Wood heat

[montanabill]

Here in rocky mountain montana there are a lot of mobile homes with a "stove room". Basically a small room added on to the front of the home where the front door is. People put their wood stove there and then it is handy for a woodbox. Some enlarge the opening of the original mobile home door or use a fan to blow the heat into the home from the stove room.
All the clever setups with pellets and heat pumps and generators (which can suck large amounts of gas or propane) are cool but when it's -30 out, the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining a solid long lasting wood stove is hard to beat.
i heat a small shop with cut up pallets in a barrel stove and it keeps me warm just cutting up the pallets and stuffing the stove full constantly. i would hate to try to heat a home with pallets in my climate.

 

[Tirediron]

Wood heat will help keep you alive in a grid down situation, but wood heat is not like natural gas or propane, because the fuel is larger and people try to control the heat by controlling the air flow, WRONG. you can control the heat by controlling the draft,to a point but over fueling is over fueling. one solution to limit a fires output is to use bigger chunks of wood, to limit the gas off area and thus the heat out put.
Chimneys should stay clean on their own, if you need to clean your chimney you are smoldering wood, not burning it. People think that they know how fire works, few do.
Especially the so called experts.

 

[viking]

When we were living in the Denver area I was working for a heating and air conditioning business out of Golden, they were installing a lot of heat pumps, but I learned from experience that natural gas was the most efficient for heating and cooking. So now we come to modern times and some cities are no longer allowing gas hookups to homes, (it's not green, according to some people), this is all very interesting because the major electrical supplier in the Denver area was a huge coal fired power plant that was supplied coal on an almost daily trainload of coal cars. I don't know what they are using these days, natural gas? Any way you look at this, it doesn't seem to look too good, all I can say is, we're extremely happy not to be living there anymore, as it was, we were seeing energy prices go through the roof, Pretty well off people living in townhomes in S. E. Denver were complaining of over $200 a month power bills and most of the time they weren't even home. The power company had sold them on getting power factor meters claiming that it could save them money, what they didn't tell them is in order for that to happen, your home electricity needed to be completely computer controlled, I heard a fair amount of bad words from home owners because of those meters.

 

[Tirediron]

Natural gas is so clean, if it didn't have the odorizer in it, it would be hard to find anything cleaner, Electricity is a filthy energy, but you can't get that through peoples heads.

 

[SheepDog]

When electricity is generated by clean means it is reliable clean and efficient. Power doesn't come greener and more efficient than a hydroelectric plant, unless you drain the water out of the reservoir to save the fish or water Los Vegas.

 

[Tirediron]

Except for the emfs and the wreckage involved in putting up line etc, the power its self is clean, the rest of it isn't. kind of like electric cars are clean, if you don't count the child labor batteries.
If the MSM and the left is championing it it is evil and dirty

 

[SheepDog]

You mean the support infrastructure? Like the pipes and pumps and the gas engines that power the pumps for Natural Gas?

 

[Tirediron]

Yeah like those, grid is never without draw backs. and relying on one section of the grid is a bit sketchy. but here is a link to an interesting historic hydro electric project the is now feeding the grid Sandon
It still uses wooden stave pipe, or did when I visited

 

[Camalot]

I have and have used both natural gas and a wood stove. I have used them together. I have used each separate yearly. I like the wood heat better than the gas heat but if I am buying the wood as opposed to cutting it myself then there is no real difference economic wise. In extreme cold snaps it's pretty nice augmenting the wood heat with the gas. However because my gas heater is a wall furnace, I am opting to add two radiant gas heaters that require no electricity. Just my personal opinion and-preference. I have inherited my parents house and this is the 5th Winter and I have had to repair this Sears wall heater twice already.

 

[Tirediron]

@ Camalot, I agree with your post, as long as the pressure stay up natural gas is a great heat source. back in the day when the compressors were independent gas service was very reliable, but now that it is remote controled via the internet, it might get sketchy, and perhaps some parts haven't been "upgraded".

 

[Camalot]

@ Camalot, I agree with your post, as long as the pressure stay up natural gas is a great heat source. back in the day when the compressors were independent gas service was very reliable, but now that it is remote controled via the internet, it might get sketchy, and perhaps some parts haven't been "upgraded".

