[Sun]

We're looking into this, especially with Obama as POTUS, because we might have more blackouts throughout the country.

[lack-of-trust]

yes, My folks had one and it would drive you out of the room if you did not modulate the air intake properly.

it butns more eficciently, doesnt suck as much air up the chimney and all that cast iron radiates heat into the room.

enjoy.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

I’m looking into units that burn spent brass, as there will be an expanding market for that.....

[Ballygrl]

Hi Sun!

We don’t have either 1 but hubby and I have been around them and wood burning stoves definitely generate more heat then fireplaces.

[umgud]

YES!

[fso301]

We're looking into this, especially with Obama as POTUS, because we might have more blackouts throughout the country.

We have one with a fan. It's an older model that uses inside air and does not have a secondary combustion chamber or catalytic converter. WE LOVE IT! Stoke it up and you have to open the windows and sit outside. In the event of a power outage, it has a shelf that you can place pots on for cooking. We keep a cast iron dutch oven on it full of water to act as a humidifier. The water will quickly come to a boil.

The modern inserts are even more efficient! We are thinking about putting a wood burning stove in the basement and if we do, it will be a free standing modern one.

Modern inserts and free standing stoves are very efficient and I would encourage you to spend the money on a modern one. The units with catalytic converters are a little more efficient that those with secondary combustion chambers but the catalytic converters require more maintenance. Consider a modern unit having a secondary combustion chamber that is feed with outside air.

[incredulous joe]

Yes, if the inserti is tight, you should have a minimum of draft created and your home will be considerably warmer.

I live in central Maryland and we use a woodstove for about 85% of our heat. It’s a bit of work; splitting wood and maintaining heat around the clock.

I’d do it now. I have actually heard ~ and I don’t know that this is really true ~ that the stoves may be required to have a catalytic converter or some such nonsense to measure the amount of carbon that you are creating.

Essentially, even if you collect your own firewood, you may be taxed on it. I remember originally suggesting such a scenario as a joke and someone told me that it would be coming down the line.

Sounds plausible.

Anyway, get the stove! You’ll love it and you’ll be pissing off greenies and won’t be sending your money to the Arabs.

It’s win win win!

[Lancey Howard]

This is the woodstove we have been using for over 20 years.

It is the Coalbrookdale "Darby" model. It is heavy cast iron and rates 2200 btu of heat. It has a removable ashtray so you never have to let the fire go out, and a flip-open cooktop, which can come in handy for making soup, coffee, toast, and other food in case of a long blackout where you don't necessarily want to fire up the backyard grill. It's got the glass doors so you can see the flames, and it also comes with a handy coal conversion kit (although we have never used it since we're in the middle of the woods and free fuel is plentiful).

Great stove, I highly recommend it.

[ModelBreaker]

Yes. You get the radiant heat and the insert is not sucking warm air out of your house like a fireplace does. That’ll do to keep YOU from freezing if you stay in the room that contains the insert. But if its cold and the outage lasts a while and your house is decent sized, your pipes that are not near the radiant heat can freeze and you have a mess when it warms up. The fan puts a LOT more heat into the house than just the radiant heat.

So try buying a marine battery or two and keep them charged. That’ll run the insert fan for a few hours per battery (on my insert at least). For longer blackouts, get a device to hook onto your car battery and convert the DC to household electricity and an extension cord (keep your gas tanks fairly full). That lets you run your fan off of gasoline power even when the power is out and your batterys have gone. If you are judicious, you can make a tank last a few days. (And make sure you have windup electrical light. It is almost impossible to get the car and battery stuff hooked up without light. Power always seems to fail at night. Flashlight batteries always seem to fail at the wrong time and then you are searching for batteries in the dark.)

Of course, recharge the battery when the power comes back on.

[fish hawk]

Don’t know, I’ve been living here on Maui for 40 years. No need for heat in our houses.

[woofie]

mine burns old stock certificates

[Vicki]

Yes. We put one in our downstairs fireplace over a year ago. Has a fan on it but when the power goes out we sure are happy to have it.

