Barndominium/Shop or "real" House?

[WinterDeere]

I'll get with a reputable wood stove company to advise on stove size, type and install. I'm leaning towards a non-catalytic like an Osburn 3500 or similar.

You'd do well to join up at hearth.com, the tractorbynet of the wood stove world.

I heat my house with two wood stoves, and like most who do this full time, made the transition from non-cat to catalytic, many years ago. Non-cats can work fine, if you're only running them when heat demand is high, or size them well below your maximum need such that you never need to run them on very low burn rates. But catalytic stoves have a much wider range of burn rate, for those of us really using them as primary heat.

Put otherwise, non-cats have a burn rate range of maybe 3:1, whereas cat stoves have a burn rate range of maybe 7:1. The trade-off for the wider range of performance is extra maintenance of a catlyic combustor.

 

[ETD66SS]

"- Speaking of bringing in the groceries, I would not make my retirement home a place where I had to climb stairs. While I'm currently fit and able, a 1st story master, kitchen, bathroom, living room, are all necessities."
I agree with all these guys, I'm 76 now still perky and able but I see the handwritng on the wall. Avoid stairs. I would think about an almost "tiny house" (maybe double) and your large shop/garage. Good idea preparing early....

My father died a few years ago at 89, he pretty much used the staris up until the end.

My mother is currently 89 and still carries laundry up and down two sets of stairs.

I have about 40 years before I need to worry about the starirs. If something happens before then, I'll figure it out.

 

[ETD66SS]

Working on the last bit of framing before I can get to the upper level radiant pex installation.

I am surprised by the open web floor joists, they are not very precise. They are twisted up more than I expected, takes some prying to get them vertical.

They also have about a 1/2" arch to them. I suspect that will decrease when the subfloor is attached.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

I also used open joists on my 2nd floor. I wonder if the I-Joists would be any better from a performance standpoint after the house is completed.

 

[EddieWalker]

Looking at the side view of your concrete, I have to say that I'm impressed. That looks fantastic!!!

I've never seen trusses that didn't have metal plates on them. These must be some new technology with the finger joints and glue. I really like this style of floor truss for running everything through them.

 

[ETD66SS]

Finished framing the sub-floor. Just a few more walls to go then I can move on to something that is not framing...

 

[Duds13]

Coming along nicely! I remember a few pages back you asked about kitchen countertops. What did you decide on?

I'll vote for a catalytic woodstove too. Switched to a Blaze King 3-4 years ago and the ability to turn them way down but also run hot when needed is an excellent feature.

 

[ning]

Coming along nicely! I remember a few pages back you asked about kitchen countertops. What did you decide on?

I'll vote for a catalytic woodstove too. Switched to a Blaze King 3-4 years ago and the ability to turn them way down but also run hot when needed is an excellent feature.

Our catalyst-equipped stove really cooks, but everything I've read says you basically have to keep it hot enough for catalytic action or the catalyst will get clogged up.

Given how hot it runs though I opt for a middle ground and just make sure it gets cooked fairly often and hope it runs like my tractor's DPF that I can just "burn off" occasionally...

 

[WinterDeere]

Our catalyst-equipped stove really cooks, but everything I've read says you basically have to keep it hot enough for catalytic action or the catalyst will get clogged up.

I know a lot more about catalytic stoves than I do tractors, so we could go into quite a rabbit hole, here. Basically no, you do not have to keep the stove above catalytic reburn temperature, you only need to ensure enough fuel (wood gas) is being fed into the catalytic combustor to keep that above reburn temperature, usually right around 500F. It's common for me to run my stoves down around 250F stove top and chimney, but the combustor inside is still cruising at 500F.

Basic principle of operation is to get the whole stove up to 500F while running with catalyst bypassed, to get the fire going well and the catalytic combustor (aka "cat") pre-heated to near "light-off" temperature. Then you close bypass damper to force exhaust through the cat, which thanks to some special heavy-metals coatings will "light off", burning any of the volatile wood gas products remaining in the exhaust.

