Hi BobMac
Pro’s and Cons to having that lower level wood stove.
Like J.O. you can be accused of having a wood-mistress in the basement spending so much time down there.
An advantage is you can burn, use-up some really crumbly junk woods without a swmbo nagging about wood-filth:
We just finished up the very last of the years too long on the ground cottonwood that came when we bought this place. The gone punky, buggy stuff. But now onto the really good dry Douglas Fir wood means we are halfway though the total of this winters supply of dry seasoned fuel wood.
You will not be wanting to ever burn green unseasoned wood in that long of run of chimney piping. Especially with that near horizontal run. You would creosote up badly.
Ha! Buy your steel sweeping brush and fiberglass extension rods now before the need.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Yes you are right about the long sweep under the porch. That’s why I put a cap at the bottom of the vertical pipe, and I can remove to sweep both directions if needed.
Green Wood? What’s that. The dry wood I will be burning is two years old or more. It is popular wood that I have decided not to burn in my gasifiers. I have about a cord of that stuff cut and a lot more not cut up yet. Might try some of the cherry wood but would rather burn it in my gasifier or turn it into charcoal for cooking or gasifier char gases.
Door is open to the house and it is 85 °f or 29.4 °C in the three concrete wall garage/shop area. With the metal exit door with a dog flap door and double garage door, it is not air tight area.
The electric heat to the house is turned down to 50 °f or 10.0 °C, we are comfortable in a 75 ° f or 23.9 °C
Dana can now open the windows any time she wants to now in the cold winter months and I will not care. HOW Heating On Wood that how.
Do all women do this or am I the only one to be married to a very special and unique woman as this?
If you are asking if my wife likes to open windows in winter, then the answer is, not generally. If you are asking if my wife is very special and unique, then the answer is absolutely yes! I am blessed beyond words with a wonderful wife!
HI bob mac, i was wondering if you experianced wood gas vehicle drivers noticed any difference in power between popal,cottenwood- or hardwood in the trucks- or just last longer.Thanks
The difference between the soft wood poplar tree we have out west, these are the tall wind break trees and the soft wood Siberian Elm tree, they burn really good and fast. No comparison to the hard wood cherry trees that I like to use for wood in my WK Gasifier.
It seems the soft wood makes fragile charcoal compared to the cherry wood charcoal.
I’m sure I’m boring you all to tears, but it is very interesting to me about this cherry wood. I have only burned in my gasifier or turn it into charcoal in my retort or the fire pit group fireside gatherings.
Running a stove is very new to me. My one in Moses Lake and one house in Wenatchee both had the inefficient open fire place that would waste more heat up the chimney then the fir would produce. I call them for looks type of fireplaces.
I have been burning small to medium side chunks of wood no spit just solid wholes branches up to 6" across. They burn good.
The Estate stove is a very good design in the ash pan below the grate there has been very little charcoal produced. On the second day of burning and the ash pan is about half full. House is cozy and warm even with the garage door cracked open a little. It is 95 °f in the garage this might be that it has warmed up outside. We are in the low 40 °f .
You must have a cherry tree farm, how many tree you got, i dont really know how you wood stove design is layed out that makes it more efficient, Could you make a sketch drawing of the unit feachers and gas flow travel. sounds like it works good like it is-Its 29 f hear now, we will be in the teens in next week or so.Winter sure is closing in for sure.
I guess I missed this thread. I’m going to be interested in hearing you report about that long slanted duct run to you vertical pipe Bob. I’m wanting to run one across the ceiling of my greenhouse rather that vent the heater right through the wall. I guess a picture would explain it better. I’ll work on that. As far as burning punky wood, if it has a BTU I’ll burn it. I always burn my fire full tilt anyway so throwing in some crap wood hurts nada.
The orchard is next to the house so I can have all the yearly trimmings and big wood pruning that is done. All I half to do is get it out of the orchard. The past few years Roy has been removing older trees to plant new ones. He planted 430 new Sacena cherry trees, it’s a new of variety of cherry that will ripped later in July after the main crops of cherries have been harvested.
800 plus trees in this orchard. Lots of fire wood, gasifier wood and charcoal to be maid.
