Blizzards and useless chimneys

It's a tricky one. I think both cause condensation, but kero is less 'dangerous' than butane in a closed space. However it stinks!

I'd probably choose kero, all things being equal. Easily purchased and stored, and ultimately less to worry about.

 

I love this! Very good solution to the problem, with a multi level house. Here we tend to flue horizontally for ground floor (what you call first floor) fires in multi level homes. It can get pricey to flue up to roof, though you do get the benefit of heating upstairs for free

 

I disagree. Nothing beats as×ing up to a wood stove.

 

Yeah I get that you have an ambiguous word for fireplace when you're talking to Americans you should understand words mean different things here.

I don't care the rationale. When you say fireplace it's not talking about any of this stuff it's talking about a hole in the wall like the picture I presented to you.

When you're talking to people from other countries about things that are happening in their country you should probably use language that they're familiar with and not just belligerently insist on them accepting your terms which make no sense there.

 

If I'm ever in Australia I'm sure that information will be useful to me.

In the US fireplace refers to the picture I presented of a fireplace and only that.

 

Burning pine didn’t seem to be a problem. It’s what everyone burned where I grew up. We may have run a brush through the chimney/stove pipe once a year on average. Probably less. I agree 100% on coal. I remember my dad getting some somewhere when I was very young and burning it for a couple weeks. We all hated it. We never did it again.

Thanks. I’ll look into the stabilizer. It sounds like I need to find a source and buy some extra wicking. I’ve used kerosene lanterns a bit as a kid. It sounds like the heaters behave similarly.

 

I remember seeing something like that being built into a house my dad.dry walled back in the early ‘80’s. It was a monstrosity but looked functional. I’ll bet all that mass would radiate heat for 24 hours after the last firing. That’s what I like least about my old Ashley wood “furnace”. When the fire goes out it’s stone cold.

The best setup I’ve ever seen for storing heat was what my friend’s dad built. He plumbed a wood stove to circulate water through a jacket and into several hundred gallons of tanks in the greenhouse built onto the front (south side) of the house. If nobody was home all day to put wood in the stove it didn’t matter a bit.

 

Probably a very good option for many. But I spend nothing maintaining a chimney and heat my house for a few dollars a month even when it’s below 0°F.

You say it uses a gas cylinder but what kind of gas? Here a gas cylinder would denote propane. Does it require electricity and how is it lit/started? I’ve never seen one but it sounds like a great unit.

 

We do. I'm retired. I don't live like I did in my early 20's, in a studio apartment, using a card table as a desk. I've worked hard and now enjoy all the things I have EARNED.

 

In the UK the ones I've seen use butane but just looked at Walmart and theirs use propane. They don't need electricity and lit by pressing the ignition button. Each gas canister last for several days so ideal for emergency use as they also take little storage space and especially useful for the older community who are mainly in the at risk group. They were very popular in the 1970s until central heating took over.

They are similar to camping portable gas stoves but without an open flame

 

Cool. Thanks. I guess I’ve seen the camping models but wasn’t aware people heated homes with them. Their use indoors is illegal in most places in the US. Unfortunately apparently many Americans aren’t responsible enough to ensure proper ventilation and killed themselves with similar heaters.

I would certainly use one if it was an emergency though. The Wal-mart model claims 72 hours run time at low setting with a 20 lb bottle which sounds pretty good. Comparable in heating potential at low setting to a 1800W electric space heater.

Again, thanks for the info.

 

Thermal mass is key. The more you have, the more efficient your wood burn will be. Northern Europeans (Scandinavians and Russians in particular), used .. and some still do .. build amazing monoliths for this purpose. Beds on top sometimes, too. Very smart! I'd love to have one, but our climate just doesn't warrant it:



PS: water jackets are fantastic. Very cheap way to get hot water!

 

We have a family of five, and a regular sized house .. but we're very frugal with power.

 

The inside of a Russian hearth. A horizontal version of that complex chimney!

 

I have one of those wood furnaces, Central Boiler. Outside Wood Furnace. has a 200 gallon water jacket. the fire heats the water to 185F, which then gets pumped into the house into radiators and floor heating. I load that stove twice a day and have around 80F in my house, even it is -25 outside. As back up for power outages, I have a regular small wood stove in the house.
You always need a backup, if you live at the ars of the world..
Wood comes from my forest, its just work.
Solar 10kw

 

That sounds fantastic. Impressive set up!

 

Fireplaces are efficient at heating the chimney stack, that's the purpose of a chimney. They achieve this by sending 85% of it's heat up the flu.

A wood burning stove is efficient at heating a room, so it just have a flu and not a stack.

So the pros and cons - real fires take awhile to warm a house, but if you keep the fire going for a few days, the stack will continue to radiate heat out for a few days after the fire has died out. A wood burner quickly heats the room, but as soon as it goes out, the room cools relatively quickly.

In many cases, fireplaces were disused and boarded over, mainly due to gas/oil boilers with central heating. But with the price of energy, people in the UK are scrambling to reinstate fires, or opening the fireplace and installing a wood burner.

Those with working fires, maybe many got caught out with not enough wood/coal/kindling.

 

Modern interpretations of the Russian heater are much less obtrusive. Built in a way which doesn't visually fill half the room. EG:

 

The ideal is a masonry build (for thermal mass), with slow combustion features (sealed, and fully baffled flue).

Being caught out without at least a few days of firewood and kindling, gives me nightmares. Even if power cuts aren't involved, the cost of heating via the grid is astronomical in many parts of the world. Mine included!

 

Burning softwood can often lead to coating the inside of the flu with sap, increasing the chance of a flu fire, you are better off using hardwood.

Also, use raw wood, never use wood that has been painted or stained. Paint and staines/varnish increases the temperature of the gases that cracks your clay chimney pot, plus it shortens the life of the flaunching on the top of the stack.

 

I'm UK, so most houses are masonry. Theres nearly as many bricks in a chimney stack as there is in the rest of the house.