[Mr. K]

Absolutely- if you have an open fireplace it sucks air up and out of the room

I had a huge fireplace and it was barely effective at heating the one room

Then I added an insert and I used a LOT less wood, and the heat would drive you out of the room

I had to put fans to blow the heat around and it heated almost my whole house

[Big Horn]

I love mine. It uses little wood and puts out enough BTU’s to heat my house. The fan is great, but we have kept warm without it when the power was off.

[RoadKingSE]

Is a wood stove insert warmer than a regular fireplace, even without the fan (if there's a power outage)?

I have a Quadra-Fire pellet stove which burns wood pellets, corn or a mix of the two, and is wired to my emergency generator which kicks on automatically @ power interrupt. 1000 gal propane tank buried in the back yard ought to keep the feet warm and the meat frozen for a few days. (:^0)

[notpoliticallycorewrecked]

A free standing woodburning stove will emit more heat than a fireplace. But if it is an insert into a fireplace, then it isn’t going to emit any more heat without a fan. Is there a battery powered fan system that you can add to your insert wood stove.

At one point we considered a pellet stove, but they also require electricity. I am currently considering a propane gas stove with a very large propane tank.

[boxerblues]

Is a wood stove insert warmer than a regular fireplace, even without the fan

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I have yet to turn on my furnace, my insert is going and the house all 2200 sq ft stays toasty

check out httP://www.buckstove.com I have the Model 81

[usconservative]

I have a Lopi Freedom insert in my fireplace, it works by convection. As long as I keep the air intake sufficiently moderated, it heats about 2,400 SF of my home here in the midwest during the winter.

While my neighbors average gas heating bills are about $400/mo I average @ $65/mo during the winter for cooking gas and our clothes dryer. My furnace is typically for 'back up' only. I do use the cold air return and fan from the furnace (which is in the same room as the woodburner) to circulate the heat from the woodburner throughout the house without the burners in the furnace kicking on.

I go through @ 3 cords of wood in the winter heating between Dec 1st and the end of February. I get the wood for free (sans the work we do to in cutting down the dead trees on our property and hauling it 350 miles home) from family in the Upper Penninsula.

If you go with a fireplace insert, you will need a stainless steel chimney insert, that'll run you anywhere from $300 - $600 depending on the height of your chimney. Assuming you're paying for wood, consider how much you'll use the insert to provide actual heat. The economics of having an insert and heating with wood works for me only because I get the wood for free.

BTW I prefer the heat from the woodburner, it goes through my arthritic bones, something the gas furnace can't do.

[Joe Marine 76]

When we built our retirement home in ‘03 we had a masonary fireplace installed not knowing whether to use the firelplace, or to install gas or wood insert stove. We finally decided to go with a wood insert stove: Dutchwest Model DW2500 Series with fan.

We made a wise choice. It’s rated to heat 1500 sqft (we have 1468 sqft living space) at 9600 - 58,000 BTU (low end -high end of air intake setting). We also have a cathedral ceiling and fan which we reverse to circulate the air as it rises. Also, since we live in the woods, we “spec’d” an emergency generator hookup so when the power goes out we can still use the wood insert/fan to heat.

The cost in 2005 to install was $2400.00 ($600 Labor/$1800 Parts)

We have it enjoyed the stove immensely. It has become an attraction for friends and family during the holidays. They enjoy the warmth and seem to get fixated on the fire through the glass aspect... very soothing and no smoke!

[Joe Marine 76]

Sun,

I forgot to mention that we bought the stove on-line for $800 and had it delivered.

[johniegrad]

Whether you have an insert or a free standing stove, make sure everything is installed up to code or you may have difficulty with your homeowners insurance.

I found this out the hard way when I purchased a home that the previous owner had built. He used the wood burner as his back up heat but certain code issues had not been addressed and I had to get rid of it before I could get homeowners insurance from USAA.

A couple of years later, I did install a zero clearance insert in the downstairs fireplace and have had a lot of nice service from it ever since.

It will give you heat even if you lose the fan due to a power outage but it won't give you as much heat as with the fan operating.