How to own a wood stove

[Zachary Hoyt]

I wanted small non-catalytic stoves, and the one in the house meets the newest EPA guidelines even without that system. The one in the shop is from 2014 if I recall correctly, so it's a slightly less clean-burning stove but still better than older ones. The catalyst system is great, but it's more expensive up front and more expensive to maintain/repair. We had a 2002 DutchWest catalytic stove at the farm, but it was in the house which we closed for the winter so it didn't get used to its full capacity, and anyway it's very outdated by now.

[Scott Winners]

The catalyst system is great, but it's more expensive up front and more expensive to maintain/repair.

While both of these items are true 1. more expensive stove and 2 more expensive to maintain; they do not tell the entire story. I can easily afford to buy a new combustor every two years or so - because I am buying less cordwood.

The cost savings for cordwood I am seeing at my house/ my install more than covers the replacement price of the catalytic combustors.

But wait there is more. Not only am I buying less cordwood, I am also stacking less cordwood. And seasoning less cordwood. And carrying less cordwood into the house, and fewer ashes out to the bucket. And I am taking less motrin.

I don't know where the break even point is as far as how many cords burnt how quickly in which catalytic stove for the $ saved on wood purchases to cover the $ price of the replacement combustors. I don't know how much other people are paying for cordwood either. Even with my catalytic stove, I am burning 6 cords per year, minimum. But I don't think I have burnt 10-11 or 12 cords in any winter since the catalytic stove went in. Last year was 7.5, maybe 8 cords.

I typically expect my combustors to last about 20 cords, about 8000 hours of active combustor time, but I am a bit of a wastrel compared to the lower 48 because I run my stove pretty hard. In the lower 48 ( I am fairly active on a wood stove forum), something like 12k hours of active time per combustor is fairly common.

I will say, in general, folks in the lower 48 who are burning ~4 cords per year and up are the ones who go looking for an internet forum to make sure they aren't wasting hard earned BTUs, and as a group most of them are net positive and planning to buy another catalytic stove 'someday' to replace the one they have now within 2 years of first purchase.

The elephant in the room, the real hurdle, is catalytic stoves just don't run right on wood fuel over 20% Moisture Content (wet basis). The eight dollar meter with the two pins and the 9 volt battery is just fine, but cordwood at 23% measured is no bueno. And there is a method - you got to measure in the middle. So first you bring a sample 'seasoned' split or three indoors, and let them thaw out for at least 48 hours (72 hours in Alaska). Then split them open, put the pins into the wood, parallel to the grain, on the freshly exposed face, about the middle of the length, and then measure. If a user is not doing ALL of those steps, their moisture reading is not accurate and inevitably the fuel is wetter than shown on the meter. My own stove runs best with fuel at 14%. I will take 13-16% and like it. 17-20%, my stove runs OK, but kinda like putting 87 octane gas into a corvette. 12% and under is also no bueno, that is simply too dry; wood too dry will off gas too fast and give up chunks of fly ash that will clog up the combustor face. But sub 13% MC is very difficult to achieve with cord wood stacked in open air.

[Stephen Tashiro]

I'm gearing up my little 400 sq ft shop to be heated with a small wood stove this winter

Typical tree service crews will offer to cut the results of their work into logs for you. However, I've never dealt with a crew that actually left me short logs. If you hope to use logs from tree work (without further processing by yourself) don't get a stove that is too narrow.

[Zachary Hoyt]

The new stove I bought last year was a Century FW2800, and since they are approved in the latest EPA regulations I think they are as efficient as at least some catalytic stoves. Between the two stoves last winter, in the house and in the shop, we burned about 9 face cords, or 3 standard cords, to provide all of the heat for both buildings. It was mostly beech and some maple.

[Mike Cutler]

Brad

I would highly recommend a pellet stove. Even the smallest wood stove is going to be to large for that space.
I heat my house with wood in the winter and have since the mid 80's. I go through~ 5 cords a year to heat the house.

If you have a standard 1 story garage you're looking at ~$1K, just for the chimney if you intend to do it correctly, and that's assuming you will be doing the work. The chimney has to clear the peak of the roof by at least 4'. In Connecticut it has to clear the peak of the highest house within 500'.
A wood stove occupies quite a bit of floor space, once all the clearances to combustibles are considered.
Pellet stoves are, for all purposes, a zero clearance device. The vent is a 3"-4" dryer vent and the thimble though the wall is probably about $150.00, versus $400.00 for the wood stove thimble assembly. The pellet stove vent is also only about 3' off the ground, and a minimum spacing from doors and windows.
For the cost to install a wood stove, or even a pellet stove, a gas fired, zero clearance wall unit, may be more cost effective. You can buy a lot of gas for the cost of the chimney, thimble, and stove.

