Wood Heat Thread ~ post pics

The hearth is 2" thick Pennsylvania Bluestone over a 4" thick concrete suspended slab that contains a return loop of a hydronic heated floor from an adjacent area , the wall veneer is 5" thick local sandstone , the mantel is 8" x 14" x 72" . The stone is facing over a masonary chimney and the painted walls to the left and right you can see are actually concrete with drywall over them so yeah , substantial thermal mass

 

Thermal mass for the win. My primary home heater has a huge lump of brickwork (8 feet on either side of the stove!) that takes forever to warm up but stays warm for hours after I let the fire go out.

 

Yeah , the stone is the same , when you walk by it in the morning you can actually feel the heat still radiating off of it even if the fire has been out for hours

 

Our cat likes to sleep on one of the brickwork 'wings' during the winter because it's always warm. We've put a bed up there for him because he refuses to sleep anywhere else if the stove is running.

 

Lol

Our old cat passed away a couple years ago but he lived in this house for his last 2 and he would sit with his face about 2" from the woodstove door glass until he couldn't stand it anymore and then lie down about a foot in front of the stove , I did the same as you and got him a little bed haha

 

Ours will probably be to that point in a few more years. He's 10 now, but I've noticed that they move closer & closer to the heat as they get older.

 

Yeah , ours was 18 , he didn't go to far from the woodstove in winter haha

 

We had an orange Tom when I was a kid who lived to 21 and during the winter all he wanted to do was sleep behind the woodstove. He'd move to eat and use the cat box, but other than that he was parked behind the stove 24/7.

 

Sounds familiar

 

What did you use for insulation in the wall behind that veneer? Do you have standard fiberglass batts, blown insulation, foam, etc?

 

Thats an interior wall so no insulation

The concrete wall is part of the structural design of the house , its basically a " U" shaped tower that goes from the basement footings up through the main floor and the second floor floor system is tied into it , it's about 17' tall and rings the masonary chimney

My exterior framed walls are 2x6 with R20 batt insulation and 1 1/2" of XPS styrofoam exterior insulation

 

It took my dad 2 years to get a shipment of oak. This 12 cord cost him just over $1800






Thankfully, we forced him to get & use a hydraulic splitter back when he was...58 or 59. He's 66 now and retired, but until then he (and I) had done it all buy hand with a 6 pound splittin' maul. He goes through about 3-4 cord a year, depending on the winter. The wood heats not only the house, but the water and the garages too

 

Ah, I see. I wish my chimney was internal. If I let the fire go out for more than a day the draft reverses and it's a bitch to get it flowing the right way again.

Nice!
I have mine delivered the same way, but it's usually a mix of Oak and Maple. Runs me around 800 for around 9-10 cord.

 

they've had a fungus issue in WI and MI and MN that made it illegal to transport for a bit, kinda like citrus canker is for oranges down south. made the price shoot up and make it scarce to find.

he doesn't heat with it directly any more though....about 12-13 years ago he took out the wood furnace that had been in place since we built the house (1977) and put in an external low-pressure boiler system. He heats water in a standalone shed, and the water is pumped to the the house in pipes underground and in the foundation. Those heat the basement and first floor concrete walls and that in turn heats the second floor and supplies hot water to shower and such with.

MUCH more efficient...I remember some of the screaming cold winters as a kid where the old stove heated the house and we could go through 5-6 cord in a single cold winter. That SUCKED to cut and split so much by hand!

 

My lower back does not envy the amount of work you have ahead of you, but the log splitter will help speed it up.

 

That sucks. Around here it's emerald ash borers and southern pine beetles that are causing the problems in our forests.

The outside wood boilers are pretty common around here as well. The problem is that too many people burn green wood in them and they're just huge inefficient smoke dragons. If you're putting properly seasoned wood through them they're awesome, though. But, for me they're a non-starter because of the price. I've already got a boiler system, but retrofitting it for wood would run me north of $5 grand. Plus, when it's snowing sideways it's kind of nice not having to go outside to feed the fire, haha!

I actually prefer splitting by hand. It takes a little longer but it's almost therapeutic. I do around 5 cord most years and it doesn't take too long to do.

 

Yea, we always properly season. this load will be cut and split and covered from rain but otherwise allowed to dry/cure outside for two full years before being used.

 

I made a conscious decision during the design of my house to have an internal masonary chimney

 

Thats a serious load of firewood

 

When I build I'll have an internal masonry stack too. I'm not a fan of the chimney on the outside of the house.