After you achieve light off, you can lower the burn rate of the stove way down to the threshold of just providing enough combustion byproducts to the cat to keep it active. Many of the better catalytic stoves can turn down so far that they appear to be not burning at all, like a picture box with barely-smouldering or even apparently un-lit wood sitting in it. How far you can actually turn down is very dependent on how dry the wood is, as less-dry wood can tend to burn out when you try to smoulder it very low, and evaporation of any water remaining in the wood is a cooling process that can lower combustor temperature below 500F.

The real advantage of the cat stoves is that the best ones can achieve better than 10 hours burn time per cubic foot of firebox, whereas non-cats are generally limited to 4 hours or less per cubic foot of firebox. The trade-off is that you're not exactly getting huge BTU's/hour at those very low burn rates, but often that's what you want to avoid overheating the house.

 

[WinterDeere]

I should add, if anyone here is looking for a catalytic stove, you’d do well to limit your search to Blaze King (BK) and Woodstock. Many other companies engineered catalytic stoves 35 years ago, and some continue to produce them, but most are finicky and more trouble than they need to be… hence the bad reputation catalytic technology developed 25-30 years ago.

BK and Woodstock are really the only two companies that have not only continued to develop and refine this technology, but also have top-notch customer support and warranties. They’re not the cheapest out there, by a long shot, but there are very good reasons for this.

I’d go so far as to say I’d not even buy a catalytic stove, if it were not one of these two brands… and I’m a guy who cycled through a clean half-dozen wood stoves in my first 5 years in the present house. I put 6 - 10 full cords thru my stoves every year now, which is less than what I used to burn, but still double or triple what most “full time” burners do per year, due to owning a large and older home.

 

[Duds13]

I should add, if anyone here is looking for a catalytic stove, you’d do well to limit your search to Blaze King (BK) and Woodstock. Many other companies engineered catalytic stoves 35 years ago, and some continue to produce them, but most are finicky and more trouble than they need to be… hence the bad reputation catalytic technology developed 25-30 years ago.

BK and Woodstock are really the only two companies that have not only continued to develop and refine this technology, but also have top-notch customer support and warranties. They’re not the cheapest out there, by a long shot, but there are very good reasons for this.

I’d go so far as to say I’d not even buy a catalytic stove, if it were not one of these two brands… and I’m a guy who cycled through a clean half-dozen wood stoves in my first 5 years in the present house. I put 6 - 10 full cords thru my stoves every year now, which is less than what I used to burn, but still double or triple what most “full time” burners do per year, due to owning a large and older home.

I dont know anything about Woodstock stove other than reading comments and it seems they are highly respected and often get recommended. I can speak to Blaze King and agree 100% with WinterDeere. I believe we both have the same stove, the Ashford 30.2. It's been an excellent purchase. Dry wood (,20% moisture) is imperative though!

 

[WinterDeere]

I dont know anything about Woodstock stove other than reading comments and it seems they are highly respected and often get recommended. I can speak to Blaze King and agree 100% with WinterDeere. I believe we both have the same stove, the Ashford 30.2. It's been an excellent purchase. Dry wood (,20% moisture) is imperative though!

Same stove, but mine are the older 30.1 variant. In fact, they're transitional stoves, built as they were re-tooling from the original 30.0 design to the 30.1 update, each has a few lingering features from the older 30.0 design (like numbers dial vs. swoosh).

I've been running them since 2015, which means I have more than 100 full cords through the pair now, at our usage rage. I'm on my third cat in each, not that I'm sure replacements were even that necessary, and still running all of the original door and bypass gaskets. They're as close to "zero maintenance" as any stove I have ever owned, despite what inexperienced non-cat owners would like to try to claim about cat stoves.

