Need less heat from wood stove

supergrumpy · Sep 16, 2009

main heat is furnace but we use the wood stove in the den when its not cold enuf for the furnace, hard to keep stove going without driving us out of the den, was thinking of adding firebricks to make firebox smaller

current stove is a Sierra but cannot find a model number, loads from the side with glass in front, stove was here when we moved in, stove is at far end of the den with poor circulation to rest of the house, fans do not help

boss says new stoves cost too much

ideas???

David Gray · Sep 16, 2009

I'm not familiar with that stove, but have lived with lots of different ones. Do you have a damper in the exhaust pipe? The way I learned to regulate my stoves through experience, was to install two dampers in the pipe about a foot apart. In this manner, you can shut the stove off totally in an emergency, or regulate it to burn slowly. Placing a fan (size doesn't matter) to move the heat around will do amazing things through circulation. Try again. Dave

Anonymous-0 · Sep 16, 2009

I found the best luck with moving air with the fan was to put in on the opposite end of the house blowing TOWARDS the stove. It worked a lot better than trying to push the heat away from the stove. Not sure why, but it certainly was better.

teddy52food · Sep 16, 2009

Don't put so much wood in it!

Anonymous-0 · Sep 16, 2009

Don't burn any wood in it, just burn the junk mail. Should last just long enough to take the chill out of the den. If you buy something from one of the catalogs your address will go to a bunch of others and the mailman will keep you stocked up with fuel.

James Howell · Sep 16, 2009

I met a fellow once that rolled up old newspapers and burned them in his wood stove.

He was a single man and his living room was full of stacks of old news papers.

This old fellow was a character.

My father wanted me to meet him so we drove over to his home one day for a visit.

He had built a newer home behind the home where he had been raised.

Looked in the window of the older home and saw a calender on the kitchen wall.

After closer inspection the calender was April 1937!

Too much to tell on this post, but it was an interesting visit.

T_Bone · Sep 16, 2009

Hi supergrumpy,

Think of your room where the wood stove is located as a huge warm supply air plenum.

If you try placing external fans facing toward the wood stove ( sucking the cold air), you will find cold air will return faster thus heating the room wanted alot quicker and with more heat than trying too blow hot air into the rooms. This will lower the temperature of the wood stove room.

Why does this work? Heat will rise too the ceiling thus you create a more natural heat flow pattern.

However, a fan blowing on too the stack exhaust will supply more heat extraction. BE careful here as if you extract too much heat then your stack walls will load with creosote causing a exhaust stack fire.

T_Bone

JDemaris · Sep 16, 2009

Many of the pre-EPA woodstoves don't do well with a low fire. They smolder and build up creosote. I'm the last person in the world to think "new is good", but in this case, the later EPA tested woodstoves work much better with small fires.

Technically, by Federal law, nobody can even sell something called a "woodstove" anymore unless it passes EPA tests.

In our house we have three wood stoves and one big wood furnace. When it's only 30 F or above outside (not real cold) we use one of the woodstoves. Until two years ago, I had a 70s "air-tight" woodstove. It sooted up something awful with a load of wood and turned down low. Also had a 1920 cast-iron pot belly wood and coal burner. It could not be turned down since it is not air-tight. Burned clean and hot, and with a full load it would cook you out of the room and burn out in an hour or two. Finally (and reluctantly" bought a new EPA stove and it makes a night-and-day difference. I can turn it way down with a full load of wood and it burns clean.

Getting that heat distributed elsewhere is a whole different story.

Anonymous-0 · Sep 16, 2009

Fire up, and get it going good, then just cover the fire with ashes.

S2710 · Sep 16, 2009

if you have some soft wood like box elder that is dry build a fire with that it will burn hot and fast and take the chill out and then will go out. HTH Bob

Wardner · Sep 16, 2009

Do you have an air conditioner? Grab a cold one, remove your clothes, and stand in front of it.

Back in the good old days (before air conditioners) people would open windows. They probably kept their clothes on.

supergrumpy · Sep 17, 2009

thank you for the replies

bot one of those "laminar flow" kinda blowers, kind you dry out wet carpets with, should move the cold air along the floor towards the firebox

Anonymous-0 · Sep 18, 2009

Put less wood in the stove.Fellow found he used less wood when only one person put wood in the stove.

Need less heat from wood stove

supergrumpy

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David Gray

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teddy52food

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Anonymous-0

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James Howell

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T_Bone

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