[Tim Elett]

I found a used pellet stove, and heat the same square foot shop, i can heat it all day with less than a bag of pellets.

[Steve Demuth]

If I understand your plan correctly, your exhaust is going to be largely a horizontal pipe going through a wall to the outside. If so, you're likely to have a very difficult time maintaining enough draft to burn a good fire. Stove's draw air in by the "draft" caused by fire vapors moving rapidly upward in a vertical pipe. Your setup (again, assuming I understand it) isn't going to do that very well.

That said, I heat my own shop (300 ft²) on the Iowa/Minnesota border with a small stove like this one. You won't be able to easily maintain a fire with anything much smaller, unless you are feeding it constantly, and that little stove easily puts out 50,000 BTU/hr. Where you are, you'll have no problem, and if you do much woodworking at all, can feed it largely with offcuts and sawdust.

[Brian Elfert]

As already mentioned, insurance can be a big deal with wood stoves. My understanding here in Minnesota that properties classified as farms have a very difficult time getting insurance with a wood stove. I knew someone with a wood stove in a farmhouse over 20 years ago who removed the wood stove as nobody would insure the house with the wood stove. I don't think normal residential properties have that issue, yet. I guess too many farm properties with wood stoves had fires.

[Tim Elett]

Some insurance companies will allow a fire place in a manufactured home but not a wood stove, I believe a stove is safer if used properly, but a lot of work.

[Steve Demuth]

There are companies that will insure outbuildings and residences with wood burning appliances in them, including in Minnesota, but there are rules. My insurer (which does sell policies in Minnesota, though mine is in Iowa) requires that the appliance be UL (or equivalent) tested and listed, and of course that the installation of the appliance and its exhaust be code compliant.

To be honest, the OP's description of their plan doesn't sound like it would be code compliant, although since it's in Kentucky, I don't know the exact rules they'd have to comply with. In most installations, the hard part of compliance isn't the stove itself (although doing a compliant installation takes a lot of space), but the chimney. To be code compliant with a chimney, in every case I know of, you need to use insulated (double or triple wall), stainless steel chimney with a UL listed roof or wall penetration. That can easily bring the cost of the chimney greater than the cost of the stove.

I would add that in a wood shop, I personally would only use the wood stove when I am in the shop and plan to be there for the entirety of the active burn time - wood stoves move a lot of air, and they move dust with that air. I've seen some dangerous dust build up inside the roof penetration box of my own installation caused just by the draft induced by the hot stove pipe inside the box drawing air and dust through the poorly sealed box structure. Never had a fire as a result, but I do now regularly check the box at the start of the heating season.

[Rick Potter]

For years I heated a cabin with a simple old fashioned iron stove, with just a single wall stove pipe through the roof. It had a pretty large sheet metal setup through the roof, but nothing like what is required today. Someone broke in and stole it 40 years ago, and we never replaced it, because electricity came to the valley shortly after.

I am writing this just in case you are thinking of something simple like mine. Just wanted to say that if you do not have a way for incoming air, a stove like mine will kill you with Carbon Monoxide. I always had a bedroom window open when using the stove. As a fireman for a long time, I have seen several people die from this. A few years back it was common to read about a family dying from using a Hibachi with charcoal to heat.

[Warren Lake]

so how does that work, my woodstove is near my work bench and pretty close to the furnace. I have a CO detector beside the two of them on the ceiling The type I wanted has has a digital readout.

Twice over the years I felt a heavyness in my chest and walked over to the meter and ie was over 20. If I remember correctly its set to go off at 30 but my body detected it first. Both those times were very odd times temperature inversion type days. My air intake is on the bottom of the stove from the room but there are so many leaks in this old place that way too much outside air comes in. Ive mostly left it that way on purpose. This is an old Waterford Trinity and its more than done its time. May skip wood this year. Lots of trees have come down sadly including three maples on my neighbours that were six feet or more at the base. Friends old blaze king largest one 20 years ago threw so much heat it was a wall of heat when you opened the front door.