woodburning stove for office/shop

[hallerb]

How valuable is the OP TIME???

by the time you harvest the wood, split the wood, stack the wood far enough away so you dont attract termites, haull the wood inside, burn the wood, haul out the ashes and maintain the stove

well your wood is on site which helps a lot.

but it takes lots of time to do all that work.

what can you sell a hour of shop time for?

free firewood sounds wonderful but its not really free:(

dont forget to notify your homeowners insurance company, your rates will likely go up:(

but if you dont notify them, and have a fire, they may disown you covering nothing......

isnt free firewood wonderful, sorry for dumping water on your plans

[Jules]

Hmm, 8 cords will last about a season here and is a weekend of harvesting / splitting / stacking... not too bad.

Given the price of electric or propane heat I think it makes sense - providing you have a sustainable source of wood (we've only got a couple of acres of trees on our property, so would need to go further afield to make up a full season's load)

cheers

Jules

[Jim Elbrecht]

add; Cleaning up the dirt that gets tracked in, the ash that escapes, the smoke that discolors and the customers who can't come to your office because they don't like the smell.

The OP didn't say what the business was. If it is a white color business, forget the stove. If it is some sort of business where the stove adds the right ambiance- then maybe it is worth it.

That's certainly a question that should be asked.

Jim

[Tony]

Will this stove have double wall stove pipe?

As far as purposely creating a chimney fire, yes I did it all the time up in PA. Every few days to a week, after it was good and hot I'd open the door and the flames went up the flue and the very thin layer of creosote was burnt off. After 2 years I had someone out to clean it and he said it's about as clean as it will ever get. Oh, and I even burnt a lot of pine wood scraps. Run them hot and they stay clean.

[Tony]

They still sell the kits, I think at Tractor Supply. I had a friend with one out in a room off the garage where we hung out. They are excellent for fast heat! And I was surprised at how long he used it with the same 55 gallon drum. I wanted to put one in my garage for that reason, it was FAST! I could do it, even legally, but if my garage burnt down my insurance wouldn't pay.

[Bill]

My newer woodstove is designed to have a "secondary burn". This reduces the smoke. So less smoke emissions.

Basically my neighbor has an old fashioned fireplace and there is a very visible cloud of smoke constantly coming out of his chimney. With my EPA certified woodstove going full blast, sometimes you can't see any smoke coming out or very little.

EPA is Environmental Protection Agency.

[Jules]

Yes, just wasn't sure what the difference was between that and UL approval, which is what all the insurance companies around here seem to be worried about... (none of them ever mentioned any EPA approval requirement to us, anyway*)

Given what Don said, it seems like they're concerned with it being safe, but they don't give a hoot about how 'green' it is - which I suppose as far as getting insurance goes is the way it should be, as insurance companies aren't there to police environmental issues...

• in a furnace rather than stove context, however. Maybe that's the key thing.

cheers

Jules

[K]

UL basically certifies that electrical things will FAIL safely, and could only underwrite the electrics of a stove. For a wood stove that would mean the blowers or whatever if they're present. I think someone is confusing the EPA certification with UL.

[Tony]

The EPA is part of the US government, mostly curbing pollution. UL, "Underighters Laboratories" is a private business that tests and approves mostly electrical devices if they are safe. Many electrical products are sold without the UL approval and this is perfectly legal.

[Jules]

Yeah, maybe they are - although the interesting thing is that we called around ten different insurance companies, and UL approval was what they

*all* asked about. Maybe it's some odd competitive thing and they're all watching what each other is ofering - once one of 'em mistakenly puts UL approval as a requirement in their policies all the others automatically follow without really checking facts first...

cheers

Jules

[Kurt Ullman]

UL does a heck of a lot more than only electrical things any more. Specific to this discussion from the UL website: UL can evaluate gas-fired or solid-fuel fired hearth product appliances to the applicable U.S., Canadian and global requirements. This includes factory-built fireplaces, fireplace stoves, room heaters, pellet stoves and fireplace inserts. We can evaluate gas-only fired units, solid-fuel units, or units that use a combination of gas and other heat sources such as wood, coal or other solid-fuel. We also evaluate outdoor gas or solid-fuel appliances such as fireplaces or log sets.

[Larry Caldwell]

There are other advantages to heating with wood. Just having your own energy utility is very nice. When the power goes out, the warmth and comfort of my home doesn't change. I have a camp stove for cooking during outages, but have never used it. Instead, I just cook on top of the wood stove. Warm feet and hot meals are a real luxury in an ice storm. I feel sorry for those folks who are trying to cook over a burning bank statement.

It is also good exercise, and more moral than burning fossil fuels.

[Bill]

EPA would be required by state law or local law and the local building inspector would be the one looking for this.

Then UL stands for Underwriters Laboratories. An "underwriter" is an insurance company. So UL inspects things for insurance companies. And if there is a UL label, then the insurance company can be assured the product will not cause a fire (if installed properly). And that there will probably not be any claim from you for damages resulting from a fire.

Thus they can collect your monthly insurance premium and not have to pay anything out! The insurance company is then happy!

Here are the requirements for Oregon (for example) about the EPA label...

[Bob F]

Completely illegal in Washington state.

[Roger Shoaf]

A neat idea is a wood burning furnace that sits outside. This heats a water jacket and then you pump the water to a heat exchanger in the office/shop.

Inside no soot, no bugs and you can stack the wood close to the furnace instead of lugging it inside and lugging the ashes back out.

You might also look into a heat pump.