Good wood stove ? basment or living room

[staywarm53]

Any recomendations? I have a big furnance in the basement, it's half fuel oil, half woodburner, forced air.blower. Any wood burnt goes thru ductwork.
The trouble is, it can't be efficient. I have 2 story 2500 sq ft house, cold basement. It seems like we put wood on every 3 hours, 3 or 4 logs. I think i used 4 or 5 cords last year and 1200$ fuel oil.. Help ! !
I saw a quadra fire stove in a topic, at their web site they said it would overnite burn 12 hrs. Do people really get 8 or 10 hrs? I was wondering if it would be better to put one in basement with a big vent to living room. Probably better to put in living room I guess. The heat would flow into kitchen and upstairs easily.
What would it cost to have furnace guy put hole on chimmney for vent? I don't want house to burn down
any suggestions?

 

[staywarm53]

face cords

I burnt 4 or 5 face cords about 18 in . splitter only does 19 inches.

 

[tawilson]

If you have a way to vent it, I would put the stove in the basement. I'm not sure if tying into your existing chimney is ok. That'll warm up your first floor floors, be kinda like infloor heating. If you need to get more heat upstairs, use your furnace in summer mode to pull from the basement, as long as it doesn't screw up the draft to your stove. I don't own either, but from knowing lots of people who have, I would think a new efficient woodstove will use much less wood than your wood burning furnace does. Course, 4 or 5 facecord doesn't sound like a lot to me.

 

[MS-310]

Dont want to be a jack a$$, I would look into a outdoor wood stove. Very good investment and wont have to worrie about the mess and the smoke in the house... my 2 cents
jack

 

[staywarm53]

cuss cuss cuss ! !

If you have a way to vent it

i just realized that the chimney in the wall in the living room is not the one the furnace is using. I don't even see a way to clean it out. pffffttttt ! i had planned on using the furnace blower to send a little extra heat upstairs. There is also a 10inch square vent in the floor between the living room and the upstairs bedroom. I have it closed with foam but that could be changed.

 

[staywarm53]

Dont want to be a jack a$$, I would look into a outdoor wood stove. Very good investment and wont have to worrie about the mess and the smoke in the house... my 2 cents
jack

Isn't that expensive as compared to a living room stove?

 

[Pcoz88]

We have a wood stove down in the basement.It heats our entire log home of 2000 SF.Its a woodstock soap stone stove.:yoyo:

Pete

 

[MS-310]

Isn't that expensive as compared to a living room stove?

Yes they are more money but it outweights it self with the safety of an out door one.. Im just saying I did burn with an add on down stairs I hated it worrie about fire the mess the ants im sure you could be very smart with one and have no problems but I love my outdoor ones and every one I talk to love theres.
Jack

 

[tawilson]

Wait, what happened to the basement idea?

 

[hautions11]

Basement

My wood furnace is in the basement and there is nothing nicer then walking down to the kitchen about 5:30 on a January morning and the floor being warm. The furnace usually needs wood at that point, but the coffe is started and throwing a few logs on is pretty nice. By the time I leave for work, it is roaring and I can stock it up for the rest of the day. The mess is downstairs, there is a walk out door down there for ashes and bringing in wood. I like the basement idea. A lot of old houses were gravity feed with no blower whatsoever. Convection is an amazing thing.

 

[staywarm53]

Burn times

Do people really get 8 or 10 hrs?

What kind of burn times are you getting ?

 

[hautions11]

Burn times

I'll get 10-12 if it is 25 or above. Down to 10 degrees it is probably 6-7. That is a ducted furnace heating the whole house. The thermostat controlles the blower in to the fire box. Fan is controlled by a TC in the plenum. It is not terribly efficient, but with a 30 X 16 X 24 firebox it does not matter so much.

 

[staywarm53]

I'll get 10-12 if it is 25 or above. Down to 10 degrees it is probably 6-7. That is a ducted furnace heating the whole house. The thermostat controlles the blower in to the fire box. Fan is controlled by a TC in the plenum. It is not terribly efficient, but with a 30 X 16 X 24 firebox it does not matter so much.

hautions, what brand furnace do you have?

 

[hautions11]

furnace

The furnace brand is Royal. It is pretty old and I don't think it is terribly efficient. Decent size and it heats the house nicely. If I didn't get wood for free, I'm not sure it would pay off compared to the natural gas. It works for me.

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e165/Hautions11/WoodFurnace.jpg

 

[RaisedByWolves]

I have a Quadrafire 5100I

And I love it!


Its located in our basement soon to be bar/recroom. Our stove will heat the entire downstairs and also do 60% of our upstairs. We only use natarual convection and will be installing floor regesters in a few rooms to try and ger out % up to 80% or so.


We have had the basement up to 78*(1800 sqft uninsulated) and the main floor stays around 64*-68* regardless(heat set at 62*). Im sure with the proper return air going back downstairs we can even out the temps and be more comfortable and efficient.

Heres a pic of our Quad....

Well, it looks much better when its cleaned up and theres a fire going, still looks good though.

The cool thing about the Quadrafire stoves is that they have 4 combustion zones. This lets the stove burn all of the cumbustion gasses so completely that when its burning properly, theres no smoke visible coming from the chimney.


Makes for really cool looking flames inside the stove also.

 

[staywarm53]

I'm thinking wood is the only way to go. I ran out of wood last winter because the woodsplitter wouldnt split the 2 cords I had left, so i paid a fortune in fuel oil. I would have been better off buying wood already split than buying fuel oil.
I plan on doing 80% wood this winter.Someone told be of a place that has a BIG truck load of logs for sale, i just have to see how big it is.

 

[rmihalek]

If its a tri-axle log truck, and the wood is straight and stacked tightly in the truck, you'll get around 8 cords (a cord being 128 cubic feet, 4x4x8 foot stack). If it's a loose stack with twisted tree tops, maybe you'll only get 5 or 6 cords.

Not to be harsh, but if the log splitter is broken and you have wood to split, "fire up" the maul! I split most of the 5-6 cords I burn each year by hand and save the crotches and nasty stuff for the log splitter. I hate buying oil!

We have our stove in the basement and it heats our 2000SF house pretty well. Sometimes the basement will be 85-90 degrees, so unless you want your living room to be that hot, I'd recommend a basement wood stove and let the convection heat the upper floors. When it's 85 in the basement, it's around 75 on the first floor and 65 on the second floor. We have supplementary 220V electric baseboard heaters on the second floor for those cold nights.

 

[monk680]

And I love it!

The cool thing about the Quadrafire stoves is that they have 4 combustion zones. This lets the stove burn all of the cumbustion gasses so completely that when its burning properly, theres no smoke visible coming from tey.

How long are your burn times. With that beauty.

 

[staywarm53]

If its a tri-axle log truck, and the wood is straight and stacked tightly in the truck, you'll get around 8 cords (a cord being 128 cubic feet, 4x4x8 foot stack). If it's a loose stack with twisted tree tops, maybe you'll only get 5 or 6 cords.

Not to be harsh, but if the log splitter is broken and you have wood to split, "fire up" the maul!

If it has at least 7 cords , I will take it. I fixed the spliitter last week, the relief valve was set at 1300, I raised it to 1900.

 

[rmihalek]

Try to find some land clearing companies in your area that'll deliver log-length wood to your house. I had a lot of trouble finding someone willing to do this for me out here in Massachusetts, and by the time I did, I had scrounged up enough wood for the next two years, so I don't need it now!