You're actually very right. I live in an area that produces natural gas and actually have a 24" pipeline crossing the home place right through the middle "and" have a gas well drilling right in the middle of the property. We used to be on free house gas in lieu of easement but I guess Jerry Jones has to pay those Cowboys in real money. However, even in a shtf crisis there would be enough gas in the line to run my home at least anyway. This is an 800# line while a house is regulated to only 6 ounces. Even an empty line would provide my house enough gas. And I have enough knowledge and experience I will open the well myself if things become that bad. And on top of all that the fella who pumps the well is my next door neighbor and used to work for me. I actually got him into the oilfield.

 

[Mountain trapper]

I heat my house with wood heat. It keeps us warm and thats all that matters. Also have a propane furnace with a heat pump, which is seldom used. If I had coal on the property I'd use it.

 

[Frodo]

I prefer radiant heat generated from a simple rocket stove. it uses 1/2 the wood a wood stove uses

 

[Tirediron]

the magic of a rocket stove is the actual full burn of wood, instead of smoldering it like most people do in a main market stove, put tiny wood in a conventional stove at clean burn excess air and the efficiency goes way up.
The best heat is the heat that you like and works for you

 

[Frodo]

conventual wood stoves tend to have a creosote build up in the flue that requires maintaince and can catch fire. the flue in a rocket stove is part of the burn chamber where the creosote is burned off during use. rocket stoves are far more efficient than a wood stove and the co2 emissions are almost zero with the exhaust gas being steam
down side. i love watching a fireplace fire as the flames dance around, that site to me is soothing and i tend to drift into deep thought as i watch

 

[Tirediron]

I agree that rocket stoves work well and are very efficient, mostly cause they burn full blast, with all the excess air they can handle, conventional stoves would work a lot better if they didn't have any way to block intake air either,
Rocket mass heaters are cool, but you basisly have to build them in, and you need to be able to function with out the insurance scam system.

 

[Frodo]

Rocket stoves are adjustable
if you look at the metal partition between the air intake at the firebox and the shelf holding the wood. that shelf slides in or out and adjust air flow just like a damper on a fireplace

 

[Tirediron]

The term rocket stove was put in place due to the roar of the burn at about 250% excess air, as soon as the intake air is limited it becomes just another stove. Fireplace dampers are on the exhaust side, where all fire control belongs.
https://www.rocketstoves.com/

 

[Tirediron]

And RMH have draw problems in certain atmospheric conditions at altitude. They are not the magic that they are touted to be, kind of like the onesize fits all natural house, or the debacle of earthships.

 

[Tootsie]

This post would probably fit better on the rant for the day page.
I’m done with wood stoves, no longer want one. They need proper care, cleaning, and common sense. Hubby’s job, not mine, as I can not carry wood downstairs to the basement. 40 years, should have it figured out by now. 3 chimney fires last month, creosote out the ying yang. Yes, a simple cleaning is in order. But, if a person doesn’t know or care, aggravated allergies, extra dust and dirt, smoked out rooms, and a real fire hazard- it ain’t worth it. Have a wood stove only if you can handle it.

 

[billyjack]

I would not. You can buy a lot of gas for what you would pay for the wood heater and installation.

I'm tempted to put one in my house.

We used to get wellhead gas from the gas well a couple hundred yards away but the oil and gas company shut that off. There is a gas company in the community, but for irrigation wells only. Some people have tried to get them to allow it to be used for household gas, but so far they have refused.

What I'm really tempted to do is to not heat the house at all. Instead, build something like a Navajo hogan close to the house and live in it in the winter. My house is pretty big and heating it one be expensive -- when you have run on "free" wellhead gas (not entirely free since we didn't get royalties on what we used) for 70 years, you never saw much reason to do too much to insulate it more. A hogan about 300 to 500 square feet would be much cheaper and a wood stove would do well.

Live in the hogan in the winter and the house in the summer.

I have also considered putting in a small quonset hut and insulating it.

That said, the heating isn't the biggest problem. Mosquitos are. Around 25 years or so ago, the West Nile Virus mutated and got stronger. There are places on the farm where I won't go without long pants, long sleeve shirts, hat, and lots of mosquito repellent.

 

[billyjack]

Speaking of quonset huts, is anyone familiar with the Bali style pod houses? It might be interesting to build something like that with quonset huts connected by enclosed hallways to each other.

Perhaps a larger quonset hut in the middle to act as living room, kitchen, and dining room and one on each side for bedrooms.

Nice thing, too, is that they should probably be pretty much immune to grass fires.