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It's a wide open floor plan, tall sloping ceilings. It's easy for heat to move. The house has good insulation, from outside in it's thick lap siding, OSB sheathing, 2x6 framing, then 1" insulated sheathing, then vapor barrier, then drywall.
Our ceiling fan moves a lot of air. Our pellet burner in the basement is capable of keeping the upstairs at 60-65 even when the temps go below zero. Problem is you can't enjoy the family room without sweating your bum off.
I think this stove is going to be used only in really cold temps or if pellet prices go wonky. I've got all the free wood I'd ever want.
I must assume your pellet stove is putting out a lot of Btus.
No actual insulation in the 2X6 farming, and just 1" insulated sheathing.
Of course the 2x6 walls are insulated. Should've spelled that out I guess.
Insulated 2x6 walls, 1" insulated sheathing, vapor barrier, drywall. But yes- the M55 pellet stove has been faithfully pumping out heat for over a decade. It's rated at 55k BTU full tilt.
Are you talking an ''old school" stove or a "rated" one? When mine is up and burning well, there is no visible smoke from the chimney, and very little smoke smell outside. If you are talking about a rated stove, do you have a link?
Even rated stoves emit more 2.5 particles than are healthy for humans.
It is NOT about visible smoke but 2.5 micron particles. Urban areas are to dense for wood stoves.
Even what most folks consider small towns are to dense in population.
RURAL Areas are fine due to lower population density.
Interesting paper here that confirms my SWAG that at least of about 30 years ago, the vast majority of wood stoves were "conventional" which is to say they did not have any pollution control technology. Like about 90%.
I'm still quite satisfied with my old Waterford Erin stove, installed in 1991. Apparently it meets 1988 standards but not 1992.
I’d like to see the data that wood burning stoves are worse than autos.
I am assuming you mean one on one.
I can see that I guess but there are hidden chemicals from autos.
Not that it matters but our place in ca is on the side of a mountain in NorCal.
In Wa we are on a no exit road 20 minutes from town in a rural area.
Kinda odd that these stoves are being called out when we now more or less have a fire season on the west coast.
I'm glad I started this thread, you guys prompted me to look at the manual for the stove, and here on page 7 there is a note about the "pilot hole" at the front of the firebox, how it has to be kept clear. Well, I guess for the last 20 years I have been running my stove with that pilot hole plugged. Unplugged it yesterday and surprising how much better the stove burns, particularly when starting from cold.
Of course the emissions situation is much improved for both cars and wood stoves if you have a fairly modern one and operate it correctly. The gross polluters are old school cars in bad condition, needing a tune up, and conventional stoves when people try to choke the draft down too far for an "all night burn" and/or are burning wood that is not dry enough.
Which has exactly ZERO effect on causing house fires.
You could coat the entire lining of a stove pipe with creosote and light it all up. If you have not first violated building codes how does that heat escape the stove pipe to burn the house?
It doesn't.
Either someone put wood up against and in direct contact with the stovepipe / chimney, or else some idiot covered the roof with petroleum based asphalt shingles.
That's not exactly true.
With enough creosote buildup in a chimney, once it alights the fire can really grow quickly and the chimney becomes very hot.
Even a triple-wall chimney can heat up so much it can set alight any structural wood that's close to it. The metal doesn't melt, but it can and does glow red-hot because the creosote is so flammable.
The only way I know to stop such fires is to close off all the oxygen to them. Once they get going the fires start a strong indraft of air, which grows the fire. All the stove dampers have to be shut tight to starve the fire out.
I have been through 2 chimney fires in 2 different houses at different times. One started a fire in the attic I put out with a garden hose hooked to a nearby hot water tank.
That was in the middle of a winter blizzard. The fire was lit to warm the house while everyone was still working outside.
I don't know for sure, but I've always believed the strong wind caused a downdraft or something strange that made the creosote light up.
The hose I used was blocked with ice the hot water in the tank melted. By the time the water hit the fire, it was cooled. Eventually all the hot water was gone so the tank was feeding cold water to the fire.
I didn't realize the hose was full of ice. The hot water heater had the closest threaded tap on hand, so I just used it. If I had connected it to a cold-water faucet, I think the house would have burned down.
The second fire was shooting little chunks of flaming creosote out of the chimney, and I stood outside hosing the roof down until the fire finally died.
Both were triple-wall chimneys. Both were so warped after the fire was out they had to be replaced.
With enough creosote buildup in a chimney, once it alights the fire can really grow quickly and the chimney becomes very hot.
Even a triple-wall chimney can heat up so much it can set alight any structural wood that's close to it. The metal doesn't melt, but it can and does glow red-hot because the creosote is so flammable.
The only way I know to stop such fires is to close off all the oxygen to them. Once they get going the fires start a strong indraft of air, which grows the fire. All the stove dampers have to be shut tight to starve the fire out.
I have been through 2 chimney fires in 2 different houses at different times. One started a fire in the attic I put out with a garden hose hooked to a nearby hot water tank.
That was in the middle of a winter blizzard. The fire was lit to warm the house while everyone was still working outside.
I don't know for sure, but I've always believed the strong wind caused a downdraft or something strange that made the creosote light up.
The hose I used was blocked with ice the hot water in the tank melted. By the time the water hit the fire, it was cooled. Eventually all the hot water was gone so the tank was feeding cold water to the fire.
I didn't realize the hose was full of ice. The hot water heater had the closest threaded tap on hand, so I just used it. If I had connected it to a cold-water faucet, I think the house would have burned down.
The second fire was shooting little chunks of flaming creosote out of the chimney, and I stood outside hosing the roof down until the fire finally died.
Both were triple-wall chimneys. Both were so warped after the fire was out they had to be replaced.
Have you never watched any of the MythBuster episodes?
That is too bad.
If there is a fire, contained inside of a steel vessel [the stove pipe], how far are you suggesting that the fire can leap to somewhere outside of the stove pipe?
Unless you put something burnable up against the stovepipe [in violation of building codes] the fire can not leap to anywhere else in the universe.
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