Wood Heat Thread ~ post pics

Looking for experience from anyone with two wood burning stoves / fireplaces. Do you have issues with competing draft? Do you light one before the other or both at the same time?

My house is 2,900 square feet with one fireplace in the middle and a defunct pellet stove on one end. I'm currently able to keep the entire house comfortable with the one wood stove in the middle, but I feel like I have to run it very hot and supplement the built in blower with a box fan to get the air moving enough to heat the whole house on really cold or windy nights. I've got a line on a free antique parlor stove that I might use to replace the broken pellet stove, but I'm worried about competing drafts causing poor burns and smoke backdraft.

 

I have 2 woodstoves , 1 on the main floor , 1 in the basement , no issues

 

Do you pull air from the house space or do you have separate intakes for the stoves?

 

Same as Oz, I have a woodstove on both floors and never have any problems. They pull from the house air, too, but I want to rig an OAK for my cellar stove. It had the option from the factory, so it shouldn't take too much effort.

 

I'm in upstate NY,I'm not through a face cord yet.I love El Nino lol.

 

I'm not liking it. The temps here are still jumping from 20 degrees to 55 degrees. I let the fire go out downstairs and the temperature plummets and doesn't climb above 35 for a couple of days, so I relight the fire because the house is cold. Get everything warmed back up and the temps bounce back into the 50's and I come home to an 80 degree house. So I let the fire go out and we do it all over again
I'd much rather it just get cold and stay that way, lol.

 

25 here at 6am this morning. Typical Thanksgiving cold snap. I made a fire this morning, first time this season I've done that. Sun's out so I won't need much, but it will feel good later today when the sun's gone.

 

Recommendations on a wood stove insert for a fireplace?

 

How many square feet are you looking to heat?

 

1400, 2-story

Tired of burning through wood in the fireplace and watching all the heat go up the chimney.

 

What route do you want to go; a stove-in-the-hearth design, or an insert that is actually a built-in unit?

 

Open for ideas. Getting some resistance from the wife since she likes the open flame and ambiance. I just want wood heat other than running the heat pump.

 

That's fair on her part. But, there's plenty of inserts out there with big airwash windows that still give you plenty of ambiance.

My grandparents took a standard small woodstove and used an adapter in the fireplace flue for the stovepipe. But, they're only using it as a room heater. If you're looking to heat actual square footage I've heard great things about the Vermont Castings inserts. The Merrimack is rated for 2000 square feet max, so it'd heat 1400 pretty easily.
And if I'm not mistaken, you can leave the doors open for a standard fireplace-style burn, if your wife is dead-set on hearing the crackle and smelling the smoke. Then you can just button it up when she goes to bed, lol.

edit-Link
http://www.vermontcastings.com/Products/Merrimack-Non-Catalytic-Wood-Burning-Insert.aspx

 

I also think that Pacific Energy does a fireplace insert, and Oz raves about his PE stove.

 

Thanks, something to get my research rolling. Ball park price on these?

 

My Regency hearth stove has a huge glass window with an air wash system. With a couple pieces of clean, hot burning wood it puts out more light than the recessed lighting in my family room.

 

For those of you with two stoves, are they shared flue?

 

No

Seperate flues

 

For those of you with class fronts, Rutland glass cleaner https://www.rutland.com/p/50/stove-grill--hearth-glass-cleaner I have been using glass front stoves for 30 year or more and scrapped them with razor blades used
vinegar tried everything with varying results this stuff is amazing! Two minutes and it's clean no matter how thick the creosote.
is.

 

I think the VC's retail for around $2500 new. Obviously less if you find them used on Craigslist. Not sure on the PE's; there aren't any retailers around here that I'm aware of.