gmule wrote: I think once people get used to the new stoves they will not want to go back. When I installed mine I noticed a huge difference in the amount of wood consumption. What my old stove burned in 1 hour lasts 8 hours in my new stove. That saves me time and effort cutting and splitting wood and I can heat 24X7 without feeling like I am always tending to the stove.
I know cost is going to be an issue not everyone will be pleased with a 3k price tag and I'll admit it was a tough pill to swallow myself when I bought it. I can say that since I have installed this stove I have not purchased any propane or ran my furnace in 3 years. The propane spike the last couple of months definitely made me happy about my decision to buy the new stove.
As far as people replacing the cat when required. heating performance drops off when the cat needs to be replaced and if they do not engage the cat you will chew through the wood
Yet they don't. Even if the buyer knows of the maintenance requirements to inspect and clean the cat many do not. When a house sells that information rarely passes down.
Too be fair many folks do not call until they have a problem. Therefor there could me many more educated and motivated cat users like you than I have experienced.
PS congrats on heating with wood. I had customer whose furnace rusted in place from disuse.
I know there are a lot. I just doubt they are in the majority. Woodheat.org has an e-mail disscussion list I have subscribed to for years. The people who go there want answers. I have also met a lot of people who do not know the questions.
I am familiar with hearth.com . Thanks for the fire wood hoarder site, I am poking around there now. Like this:
Okay guys, here we go.......AGAIN!!
We OFFICIALLY own this site, and now, we can actually REALLY build on it....it's the new and IMPROVED Firewood Hoarders Club thread!!!
There can be different levels of addiction, lets discuss.
1 to 3 cord = social hoarder
3 to 6 cord = wood-a-holic
6 to 10 cord = cord-hoarder
10 to 15 cord = BTU possesor
15 to 20 cord = SWA (severe wood addict)
20 to 25 cord = FBCJ (full-blown cordwood JUNKIE)
25 - 30 cord = woodpile PSYCHO.
30 - 35 cord = Firewood FREAK
35 cord - up = Cordwood CORLEONE
I am somewhere between a cord-horder and a BTU possesor depending on time of year but I would like to move up to SWA.
I am also a BTU processor. Imho the people burn wood now are into it for more than casual burning. After poking around on the burning forums I get the impression that most of us to try to burn clean and that the dirty burners lack education on doing so. Sure there are those that don't get it but I think they are the minority. Cutting and splitting wood is way to hard for most burners to waste burning poorly or operating improper functioning equipment.
gmule wrote: I think once people get used to the new stoves they will not want to go back. When I installed mine I noticed a huge difference in the amount of wood consumption. What my old stove burned in 1 hour lasts 8 hours in my new stove. That saves me time and effort cutting and splitting wood and I can heat 24X7 without feeling like I am always tending to the stove.
I know cost is going to be an issue not everyone will be pleased with a 3k price tag and I'll admit it was a tough pill to swallow myself when I bought it. I can say that since I have installed this stove I have not purchased any propane or ran my furnace in 3 years. The propane spike the last couple of months definitely made me happy about my decision to buy the new stove.
As far as people replacing the cat when required. heating performance drops off when the cat needs to be replaced and if they do not engage the cat you will chew through the wood
8hrs vs. 1 hr sounds like an efficiency improvement from 10% to 80% ??? I 'm sure the new advanced stoves are more efficient and cleaner, but those numbers seem exaggerated? IMO
Having choices and options and different price points is not the same as top-down mandates for all products to meet arbitrary expensive new standards with only marginal improvements over existing stoves. And as others have said, some will choose not to upgrade if cost is too high and just keep the old soot spewing clunker.
The biggest efficiency improvement I have observed is between burning well seasoned dry wood, compared to 1yr, semi seasoned wood.
If you want to be, press one. If you want not to be, press 2
Republicans are red, democrats are blue, neither of them, gives a flip about you.
The stove I replaced was in bad shape the draft controls were not very good and the design was basically a steel drum with a door on it to put wood in. It was not very well designed stove even when it was new in the early 80's. The new stove was designed to burn clean and produce heat for longer periods and it does have EPA efficiency rating of 80% with an emission output 1.3 grams per hour which is well under the proposed 10 gram per hour limit the EPA is suggesting. For comparisons I am heating a 1900 sq Ft ranch home that has average insulation.
gmule wrote: The stove I replaced was in bad shape the draft controls were not very good and the design was basically a steel drum with a door on it to put wood in. It was not very well designed stove even when it was new in the early 80's. The new stove was designed to burn clean and produce heat for longer periods and it does have EPA efficiency rating of 80% with an emission output 1.3 grams per hour which is well under the proposed 10 gram per hour limit the EPA is suggesting. For comparisons I am heating a 1900 sq Ft ranch home that has average insulation.
