UTMC

I burn wood. Chimney? Can't help you, it was already here when we moved in.

Single-wall black stovepipe connecting to double-wall, going straight up through the roof. Connected to a new wood stove that works swell.

3 1/2 years ago when we moved in, the first thing we did was to move the oil furnace to the alley and install a Resolute Acclaim woodstove. Modern, so it doesn't piss off the E.P.A.

Freestanding woodstove, double-walled pipe goes straight up to 2 feet below the ceiling, then 90 degree turn horizontaly to the cinder block/w/terracotta lining existing chimney that used to serve the oilburner.

I love it, it is wonderfull.

Chimney cleaner products that you burn in the fire are very expensive.

I looked online and found (from e-how) a recipe for 4 parts borax to 1 part salt. Used it every two or three weeks at 1/4 tablespoon on a hot fire, and this year the chimneysweep was very impressed with the very small amount of creosote.

I have a pellet stove in my living room, and was just thinking about how I'd love to put one in a garage someday.

Pellets are cheap, burn way cleaner than normal wood stoves, and have less smoke. It's even cheaper to buy in bulk.
40lb bags cost between $5 and $12, depending on where you buy and the brand.
A metric ton can be purchased for around $200. I use about 50 lbs a week right now. I can imagine it'll go up a tad as it gets colder.
It burns hot, it burns clean, and it's cheap.

You can also vent it out of the side of your house instead of a chimney, much like venting a dryer. I can post some pics of mine, if you like.

Also, most pellet stoves are automatic feed, so you don't have to add wood or anything. My hopper holds 50lbs. You set the feed, fan, and vent to control the size of the flame. The fan blows hot air around and keeps the unit from getting too hot.

The only part of the stove I can't touch with a bare hand are the glass/metal door.

I stopped when I got tired of people complaining about that smell of smoked ham everywhere I went. or maybe it was the fire alarm going on two levels above .

While I'm not a fan of the stoves which burn little wooden rabbit turds, CarolinaBoy has a good point about the venting. Poke a hole through the wall and pop a vent through. Easier than a chimney.

Also, there's this crazy thing:



A window mounted pellet stove, from: United States Stove Company (made in China). No venting required at all when installed. Just chuck it (carefully, it weighs 150 pounds) in a winder and press play.

As long as we're buying equipment and building chimneys and such, I gotta put in a plug for liquified petroleum gas and liquified petroleum gas accessories. Wood tends to have a long cycle time for warm up and cool down, and a small LP burner can warm up your garage a lot faster for occasional use.

FYI:
http://www.northerntool.com/downloads/m ... 700113.pdf

Rench has a Harley, so perhaps quick warm up is not something he strives for.

We heat our house exclusively w/ wood, burn about 5 cords in a really cold winter. This is Maine, by the way. Your needs may vary. Dry wood is much more efficient than wet wood. If you want a safe, efficient chimney, you should use Metalbestos pipe or equivalent.

when I installed a waste oil furnace in my shop, we used A-vent insulated chimney pipe. Not cheap, but it was easy to install and kept the wood and tar roof from catching fire, which is helpful...

My new home came with a wood stove, and I've been getting into the swing of using it. Yesterday I was doing some research on the stove (an Upland model 207, from the wood-stove-boom of the late 70s early 80s, made in USA by a company now gone to anyone, anyone, China) and I learned something from a diagram in a PDF of old advertising:

There's a baffle inside the stove that can be in two positions, and by moving it to the other position the interior volume of the stove forces the heat through an s shape, causing it to radiate more and burn more rather than just race up the chimney. I experimented with it today and holy crap, does it work. The logs are burning hotter but also slower. It even changed the smell of the burn. Just because I slid a flat piece of iron a few inches to one side.

It's pretty wild that something which seems to be just a cast iron box is actually so sensitive and adjustable.

I feel the heat you're bringing.

Our house had a Salvo Citation wood stove, built during those same boom years by a now defunct Fall River, MA company. It was a wood/coal stove with a shaker grate.

With no aesthetics input from their wives, the metal workers made this thing to put out heat, and that's about it. The nonadjustable baffle inside was designed to do the same as you mentioned, sending the hotness up in an "s" pattern to reburn some of the gasses and smoke. Problem is, the stove is shallow and the baffle was almost an afterthought, like a barely noticeable speedbump for the rising heat. Just a gaping opening straight to the chimney. In the past two heating seasons, the baffle had rusted through. Today, the EPA might shake their head looking the design.

And it ate wood. Oh, it loved wood. If it was painted blue, had googly eyeballs and had been designed by Jim Henson, it would have made OM NOM NOM NOM noises. I think it was a combination of not being very airtight, having firebrick that needed replacement, and the air coursing up through the grate. Poor design. This monster could get real hot, but couldn't be throttled down enough for an overnight burn. A full load at 11:00pm would require me to be up around 3:30am in a cool house for another full load on top of inadequate coals.

So it was replacement time. I wasn't looking for fancy cast iron stoves (because of cost, and because the stove wouldn't look right in our dumpy house), just wanted a plate steel house heater. I shopped around at Tractor Supply, at Home Depot, and at Lowes, and checked out their burners. Cheap Chinese crap here, cheap Chinese crap there. Thin metal, poor sealing, small fireboxes. Cheap prices. Then I walked into a stove store and saw what now graces our hearth, a Pacific Energy Super 27. More expensive, but understandably so. Thick metal, huge firebox, and a fancy smansy stainless steel box baffle that floats and shoots flames downward when it reburns gasses. No gaping hole. This stove doesn't like to let go of it's smoke without a fight. And it's Canadian built.

Burn time? Yessir! I can sleep through the night now. A full load at 9:00pm will keep things cozy until 6:00am.

BTW, regarding http://www.utmc-forum.org/pub/viewtopic.php?t=16618482 , I am not paid by, nor is this an advertisement for Pacific Energy.

Ha Ha Ha!

I'm not a lobbyist for Resolute woodstoves either, but I like their stuff!

Now that's cool!