# inside woodburning stove



## gran (Jan 24, 2009)

I've been reading the post on outdoor woodburners but that seems too much work for a couple in their late 60's. Do any of you use indoor wood stoves? We used to use wood but the work involved got to be too much for me. One of my main concern is keeping the chimney clean to prevent fires. What brand stove do you have & how often do you clean the chimney/flu? I guess you can tell I'm trying to figure out how I could have good warm wood heat again. Thanks for any help!


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## RiverPines (Dec 12, 2006)

We have a plain old box stove in our living room.
No chimney. 
My mate took the stove pipe, double layered up toward the ceiling, and went straight up and through the ceiling, no bends. He also has the ceiling all altered with fireproof stuff and some fire proof box that the pipe goes through.
For ours, my mate just goes on the roof, takes off the cap and sticks the brush down there and adds the extensions as he goes. Cleans the whole thing down to the stove.
Then he takes out the stuff that fell into the stove.
He cleans the pipe once a month during the burning season.

We do have an heat exchanger 24 inches above the stove but he has that set up so he can remove it easily, just 4 screws have to be removed and he puts a straight piece in so he can take that brush all the way down to the stove from the roof.
The heat exchanger we have is easy to clean by hand with a wire brush.

Our stove we bought for 150 bucks at menards. 

Its worked great for us. Warms our place, sometimes to much.
We just dont burn at night and use electric radiators just in our bedrooms for sleeping. 
The mornings are cold. During our bad winter period where temps dont go above zero and go down to -20, our house never is colder than 48 when we wake up.
The only thing thats sucks is it takes several hours to warm up the place so we are wearing blankets and coats for the morning hours while we wait for that stove to get all the cold out.

Then, in the afternoon its 80 and we are opening a window!! LOL

The wood we get is free so considering we are saving thousands of dollars in not using propane...its worth cold mornings. Besides, we do get to warm all the way up come afternoon!

Our electric bill averages 200 in the coldest of the months for the bedroom heat. But thats only 3 months out of the whole year.


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## gran (Jan 24, 2009)

Thanks for reply. There are a lot of negatives for me like having to go on the roof and I do hate the mess the ashes make. Then there's the getting wood. I sound like I'm talking myself our of a wood heater don't I? Yet there is nothing as cozy as wood heat after the house gets warm. Stay warm!


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

Consider a pellet stove. More costly, but a lot easier to feed and nurture than a box stove.


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## Cash (Apr 24, 2007)

I second the pellet stove idea for folks who want to cut down the lugging and cleaning side of wood stoves. You might also look into a coal stove. My sister and her husband heated their old farmhouse with one for years. They filled it once in the morning and once at night.


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## PhilJohnson (Dec 24, 2006)

You could just pay some young guy to clean out your chimney.


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## Welshmom (Sep 7, 2008)

My old wood stove went out the wall at two 90 degree angles (up about three feet from the stove, out the wall, and then up the outside past the roof). There was a cleanout cap outside on the bottom of the 90 outside. So I could take that off and use the chimney brush, going up, while standing on the ground. Worked pretty well, and it was safe.

It was messy to heat with wood, and when it got really cold in January, I would get up once in the night to put another log on the fire so we wouldnt have to re-start the fire while getting up in the morning. But I do miss having a wood stove in my new home, and putting one in here is on my long list of things to do. That was a Dutchwest, I believe. It had a catalytic converter on it to reduce particulate emissions. Worked pretty good.


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

i run a quadrafire 3100 step top it runns thru a ul listed and approved double wall metalbestos stainless steel chimney that requires 2 inches clearence from conbustables mine runns 15 feet from the ceiling box in the livingroom ceiling out the roof strait up

i have not cleaned my chiney yet i am 1/2 way tru my first season intend to do it in the spring , when i called and asked about buying a brush from a chimney sweep they said they have been going to clean quadrafire chineys every 2 years as the burn so clean


i intend to clean mine from the bottom i have read about others on HT doing just that , you aleady take down the pipe from stove to ceiling and put a garbage bag to catch the soot the explination i got was tape and cut a hole just big enough to get your rod thu and feed it thru then tape the bag to the ring at the ceiling and work it up the chimney
adding sections of rod 

as for 60 year olds they are undeturminable by age alone my father inlaw is in his 65 and walks 4 mile a day and can do most anything he likes including running a 3 mile race 

my grand parents in their mid to late 70s drive the 60 year olds at church to thier doctors apointments and act much younger than most of them

on the other hand i have an uncle who is about 60 that is on oxigen 

it is really dependent was it a lifetime of good choices or bad only you will know 

my 75 year old grand father has a wood stove and hauls much of his own wood , my uncle helps some now as grandpa's chian saw is heavy and his shoulders are shot from 45 years of laying stone and brick he also cleans his own chimney,once a year weather it needs it or not, but i think my uncle may start doing that also.


