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Second,
how am I going to use it, in a living area of the house or in an unfinished part
of the basement? Third, am I looking for aesthetics or am I only concerned about
augmenting the primary heat system? Fourth, is my chimney adequate to
accommodate a woodstove? Finally, how much can I afford to spend on a woodstove?
Tips on Buying a
Woodstove
First, if you are buying a woodstove that was made
after 1990 it is probably an air-tight stove. Air-tight implies that there are
one or more sources of air to the firebox. The firebox is designed with one or
more baffles to provide a secondary burning chamber for the gases to burn rather
than being exhausted up the chimney.
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The EPA established emission guidelines for
woodstoves in the 1990s limiting smoke
emissions to 2-5 grams per hour with virtually no ash. This amounts to 90
percent fewer emissions and 33% more fuel efficiency than the older up-draft
stoves. I do not recommend an up-draft stove. They are extremely
inefficient.
How and where are you going to use the woodstove?
It is assumed that your underlying purpose for buying a woodstove is to
augment your primary heating system, and therefore we will not consider
aesthetics. Placing it in the living space or the basement will provide heat
system augmentation; however, there are a couple of key issues to consider.
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First there is the issue of the location of the
chimney and how will wood be hauled through the house, which is an arduous and
messy chore. The best place to store wood is in the basement. Storing wood in
the basement will greatly reduce the mess in the living area as well as having
the wood supply nearby.
The next major issue, is in determining if your
chimney is of adequate size to support a woodstove? If it was built in the last
twenty years, it probably is. Most wood burning stoves have a six-inch outlet
pipe. A six or eight inch chimney with a liner is adequate.
The third key issue is in regards to how much you want
to spend on a woodstove? A used woodstove can be inexpensive and there are many
good ones on the market. If a stove was built before the 1990s, and has a baffle
system to increase burning efficiency, it can be considered a good stove. Most
of the older stoves are built of 3/16th to 1/4 inch rolled steel.
Others were built of cast iron. In either case, they were built to last for many
years.
If you search long and hard, you may find some good
buys for these stoves for under $200. The new stoves with fancy glass doors, and
that sit on a pedestal style stand, run from $500 to as much as $3000.00 for the
soapstone styles. However, you can find a good wood stove in the range of $800
to $1,000.
Personally, I would settle for the older stove with a
front loading door that can accommodate 20 to 24 inch wood lengths, and that can
be placed in a non-living area, such as the basement.
To increase the heat to the living area above the
basement, I would suggest placing a hood over the stove and ducting it to the
upstairs living area as suggested in the “Installation
of Hood over Wood Stove Ebook”
For information on maximizing your
wood stove’s home heating efficiency see
the “Installation
of Hood over Wood Stove Ebook”.
Find a Pre-Screened Heating Contractor in Your Area
Wood Burning Stove and Fireplace Information from Amazon.com
Wood Stoves from Amazon.com
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