wood stoves, other alternate sources of heat, and your insurance

   / wood stoves, other alternate sources of heat, and your insurance #1  

lostcause

Platinum Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2010
Messages
981
Location
Maine
i'm curious - how many of you have a wood stove, or other heating appliance in the garage? along with a #2 oil burning furnace, i have two wood burning appliances in my house - living room fireplace insert and basement wood stove, but in my garage i burn k1 in a direct vent heater.

i recently had a knock-down-drag-out with my homeowners insurance company. a few months ago they did an on-site inspection, and i recently got a nice letter from them telling me that they did not allow wood burning appliances in garages where vehicles could be stored, and i needed to disconnect the wood stove or my policy would be cancelled. i promptly contacted them and told them that there had never been and never would be a wood stove in my garage, and i was told it was all taken care of. about three weeks later i got the cancellation notice because of my refusal to remove the wood stove, and also my failure to disclose something about the oil furnace in my house. this was a new one - they had never commented about it until then. apparently they thought i was sharing a flue with the stove(s) and the furnace.

five years ago when i moved in, they got the low-down on the oil furnace as it was the only source of heat - it is power vented through the side of the concrete foundation. the following year i installed one wood stove and filled out a questionnaire. the following year i filled out another questionnaire for the fireplace insert - both wood burners are in their own flues with nothing else in the flue. the next year i filled out a questionnaire on the direct vent k1 heater i installed in the garage. the following year i had to fill out more wood stove questionnaires because they had lost the record of them. this year i get the inspection, the nasty-gram, and finally the cancellation.

the kicker is that it's all because of inept employees and poor record keeping on their part. they had all the information, misplaced it, asked for more, and were somehow unable to file and interpret it. then when they did the inspection they sent someone who was good at taking pictures, but then had no idea what the pictures were. he had clear pictures of the house, with a two flue chimney and a power vent through the foundation wall. he also had pictures of the garage, with no chimney, but with an intake/exhaust pipe from a direct vent heater, along with fill and vent pipes labeled "k1 only". even armed with all of this information he was able to decide that the garage had a wood stove but no chimney to vent it - i guess i just let it smoke the place up and open the windows to vent? he also decided that the furnace was exhausted into the chimney even though he had pictures of the power vent. he did not want to see anything on the inside of the house but would rather make assumptions - wrongly.

sorry to digress and vent all of that... but anyways, how do all of you do it? are there that many companies out there that don't care about stuff like that? even my k1 heater had to be installed at a height off the floor of the garage because it was where vehicles could be stored. i wrote this after seeing a thread about installing a waste oil drip into a wood stove. with the grief i got just for a wood stove that never even existed i can only imagine a home brew oil burner attached to it. i'd have a little more understanding if my insurance company was headquartered in a large city, but it's actually headquartered in the same rural state as me, in an even more rural part.

by the way, i chose the safety forum because the primary reason for their concern in a garage is gasoline fumes igniting. just figured i'd see what the safety conscious people here thought about the whole subject.
 
   / wood stoves, other alternate sources of heat, and your insurance #2  
You have a bad insurance agent is my opinion. A local agent gathers information, then shops various insurance underwriters for a policy that fits your situation. The underwriters are the ones actually doing the insuring and the local agent is responsible for dealing with the underwriter usually.

If your various heating appliances all have their own flue and are properly installed with correct clearances, etc., you should be able to find an agent to work with. Since you don't actually have a wood stove in your garage, that issue is meaningless to you, but I doubt you would find many underwriters willing to insure that if known.
 
   / wood stoves, other alternate sources of heat, and your insurance #3  
You have a bad insurance agent is my opinion. A local agent gathers information, then shops various insurance underwriters for a policy that fits your situation. The underwriters are the ones actually doing the insuring and the local agent is responsible for dealing with the underwriter usually.

If your various heating appliances all have their own flue and are properly installed with correct clearances, etc., you should be able to find an agent to work with. Since you don't actually have a wood stove in your garage, that issue is meaningless to you, but I doubt you would find many underwriters willing to insure that if known.

I tend to agree. I spend a great deal of money on insurance every year. Our car insurance carrier called us and asked us to buy our homeowners insurance from them. When they found out we owned a certain breed of dog they said that they couldn't insure our home. I don't have to put up with that. And why should I?
 
   / wood stoves, other alternate sources of heat, and your insurance #4  
I tend to agree. I spend a great deal of money on insurance every year. Our car insurance carrier called us and asked us to buy our homeowners insurance from them. When they found out we owned a certain breed of dog they said that they couldn't insure our home. I don't have to put up with that. And why should I?

Yeah, insurance is getting out of control. The prices go up and they are getting picky about stuff. I think the losses from storms and such are cutting into their profit margins. I wish they would stop spending so much on advertising, we are paying for it. For my area, it seems like the smaller, regional underwriters are able to offer better rates. I'm pretty sure Allstate and the other national companies are spreading their high claim losses from storms and wildfires around to everybody.
 
   / wood stoves, other alternate sources of heat, and your insurance #5  
I can still shop for insurance. If an insurance company dictates to me what I can or can not do in my own home I will be looking for another insurance company. I will not pay someone a large amount of money to tell me what I can or can not do. That is just plain wrong. And I will pay what ever the extra cost to have this privilege.
 
   / wood stoves, other alternate sources of heat, and your insurance #6  
I have an oil furnace, with the pipe going thru the basement window(no forced vent). A chimney in the house that my coal/wood furnace is hooked into. Had a woodburner in the garage, until I replaced the roof and took the old chimney out. My insurance company said it was fine.
 
   / wood stoves, other alternate sources of heat, and your insurance #7  
When I was putting a woodstove in my barn, I shopped around for an insurance carrier that would insure the barn with the stove in it. A lot of carriers did not want to talk to me after I mentioned pole barn and wood stove. I don't think it is the wood stove that is the problem, it's really the chimney... which some folks put in and forget to check/clean. Every year the paper is full of pictures of burnt down houses and barns. The bottom of the stove should be at least 18" from the floor for gas fumes. Mine is actually higher, I raised it up again last year when I redid my chimney. Makes it a lot easier to tend the fire as you get older.... :)
 
   / wood stoves, other alternate sources of heat, and your insurance #8  
When I purchased my place about a year and a half ago. My insurance company (that I have had for over 40 years) would not insure the place because of the condition of one of the out buildings. I found a local company that just excluded that building in the policy. I also changed my auto policies to them.

I have a wood furnace in a room attached to my garage (but not in the garage). He came out, measured clearances and took some pictures. I did have to get some tin on the ceiling that the previous owner had taken down for some reason. Once I got the tin back up I was ready to go.

I do pay a $50.00 a year extra on my homeowners to burn wood. I burn 24/7 in the winter so that cost is quickly recaptured. :)
 
   / wood stoves, other alternate sources of heat, and your insurance #9  
I agree that you need to deal with a GOOD independent agent. A good agent will go to bat for you with a carrier. I think it's good that you found out how inept your insurance company is now rather than after you had a claim. Find a new agent, and a new carrier and don't look back!
 
   / wood stoves, other alternate sources of heat, and your insurance #10  
Yep you need to shop around, I went through a similar thing when I first moved into my place. The mortage company wanted some repairs which resulted in multicolored siding (till i painted) but this and a number of other items raised the hysterics of the policy writers. One company wanted a 6 foot fence around the pond installed, another some how counted 15 structures on the property to insure. After several rounds of different companies I managed to keep one until now. But the rates are rising so I may start looking again. Of course multiple cancellations raises problems with all the others
 
 
Top