G, how much of your increased efficiency do you credit to the release heat over a longer period of time with soapstone. That is the feature that has always impressed me the most about that line but I have never had an opportunity to use one myself.
I did have rocks placed on top of my steel Lopi stove for a few years to capture a little of that effect. Loved it but I am sure it just captured a small % of what a soapstone does.
("The wood heater regulation requires wood stove manufacturers to undergo emissions testing at an EPA-accredited laboratory to certify that each wood stove model line complies with the particulate emission limit of 7.5 grams/hour for non-catalytic wood stoves and 4.1 grams/hour for catalytic wood stoves.")
With insurance companies requiring more wildfire mitigation around the home, i expect to see more woodstoves/fireplaces in use. I really doubt that most will upgrade because of costs and will use what they have in place.
Because of so much passive solar we rarely have the heat on so that the woodstove becomes a planter most of the time. But it is handy during the spring or when the sun isn't shining but doesn't justify buying a new one.
Wouldn't it make more sense to invest $3k in insulation rather than a woodstove?
While burning 24x7 I don't really see any advantage with the soapstone since I run the stove in the 400-500 degree range the heat output is constant like the steel stoves. What I notice most is on the back end of the burn cycle like on an overnight burn. The stone releases the heat that is stored in the thermal mass of the stone and radiates heat for several hours after the fuel has been exhausted. As an example this morning I got up to a home that was 70 degrees even thought the house was warm I reloaded with 3 small splits and brought the temperature of the stove up to 300 degrees engaged the catalyst and closed the damper down to 25% open. Even though it is 40 degrees outside and 72 inside it is not that warm out. Anyway that load was put in at 06:00 this morning the stove top temp is still 240 and radiating heat even though I haven't put any more wood in it.
The down side is that it does take about an hour to get any noticeable heat output from a cold start up so early in the heating season I try to keep a bed of coals in it so that when I do load it up for the evening i am not starting with a cold stove. This stove will hold coals for quite a while though. I can say that when I get up in the morning feeding the stove is not the first thing on my mind.
Another thing I noticed was that while the stove temp is hot the flue is relatively cool and that means that there is more heat going into the house instead of out the flue.
This is what the stove looks like while it does its thing.
http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a1cf04b3127ccefee63849ca3d00000030O00AZt2Llq2cN2IPbz4c/cC/f%3D0/ls%3D00107865917320111126071122274.JPG/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/
For the most part this stove is a set it and forget unit.
I know that some will say that operating the flue with low temperatures creates creosote. This is where well seasoned wood comes in. Properly seasoned wood produces significantly less creosote than wood that is damp. The way the catalyst burns the fuel that is in the smoke there is also less chance for creosote to form. I clean my chimney twice a season for safety. I could get away with once a season but I like to take a peek at what condition my chimney is in at least twice a year.
I'm with Blazer Bob on this.
I think that the very process of gathering, splitting, storing and then burning wood has a tendency to spark greater interest in the efficiency of the whole process.
This contrasts with the turn the dial up majority of America. Until the utility bill shock gets their attention. Then when that guy goes out to get a wood stove it would be better if the stove had at least minimum standards. Chances are he will not do his home work.
It is sad that in this age a green home means 2x6 construction. Air Infiltration is never mentioned.
As the saying goes - The houses in America face neither North, South, East or West.
They face the road.
When I told an appraiser that the house had a primary heat source of Passive Solar with some secondary active Solar she replied "you don't have any heat source?"
She took a look at the stove and put in the appraisal that the house had wood heat.
I told the appraisal company to send someone competent.
So anyway I have been interested in Masonary stoves, an age old design from Europe that unfortunatly requires a master Mason. How these EPA regs will impact the owner built will be interesting.
http://www.tempcast.com/index.html
This is an outfit in Colorado that sells the guts of a Masonary Heater and then you face it with whatever suits. This is unfortunatly only realistic in a new build.
