Woodstove

Last year during the heating season (2000-2001) and even the year before we were getting a little bit frustrated with the size of our heating bill which was easily costing us more than our car insurance.

My parents heat their house with wood heat using a "Kachelofen". A Kachelofen is a European design similar to what some North Americans might know as a masonry tile stove.

The principle is a very short, hot, clean burn that is contained within a large masonry/stone/cement structure which absorbs and retains and radiates the heat generated by the fire. With the firebox temperatures being very high the burn is quite clean with low emissions. The physical mass of the stove structure holds the heat upwards of 8 hours.

I've had the desire to heat our home with wood heat. My parents were purchasing waste wood from a furniture factory, cut mostly to small lengths and kiln-dried. This costs them around $150CAD for one heating season contrasting to our BCGas bill of $1400-2000. Last week I decided to do something about it.

Accordingly, the www.bchydro.com website showed than of the same size water heaters set at the same temperature and same number of household occupants it costs $320CAD to heat water with natural gas annually and $310 for electric!! It used to be the opposite with gas being way cheaper. So I yanked out our nearly new top-of-the-range gas hot water heater.

The year before we replaced our aging natural gas furnace with a new high efficiency condensing model (92% efficiency) from Sears Canada which brought our gas energy bill down from $2000 to $1400 annually. It was still too high for my liking.

This last Friday I came home with a "Summit" model free-standing clean-burning woodstove from www.pacificenergy.bc.ca which is even EPA Phase2 compliant and only emits less than 4grams smoke an hour with 73% efficiency.

We've only had it since late Friday evening, so 3 days ago. Our experience so far is:

An open plan house works the best.
Put the stove in the room you want to heat if possible.
Using a fan or blower helps to move hot air around.
Use your furnace fan to circulate the air throughout the house.
The stove's heat output increases dramatically with a bed of ash (5-6 burns).
Radiant heat is immense!
Glass in the loading door stays about 90% clean.
This thing is heavy to move - 475lbs - get your friends to help install it!
We have 3050sq.ft, lots of single-pane glass, outside temps have dropped to 6.4 deg.C and we've had up to 22deg.C inside.

Here's my install.

That's all for now. More later. See these links in my "links" page:

http://www.hearth.com Excellent site if you are contemplating going to woodheat. Big FAQ section and forum.
http://www.woodheat.org Canadian woodheat website. What is wood smoke really comprised of? FAQ, woodstove installation tips, etc. Informational site.
http://www.pacificenergy.bc.ca Canadian EPA clean-burning woodstove/insert manufacturer.
http://www.theoldestoveworks.com Visit their store in Mission, B.C. Buy your Pacific Energy woodstove here! They do gas inserts & stoves as well. Best prices in the lower mainland.