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

Same stove, but mine are the older 30.1 variant. In fact, they're transitional stoves, built as they were re-tooling from the original 30.0 design to the 30.1 update, each has a few lingering features from the older 30.0 design (like numbers dial vs. swoosh).

I've been running them since 2015, which means I have more than 100 full cords through the pair now, at our usage rage. I'm on my third cat in each, not that I'm sure replacements were even that necessary, and still running all of the original door and bypass gaskets. They're as close to "zero maintenance" as any stove I have ever owned, despite what inexperienced non-cat owners would like to try to claim about cat stoves.

The cats on Blaze King stoves can last for decades if you run them correctly. The secret is to stoke it, get it burning, and then shut it up, until that load burns completely. One of the guys who worked for me bought a Blaze King and installed it at the same time his father and sister bought the same stoves. He loads it with as much wood as it can hold, lights it off and closes the door. They would load it half way, then open the door frequently to load more wood. He had to change out the catalysts in theirs every other year at the most. His was still going strong fifteen years later.

 

[WinterDeere]

The cats on Blaze King stoves can last for decades if you run them correctly. The secret is to stoke it, get it burning, and then shut it up, until that load burns completely.

True. But cat life is highly dependent on what and how you're burning, too. They're usually rated around 10k - 12k hours, but burning low on softwoods can shorten that, or at least really highlight any diminished performance. My higher burn rates on hardwoods can either extend that or at least mask diminishing performance, as increased burn rates consume more of the wood gas volatiles in the firebox.

I'm actually one of the beta testers for BK, which is why I've been thru three combustors on each stove. When they came out with their latest experimental catalyst technology, I'm one of the 3 - 5 people in North America that they sent it to for testing. They said they like to use me as a test case, because I have two of the same stove on different chimneys, and because I'm runnnig two at a time in a house with high heat demand, I probably have more hours or cords of experience than anyone else they know on this particular model (BK 30.1).

 

[ETD66SS]

Just about done with the interior framing. Hopefully getting it inspected this week.

It has been a real slog doing 100% of it by myself.

Rough electrical should be done this week.

 

[gsganzer]

Just curious. Why is there so much blocking between the studs?

 

[ETD66SS]

Just curious. Why is there so much blocking between the studs?

There will be steel siding on the inside walls, so those are for the screws. The pattern will match the bookshelf framing on all the other shop walls.

 

[Carl_NH]

I've been following the build since the early plans, and thought the living area was all above the 3 garage bays? It seems you have an additional section right of the stairs and above that I don't recall seeing in the original plans.

Do you have a new layout you can share showing the living and shop areas?

It's looking real good, the framing looks tight and straight - nice work.

 

[ETD66SS]

I've been following the build since the early plans, and thought the living area was all above the 3 garage bays? It seems you have an additional section right of the stairs and above that I don't recall seeing in the original plans.

Do you have a new layout you can share showing the living and shop areas?

It's looking real good, the framing looks tight and straight - nice work.

In that area I added upper and lower workshops. Neither of which are living space.

I wanted working areas that were separate from the larger shop. Areas that had better heat/insulation. Both areas will be for tinkering and assembling stuff, not areas that will have equipment. I want them to be sealed off from the main shop space which will contain dust and chemical fumes etc.

The lower workshop will have an 8x8 OH door in it for rolling in engines/etc that I can assemble in a clean environment.

Those areas were in the original plans though the upper portion was labeled "attic space". I've since added a transom window in the upper workshop overlooking the primary shop space. The building inspector might not like this due to fire code, but my argument will be it is a transom window between shop spaces, not between shop and living space.

 

[hayden]

Just about done with the interior framing. Hopefully getting it inspected this week.

It has been a real slog doing 100% of it by myself.

Rough electrical should be done this week.

View attachment 4281675

I see that your overhead door track follows the slope of roof trusses. Was it a problem to have it installed that way? Do you know if there are limitation on what the slope can be? I would like to do something similar on a steel frame building where the slope is 5:12. Yours looks less steep, at least on the inside.