wood stove placement

[greenthumb]

We are in need of a wood stove. we have about 13 ac of maple and oak with no place to burn the wood right now. so my wife and I (well I) want to add a wood burning stove. here are possible places. Keep in mind the house was built less then 10 years ago with no chimminy per say. 1st possible place is in the basement that we are going to begin finishing this spring. it is currently a unfinised walkout basement with about 800-1000 sq feet of room to create a family room / play room for the kids big and little. the walls are poured cement so I believe we could go through the cement with double or triple insulated stainless steel pipe and up outside (only drawback is that the house is two storys tall. so I would have to have at least 20 some feet of pipe.) Is this feasible? and the other thing is it good to have a long run exposed to air or could the pipe be enclosed. 2nd place is in our family room upstairs which seems like we would get more heat for the house because this room has a vaulted cealing and openings from the 2nd floor which overlook the room so warm air would flow upstairs and could heat the down and upstairs making heating bill of natural gas cheaper. in this room the previous owner has a 8 foot chimminy on the roof that I have not investigated but I imagine that a vaulted ceiling would be no problem to go up and out for pipe. my only concern in this room is that walls are drywall and the whole room has wood floors. and the chimminy if it would work is in the corner so my question is what can we do under the stove and on walls to protect. can you leave drywall if the stove is a certian distance away from wall. and what to do with the floor without making it look bad with part wood and part I believe stone or tile under the stove.

thanks

 

[PhilNH5]

Greenthumb,
Vermont castings (manufacturer of woodstoves) has a great free publication called The Fireside Advisor.
You can request it at their website http://www.vermontcastings.com/vcmp/index.html (have to cut and paste. Sorry)
It has all sorts of info on clearences, hearths and chimney pipe. Great reference. You can also try www.woodheat.org for lots of info.

As to placement - I run 2 woodstoves. One in the basement and one on the main floor which has vaulted ceilings up to the second floor. The mainfloor is cold w/o the woodstove running. Even if the basement stove is running. The basement stove is right under a set of spiral stairs so the heat can come right up into the main floor. But I still need the mainfloor stove lit if I want to be comfortable.
The winter has been mild this year so we only keep one stove running around the clock and it is the one on the main floor.
My house sounds similar to yours with the ceilings and the partial second floor. I have baseboard hot water for backup heat. There are none of the radiators on the second floor. all the heat from the woodstoves naturally rises and keeps the second story hot.
Phil

 

[looch]

Is the stove for looks as well as heat, or just for heat? For the latter, I would consider a wood furnace. My friend has one to heat his two story Victorian and it's great.

My father and I built a system for his house (and subsequently his cottage) that treats the wood stove as a furnace. We placed the stove in the basement and built a box around around it using cinder blocks - leaving about 3' feet of space all the way around and on top. We added stainless tubing going directly from the firebox to the outside for air supply. We placed a thermostat in the "air space" between the firebox and the cinder block enclosure. When the air in there hits 71 degrees, a fan kicks on and blows the air from the box through duct work thoughout the house.

 

[Youare]

I have heated my house totally with wood for the past 28 heating seasons. I have a stove in the basement, one in a "Mud Room" 3 feet lower than the rest of the single story house, and a small stove in a large family room.

If you are going to spend a fair amount of time in the finished off basement area, when it's done I would put a stove in there. The fact that you have a walk-out basement makes bringing in wood easier. Wood tends to be a little dirty no matter how careful you are, the shorter the trip to the stove from outside the cleaner the house.

The stove in the basement keeps my floors warm. The stove in the "Mud Room" and basement sit on concrete. The stove in the family room sits on a wood floor that has a hearth under the stove, you cna use brick or ceramic or whatever you want. The cellar is block walls so no problem with heat. The corner in the "Mud Room" in which the stove sits has been lined with field stone. This keeps the fire hazard down and provides a heat reseviour which radiates heat for hours after the stove has gone out.

The stove in the family room is in a sheetrock walled corner. I am going to line this wall with some stone. My folks did this in their house years ago. The stove in this room can over heat the space in a short time, the other stoves are not really in living areas so this is not as much of a issue.

I love the wood heat. It is a little work gathering up fire wood, but it gives me a reason to use the tractor.

Randy

 

[shade2u2]

"Simpson Dura-vent" makes these systems & they have alot of installation info @ www.duravent.com. I bought a complete Dura-vent system (stove to chimney cap) at Farm-N-Fleet (40% off /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif) for our new house that we are starting next month. Lowes sells a similar line called "Supervent" @
http://www.supervent.ca/html/welcome.html
Ours is going in the basement, but yours would probably work well in your family room. There is many options for floor protection platforms & wall sheeting protection.
"www.woodheat.org" has alot of very good info regarding woodburner & chimney location & use (as already suggested). This is a very good sight.

 

[beenthere]

Just installed a Vermont Castings Defiant wood stove, on ceramic tile floor over cementboard over wood (3/8" underlayment and 5/8" sheathing). Cathedral ceiling, with two fans at the peak. Heats VERY well, in a room with 720 sq ft and about 90 % glass on the N, E, and West sides.
Eight inch chimney going straight up. The pic attached will help.
Have hot water heat in the rest of the house (up and down) that is either gas and/or wood fired boiler. Wood is good.

 

[jyoutz]

Greenthumb, I have been heating with wood for about the past 20 years. A few comments. Install brick or stone under and around your stove. Drywall and studs are not safe unless you are far enough away that the wall doesn't get hot. I have my stove in the room where my intake air vent goes to my furnice. The air vent is on the ceiling. Forget ceiling fans and the like. Just turn your furnice setting to cool air fan (not AC). Then the air intake will remove the excessively hot air from the room with the stove and distribute air to every room in the house. I heat a tri-level house this way and my stove is on the mid-level. I just leave the fan on all night. Then when we leave the house in the morning to go to work, we switch the furnice back on for backup heat. The great thing about this setup is that if you already have a furnice and forced air fan, it's free. I don't know, but I suspect that this would work even if the air intake were not in the same room as the stove. The key factor is that the furnice fan keeps the air circulating around the house.

 

[greenthumb]

This looks very similar to house except the window on the right does not extend so far into the corner we have drywall about 3three feet to the right and about six feet to the left from the corner then a sliding glass door on the left and a large picture window on the right. I see the floor is tile how far out does it extend in front of the stove? and is the drywall behind the stove drywall or cement board? how much space from the stove to the corner?

thanks for all your help and everyone elses.

 

[markinMn]

Hello GT, We've been heating with a 1906 Round Oak cylinder stove for the last 11 years. Clearance in back is 16". Woodwork and sheetrock on left/back with no problems. Stove sits on patio blocks( about .99 cents apiece) Average btween 3-5 cords a year. Burn time (depends on wood) 6-8 hrs. Jungers oil burner (on right) we use if we have to leave for a couple days. Ins. agent more concerned with "Wolfgang and Jo-han" than our wood/oil set-up. Just found foot warmer(still rusty) need another for other side. Also looking for bonnet and finial............Wood heat warms the soul..................mark

 

[beenthere]

The tile is 18" in front of the stove (code), and the wall behind is drywall (not cement board) permissable by the code. The distance from the back of the stove to the corner is 46" (not a code requirement), with the distance from the corners of the stove to the wall being 28" (code requirement) for un-protected wall. One can get closer to the wall if there is a false wall in front of the regular wall (giving an air space to take the heat).
These distances can be found in the manual for the Vermont Castings stoves (may even be on their web site)