Not sure I understand the wood burning stove thing

11 years ago

I just looked at a house that had this big old honking wood burner with blowers in the family room.

My experience with these is that they absolutely overheat the room they are in. I love a cold bedroom and can see living with the furnace turned down way low and using a wood burner for the living areas - except it just gets too warm.

Staying in the room with the wood burner becomes unbearable even if you don't stoke it much.

This sort of crap house is on propane which is expensive so I assume the old man was using it to suppldment heat but it seems so hard to live with. I guess if you have it plugged into the ducting so that it heats the whole house there is a positive trade off.

Or you live way up north and don't have much insulation or good windows like hunting camp. Otherwise I just don' get the appeal.

Comment (1)

christopherh
11 years ago
Wood Heat 101.

I live in Vermont and use a woodstove as my main heat source. My home is 10 years old and is very well insulated. During the Vermont winter my home is an average 68-70 degrees. I have an oil burneer as a backup and my average heating bill is under $600 including buying the wood.

What you saw in the house you were looking at was probably an old "Smoke Dragon" built before the EPA regulated woodstoves. Tha best thing to happen to that stove is a scrap yard. Modern stoves are sized to fit the area being heated, and I have a small 55,000 BTU stove and it's in the living room. Woodstoves are a big case where bigger is NOT better. When damped down it has a nice fire in the window and many times that fire is more entertaining than what's on TV today! And again, the house is comfortable, not hot. And with the bedrooms at the other end of the huse, they stay very comfy during the night at about 55 degrees.

It's also great when we have a blizzard and the power is out for a few days. We stay nice and warm!

Go to some woodstove websites, and you'll be surprised at what you see. Regency-fire, Jotul, Lopi, Avalon, etc.