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## Drew Cutter (Dec 30, 2008)

1. Do you have access to hard wood ? 
2. what does your insurance company say ?
3. What is the sq. foot of your house . = needed btu 

http://www.hitzer.com/


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## keyhole (Dec 2, 2008)

I have a small woodstove in the living room and it is worth it's weight in gold. I cut my own wood in the forest and split it at home with a gas powered splitter. 

As long as you burn hardwood you don't have to clean pipe every year. At least not here in Western Arkansas. I clean mine every 2 years and it has very little build up on the inside. But it is better to be safe than sorry I guess.

My electric bill has gone down to less than half of what I used to pay in the winter which is good for the pocket!!!


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## Madame (Jan 1, 2003)

Cash said:


> I second the pellet stove idea for folks who want to cut down the lugging and cleaning side of wood stoves. You might also look into a coal stove. My sister and her husband heated their old farmhouse with one for years. They filled it once in the morning and once at night.


Where do you buy the coal?


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## Rick (May 10, 2002)

Always error on the side of caution when burning wood inside your home. Always burn a hot fire, for 30 minutes when you light the fire. Always let your fire breathe a little unless it is roasting you out. Always burn dry, seasoned wood ... That being said....

I was hesitating to say this, but others mentioned not needing to clean every year, so I will add to it. We have burned wood in an old box stove constantly for 2 seasons- with a straight shot through the roof- stove pipe.

I take off the stove's top on a sunny day, and use a hand mirror to inspect the top of the pipe. It is always wide open, with no flakes. I will clean it this fall, mainly to inspect the caulking while I am up on the roof.

Like RiverPines said, these little box stoves will build up some mighty fine heat.


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## trapperJim (Jan 24, 2008)

We have 2 woodstoves in our house. One is a Scandia similar in design to the Vermont Castings stoves and an antique Crawford woodburning kitchen stove that we cook with daily. The Scandia has a masonary chimney and the Crawford has a metalbestos chimney. I am a very big fan of the metal bestos chimneys. The masonary one I clean twice a year and it needs it both times. The metalbestos has never needed any cleaning whatsoever. I have a metal bestos chimney in my furshed and that flu stays clean as well. In the shed I burn pine and all kinds of crap and burn it slow which is a no no. Every fall I remove the chmney cap and check it and the metal bestos pipes are always clean. I don't think I'll ever build a masonary chimney again.

Personally I could never live without a woodstove.


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## adamtheha (Mar 14, 2007)

We just moved out to our homestead, and the very first thing I installed was the woodstove. I estimate that it's saved me more than $1000 in propane and electricity in just a few months. It only takes me about 15-20 minutes per day to cut the day's worth, but usually I spend an hour or two and cut for a few days. I use old pallets, so the only cost is the gas to drive and pick them up from the city. As I'm typing this, I can feel the heat from the stove on my right, and I haven't added any wood for almost two hours. 
Since we're not on the grid, the stove saves us a lot of money through electricity too, because we charge our batteries with a generator. I plan on running the stove myself until well into my 70's, and then I'll just buy cut and split wood. Who knows, by then that might be the only heating option available!


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## motivated (Sep 6, 2004)

We have ours cleaned every summer. We burn 3-4 cords each winter of well seasoned oak that we cut ourselves. It is a lot of work and if it were not for my husband I doubt I could have it so good.


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## Stephen in SOKY (Jun 6, 2006)

Like Cash suggested, you may want to look into coal I'm making the switch before next year. Actually, I'll be using wood in the fall & spring for economic reasons and coal during the coldest of the season. Coal allows you to only tend the fire twice daily. Coal often comes neatly bagged (40 lbs) so it's easily handled & easily stored. It's a given that at some point I'll be unable to fell/buck/split enough wood for my needs. Coal alleviates those issues as well. BTW, I'm only using anthracite coal. If you wish to explore this option, check out: http://nepacrossroads.com/ for more info than you'll ever need. I've settled on Hitzer stoves as they easily accomodate both wood and coal: http://www.hitzer.com/index.html although there are many other options you may wish to explore. PM me with any questions you may have.


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## trapperJim (Jan 24, 2008)

In our next homestead we will be installing a kitchen Queen woodburning cookstove. We cook with an antique Crawford now and love it but it has some design flaws. The kitchen Queen has a larger firebox and a water coil in the firebox as well, so it serves as a heater, a cooker and a water heater all in one. I can't picture trying to homestead without a woodstove in the house.


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