Almost made it

[Rburg44]

First year (winter) in new house had no idea how much wood i would need or how well the wood stove in house was as it looks to have never been used when we bought the place so i split and stack approx 7 cords of wood last year varied between mainly oak with a lil walnut cherry poplar and maple mix in well kept house at a steady 72 only got below 60 twice when i forgot to load up before bedtime and made it to april 1st and i was out! Kinda disappointing and it killed me when i hear the oil heat kick on for the first time!! Now hear where i live it was the 14th coldest winter on record so i dont imagine it will get much colder then last plan is to have 10 cords this year ready to go also i think i need to put a damper on the stove pipe but i dont know if i can with my wood stove any help in that matter would be great thanks!!

 

[Ronaldo]

You should be able to put a pipe damper on. Why are you thinking you need one?
It is usually better to control the incoming(combustion)air than choke the exhaust.
That looks like a good heater!!!!

 

[Rburg44]

It puts off great heat! And i have one door vent closed and the other only open bout 1/8"-1/4" any less is smothers the fire out and im gettin like 4-4.5hr tops burn time tryin to figure out if i can get atleast 6hrs out of it doesnt matter how much i pack that thing or not!

 

[zogger]

That's the nature of smoke dragons, they suck the wood down. Not sure, but that looks old, good shape but old, no baffles inside of it?

 

[Rburg44]

Yea its in great shape neighbors told me the older couple that lived there Didnt use it bc his wife didnt like the smell of smoke and the dry air it had one baffle in it so its not just straight out the back of the stove with no restrictions

 

[philoshop]

If you're able to shut it down/off with the intake, I don't think a flue damper would help you much. JMO
Is it lined with fire brick? Extra mass won't do a lot for burn time, but it'll do wonders for the heat time.

 

[Dalmatian90]

i split and stack approx 7 cords of wood last year

For the love of all that is holy, please tell me those were "face cords" and not seven true 4' x 4' x 8' cords...and I blow through an obscene amount of wood for my poorly insulated house with a very low efficiency stove @ 4 cords per winter (its still cheaper any given year to buy more wood than a better stove, and dramatically cheaper when felling my own trees, when cash is tight). I don't want to think of trying to keep a woodstove consuming 7 cords fed -- that's quantities folks with outside wood burners more typically go through, but they don't have to split their wood as small or load up as often.

 

[Rburg44]

Yes lined with fire brick an yea it was 7 full cords i measure what i had stacked an put it into one of them cord calculators so im assuming that correct i have a 4x4 face rack in the house an that only last 4 maybe 5 days of burning if i stack it higher then the rack

 

[CTYank]

That stove looks like a "Warm Morning" dragon from the seventies. Enormous technological improvements in woodstoves have been made since then. Such as: emissions, efficiency, controllability, safety, aesthetics. For example, check out Woodstock's latest (Lebanon NH).

After the learning curve, you'll probably use 1/3 the wood. I like exercise processing wood, but not masochism feeding a monster. Sell the wood you don't burn. That'll put a smile on your face. Maybe pay for a new saw or two real quick.

 

[Rudedog]

Yes lined with fire brick an yea it was 7 full cords i measure what i had stacked an put it into one of them cord calculators so im assuming that correct i have a 4x4 face rack in the house an that only last 4 maybe 5 days of burning if i stack it higher then the rack

Wow. I'm in Western Frederick County and I only burned 4.5 cords. But I have Jotul and it is somewhat miserly with wood. I did burn 70 gallons of fuel oil though.