Yes Tom, as Steve said I better find a chimney wire brush so I can clean the sweep out occasionally when need. I am doing the trick that Steve mentioned is to run it hot when starting the stove up at lighting it off to help burn and clean the soot out. At the vertical pipe bend where my clean out is , it is about 1/2 mississippi hot to touch. Half way up the vertical pipe I can keep my hand on it 1 Mississippi.
It will be a great heat source under the deck once I get it all closed in for winter months. Heated storage area I like that.
THATS one good wood source buddy you got there-whats the cheepest way to buy qwanity bunch of cherrys, any prices gestimate. are they cheeper than the regular store prices.
This was a big thing for going to wood heating. Yes our electricity here is cheaper than most places on the earth. The Big hydro electric dams systems on the Columbia River. Because we are a part of the Douglas County PUD our power is pretty much at the cost. $00.03 @ a kwh.
But now with the electric heating is off for the first time, I don’t care if the windows are open. It stills a problem in the summer time A/C cooling and I find a window open or door. As my dad would “Say you can not heat or cool the out side air that way”.
It is 75 °f in the house, in the garage 79 ° f . “How Sweet It Is” these famous words of the comedian Jacky Gleason would say on his TV Show. I just say HOW, Heat On Wood.
Okay I think I am figuring this Estate Heatrola stove out.
I do not want to see any smoke coming out of the chimney after the stove warms up. Using Steve 's method works great. Thanks Steve for explaining this for us newbies.
This little stove is a great heater.
It will warm the garage up in minutes in the morning to 75 °f. Any hotter is just to hot so what I have been doing is open the down stairs door to the garage and open the side door to outside just enough to keep the temperature to 75 ° f. With the window open a little upstairs the heat comes up the stairway and heats the whole house nicely. The down stairs bedrooms and bathroom are heated too.
I am looking forward to see what the electric bill will be.
Spent about a hour cutting up wood to fit the stove out of the year old dry stacked wood. About 4 days worth of burning.
Kevin, we have so many fruit tree orchards in this area that you can get it for free. Especially if you will pick it up out of the orchard for them. But if you want Douglas fir, Western Larch, fir, or pine. You better dig into your pocket around here. My Son in law Mike gets his wood for free up north where he works, brings it home cuts it up and sales it for $180 a cord. It’s more if he delivers it. It might be at a higher price now.
It more than pays for his diesel fuel for his Dodge truck to travel back and forth to work.
This passed 2023 year for about a month now, I have been working on getting the Estate stove installed and working for heating the garage/shop and house. It is the morning of 2024 the outside temperature is at 55° f . This is one of the warmest January 1st I can remember.
Well just for fun I started up the stove anyways. I need to do something with all the big 2 year old pile of gnarly knotty cherry wood pieces I have collected out of the orchard. Cut it up with my electrical chainsaw and into the stove. It is burning great and free. Just a little sweat and exercise on my body. All good.
Off grid living? No, but it does feel good to slow the electrical kw meter down a little.
I added a outside air intake next to the Estate stove. The bottom ash door is where you regulate the air coming into the stove, you can see the round disk.
I used the cut out hole saw to make the hole and use the round disk left over to make a damper to close the air off on the out side when not in use. With this air supply line I will not need to open the dog/cat swing door 8 feet away to let air to come into the garage/shop area. Instead the cold air will flow in under the Estate stove and be picked up there and in to the stove bottom door opening. It is working great, no worries now of a mouse entering the garage through the swing door when it is open at night.
The capacity of the stove that can be loaded is limited, much smaller than other stoves.
If I was burning soft woods I would feeding this stove every 1/2 of a hour or so like Steve mentioned when he used one many years ago.
This chunk of hard cherry wood is going to be timed. It was placed into the stove at 12:45 pm.
The piece is 7" x 9" . I could have put a little bigger piece in. It is sitting on a hot bed of coals.
I have been cutting my pieces half this size and putting 2 to 3 pieces in. On the average I have been checking on the stove about every hour or so to make sure it is burning in the correct hear zone on the stove pipe.
Well back outside to saw some more wood, 55 °f and partly sunny. Warm weather we are having but winter is not over yet. Forecasts say more snow is coming to the Westside even as low as sea level on the costal shores of the USA. That would be something to see. We might get some of the spill over from the Cascade mountains.
Wood heat is fantastic. No one would ever consider doors open when heating with electricity.
