Firing Up the New Woodstove
October 23rd, 2013 · 6 Comments · Posted in rural life
Have I mentioned that our house has no central heat?
The previous owners apparently weren’t thinking resale when they built the place six years ago. It’s a wonderful, 1,400-square-foot house in the traditional farmhouse style. But there’s no duct work for heating or cooling. That put a real damper on our plans to install a geothermal system that would take of all of our heating and cooling needs with very little outside fuel input. Instead, what we found was a wood stove upstairs and a backup oil-burning furnace that just blows hot air in the basement to keep the pipes from freezing.
Well, the occupants wanted to take their big, old wood stove with them when they moved and we agreed because we wanted something newer and more efficient. At first we looked at a Danish model with all the latest technology. Except the stove could only be fueled with logs less than 12 inches in length and we couldn’t find anyone in this area who cuts logs shorter than 16 inches. So we settled on a Tula stove–model 8190–that burns 88 percent efficient, can throw off 30,000 BTUs and accepts standard-sized logs.
Can a stove this small really heat our entire house? Imagine a steamer trunk standing on end. That’s about the size of our Tula. The fire box is big enough for maybe three logs, but they have to stand on end as the box is vertical.
Best feature: a big glass window in the door to watch the fire.
The stove arrived only recently and was installed just in the nick of time, as temperatures that hovered in the mid-sixties for most of October have suddenly taken a nosedive. We’ve got four cords of word neatly stacked next to the house and I spent the better part of one day this week sitting on an overturned bucket in the yard splitting logs into kindling with a hatchet.
To light the stove, we purchased a box of fire starter squares that look like cardboard compressed into baker’s chocolate wafers. Ignite a wafer with a butane lighter and it produces enough flame to start a bundle of kindling roaring into flames.
Since I’m the early riser in the family, I get to warm up the house in the morning. It remains to be seen how warm that is as winter descends over Washington County. The house is extremely well insulated and we get a tremendous amount of heat from the bank of windows on the south side. In fact, the heat was so intense from those windows that we installed solar shades to keep some of the sun’s rays out.
We’ll get our first real test this week as overnight temperatures dip toward freezing. Stay tuned….
Lots of decisions there on the new farm, lessons for others looking for a change.
Nancy, some life experience helps.
We went through the same equations for our house in Rappahannock. The Euro stoves are sleek but don’t put out American sized BTU power. We also wanted to be able to use conventional sized logs and have a big viewing are. We went with this stove. And it’s great. I’m not in love with the looks, but it works like a charm. Made in Canada, where they know heating efficiency. http://www.pacificenergy.net/products/wood/stoves/summit-classic/
Your stove is far handsomer. I hope it does the trick!
Claire, my wife, Lane, is all about design. If it doesn’t look right to her, it doesn’t pass. The dealer and the stove expert who installed it assure us this stove will heat our house, especially as well insulated as it is. In fact, the house is so tight there was some question whether we might need a fresh air intake to the stove. We held off on that to see how the stove performs. So far, so good.
30° F is nothing. Wait till a blizzard blows through and the thermometer plummets below 0°. Aren’t you on top of Spy Dog Hill? But you’re not the first, and the local experts must know what they’re doing. I’m amazed. Do you have a wood lot?
Tom, I grew up in Chicago, so I’m familiar. We don’t have a woodlot. But we do have four cords of wood stacked next to the house. The consensus around here is that the winters aren’t nearly as cold as they used to be, nor as long. Also, there isn’t as much snow. I take that as a sign of global warming. I imagine if it does get really cold, we’ll be burning a lot more wood.