I live in an area where there is little wood due to the farming and getting it can be a pain. But we march out every year to get our 4-8 cords to heat our home. 7 years ago we graduated from sleeping in our living room that was closed in with blankets hanging from the wall and heated with a $500 stove from tractor supply that ate wood every few hours so I got up all night to stoke it and our pipes froze when we left for more than 9 hours. . . to saving enough money to buy a $2300 wood stove that heated our living room, kitchen, dining, computer and bedroom very well. We didn't use the extra 2 bedrooms at the end of the house and when it got to -40, trying to do so would make the rest of the house cold. And we only had one child. We used almost zero propane heating with the new stove which was a huge savings!
Fast forward 8 years and we now have same house (which we managed to move 2 times . . . ) but a total of 5 children and darned if we don't need to use the end rooms this winter as bedrooms for kids. Our energy efficient PAcific Energy large stove did fine up until last winter when we had 72 days in a row below -32F and far too many days below -50F. We burned 2x the amount of wood that we ever have (and it was a year when health problems did not allow us to get out to collect next year's wood), and then we STILL ran out of wood and had to burn propane as backup to the tune of $1800. When it hit -40F the house could not stay warm overnight - sure the stove was still lit (it is great stove in that I light it once in the fall and put it out in spring - I HATE lighting stoves), but we were frozen. And when DH saw frost on the toilet and his breath while we watched an old movie, he said "TURN THE HEAT UP WOMAN!"
We have a double wide 28x60 with our master bedroom on the one end, door into living/computer/dining and around the corner the kitchen. Then the other end of the house is 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. We have the wood stove in a corner of the living room and it heats the other four rooms surrounding it (kitchen, dining, computer, master bed) adequately, but not the far end of the house. WE do not want to burn any propane . . . could buy a stove every year for the price of propane!
Every fall we run low on time to collect wood (we drive 50 miles one way so it takes a lot of time), and this year we considered buying some for backup while we finish fixing a bad roof, but it is going for a steal at low end $175 for a poor cord from sellers who have NO Idea what dry wood is, to $350 and we STILL have to drive 50 miles to get any of it. But, it is STILL cheaper than propane. We decided to look at getting a 2nd wood stove so we can get the house above 50F on those cold days/nights. I wanted to build a rocket mass heater, but I am having the hardest time finding time to do it all as well as reinforce the floor OR build a new living room at ground level to put the several tons of mass on it. I still like the idea but short on time and oomph these days with a brand new darling baby.
I have NEVER thought of burning coal before - I happened upon the idea (yes, idea *G*) when talking to another milking friend who asked why don't I burn with some coal as I live in a state where coal is cheaper than cheap. I said "COAL?" . . . She told me she gets it for $60 ish a ton. WHAT? I found out I can get it for $75 per ton delivered (i live further away) and not have to chop wood, worry about DH cutting off his foot and a way to store 18 cords of wood. So I am definitely keen on the idea. Especially as I haul all the wood into the house all winter long and it is up to me to stoke the fire and get up early to warm the house. Burning wood in our newer stove was a learning curve, and I do hope burning lignite OR bit will not be a house burning down proposition !
My head is just spinning over the options. No matter what I get we will have to get it shipped - we live in ND and there are no close stove dealers. I know many are huge into stokers with hoppers utilizing electricity which is not that big of a turn off for me as we can't get any good heat from our wood stove without the fan running in it, but at the same time, when our power went out (first time in 6 years mind you . . . ) the house got mighty cold without the fan to blow it into around the house. Now I'm realizing I could use converter and battery to power the wee fan and I should have thought about that before as I do charge the batteries with a solar panel. Or maybe to power a fan, I could use one of the many 70mph winds we had last year that tore off the barn roof and bull pen roof in middle of winter, as without fail power only goes off when the wind is going that strong.
The house is 1700 square feet with just one level /ranch style. Open layout in middle (except kitchen wall gets in part of the way), 2 bedrooms and bath on one end, 1 master bed/bath on other end. We have a propane furnace right now, electric hot water. We get a LOT of winter here. . . last winter was a doozy. I don't care what the stove looks like and since I'm the Mrs. that will work (I notice a lot here have better halves who fuss a bit over the look
. I don't have to see flames for ambiance, but it would be nice if it didn't take up a huge amount of room. Right now ours is 6 inch black chimney pipe and going out the top of the stove through ceiling (properly installed), and then double insulated stainless steel that goes 5 feet above roofline. . . I think it is 5 feet. I wish I could simply replace the wood stove with coal rather than putting a coal stove in ALSO - simply because my husband has said he won't run another one through the ceiling. That was a headache and well. . . fickle me didn't like where he put the first hole and made him move it so I could reduce clearances with stove board and get the stove to within 6 inches of the walls instead of 18 inches. Our living room is rather small so a heater that has to be really far out takes a lot of space and is a hazard for little kids. We would keep the wood for backup if we had to although their resale value here is very high. I would hang onto it for at least one season though simply because I feel like maybe we need two stoves in our cold climate - when we bought the pacific energy the guy warned us that yes it was rated for 2500 square feet and 99000 BTU but in our cold climate he didn't know how it would do. It did fine til our cold climate became COLDER climate. Really, we did fine up until last year and then we were cold and spent next year's utilities on just winter fuel alone for 4 months!Due to headaches of no suppliers nearby and me getting tired of phoning people to get quotes, I'm looking at online places. I'm STILL waiting to hear back from Hitzer so the only ones I've seen with prices are Lehmans and they are out of stock. Looking at DS Machine as well as a few keystone - DS seems to be the lowest priced option. I would like to say money is unlimited, but it isn't. And we are having to replace the roof on a shed and the 1991 Dodge Cummins just had $2000 of repairs which really tore into our savings. I really would like to stay in the $1-1500 unless somebody says "the such and such is REALLY a better option for another few hundred".
I have not been seeing forum members posting very cold weather winters here, so I have NO idea what size I should be looking at. . . Obviously too small is a bad idea, but what is too small?
Can you ever cook on these? I don't want a cookstove per se, but it would be nice as a back up - yes, cooking on one would be very self sufficient, but I use low electricity bake oven, crockpots etc and am running out of self sufficiency interest after canning 500lbs of tomatoes from the cold greenhouse, putting up cheese from milking 4 of my own cows, making butter (yes, in an electric appliance
, and darn it, it is 1:30 AM and I left the cows in the barn because I got side tracked on a coal burning forum. I would also love to be able to heat water with it to reduce our electric bill or maybe have a hot tub some day - or I even dream of raising the girls cheap outdoor plastic pool a few degrees in June so they can swim in it more than 2 months out of the year. So then I think if I want to heat our water with it, maybe having the coal stove in the house is not the best idea as we don't usually run a fire beyond the 2nd week of April and then I will have to resort to electric, but heating with coal 7 months out of the year would definitely reduce the electric billI am very open to ideas and am pragmatic and open to people spitting on any of my ideas to help me make better choices!
Thanks so much!
Simply
