdust to use in the kennel for mud control. Works great. Chips and shavings and fine sawdust hold water, which makes matters worse over time. Coarse sawdust wicks it up so it's drier overall, and it doesn't migrate like chips nor is it such a pain to clean up.

The only sane way to store fine sawdust is bagged, otherwise you spend all your time picking it out of your eyes and socks. Good use for those stiff plastic dog food bags. The coarse stuff, you can store loose. I can get fine sawdust from R-Y at Livingston, might have to resort to some mix of that with chips (also from R-Y. Townsend is closer but they weren't sure they had anything available. Hella long way to fetch someone else's trash either way.)

Who knows, I may come steal your sawdust.

That's why I wondered about how economical pellet stoves really were ... the one I've been close to ate half to a full bag a day, and it was a small one. Worked really well, put out a LOT of heat from a tiny fire, but didn't strike me as cheap. Well, cheaper than propane and a regular furnace, at $3.50/gallon or whatever it is now. Main thing it had going for it was that it needed no attention other than feed it once a day, which was nice for the disabled owner (no way could she haul or chop or carry firewood; mobility issues... she'da needed someone to live in and feed a regular woodstove. Pellets, she could pour in a coffee can at a time.)