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... I need to install 1 or maybe 2 wood fireplaces (if heat cannot distribute itself). Total house is 750 sqft, on a footprint that is about 20x40 (long rectangular shape). Living room and bedroom are at each end; bathroom and open kitchen in the middle.
... 1. Google search result shows these brands: "Ashley", "Drolet", "US stove", “England Stove Works", "Century". Are these the most popular brands? Any others that you can recommend?
Oh thank God. From the title I thought you were talking about fireplaces. But now you are talking instead about woodstoves.
Brother Ben Franklin made a huge discovery that led him to invent the potbelly stove. An iron firebox set in the center of a room heats a room much better than a 10-ton masonry mass that sits outside of the house.
You are discussing a small house [750 sqft] so unless it gets very cold you should be fine with one woodstove.
I live in a 2400 sqft house in a region that normally sees -20f temps outside. A single woodstove is sufficient for us.
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... 2. Can one person (myself) install this type of heater?
Yes, that is typical
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... 3. Why does this have to be so heavy? Does the weight relate to capping the temperature of the unit?
For the device to last many years, it needs to be constructed of heavy gauge steel. The thicker the steel panels mean it will be heavy. Also many woodstoves have a firebox that is lined with firebricks. 40 or 50 bricks will be heavy.
The last time that I had a stove delivered, it was a Kitchen Queen 480
It was in a dozen separate parts that needed to be assembled. And I removed the firebricks and carried them inside separately.
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... 4. Some units have ”maximum burning hours" of say 5 hours. Is this something to be concerned about? I want to be able to sleep through the night. Why is there a max hours anyway?
This is largely dependent on the size of the firebox. A smaller firebox can fit less fuel inside, so it will burn for a shorter length of time.
It means that your evening routine must be that the last thing you do before climbing into bed, will be to feed the stove. In 5 hours the stove will go out, in 6 hours the house will begin to cool. In 7 or 8 hours the house will be chilly.
Many of our neighbors tap maples. those guys will have a 2foot by 4foot pan on their woodstove filled with sap that must be kept hot and steaming, but never allowed to boil. Those woodstoves must be tended hourly for a week straight.
Wood stove is nice but I kind of want that fire-window. It adds a lot to the aesthetics. Are there wood stoves that have a glass window to see the fire?
Most modern wood stoves do have at least one window in the door.
I think what you really want to do is install either fireplace inserts or install your wood stoves free standing with an exhaust pipe going into the gas fireplace.
For insurance purposes you may be better off having a pro install these.
Most modern wood stoves do have at least one window in the door.
I think what you really want to do is install either fireplace inserts or install your wood stoves free standing with an exhaust pipe going into the gas fireplace.
Our KitchenQueen has upgraded front doors that both have glass windows.
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... For insurance purposes you may be better off having a pro install these.
I did not have any issues with our insurance.
They wanted photos that show all sides, they asked me about clearances. When I explained that the nearest wall is 20' away, they wanted photos to prove the clearance. No big deal I took some photos.
We have two woodstoves in our house. One is the Kitchen Queen, and the other is our primary heating woodstove a two-barrel Vogelzang [it heats water, that circulates through a thermal bank downstairs, which then circulates through our heated flooring.]
Our house is 40' by 60', so it was not difficult to set the woodstoves on the centerline 20' from the nearest wall. The stoves are 20' apart from each other.
If you are thinking of actually using wood for heat, you need an iron stove, not a fireplace. Fireplaces look pretty but are terrible heaters; inefficient.
For a small house of 750 SF, one stove ought to be sufficient.
They're heavy because they're made of heavy wall cast iron. Much of the heating effect comes from radiation from the hot iron, whcih is then heated by the burning wood. Once up to temperature, the haevy iron keeps radiating heat for a long time with only minor additional heat inputs from wood.
I would recommend professional installation. What is already there MIGHT or MIGHT NOT be appropriate for the particular stove you buy; and burning your house down is a lose-lose-proposition any way you cut it.
I've lived in New England where wood burning stoves are often used in a truly serious way for real heating (if your indicated address is correct you're in the SF Bay area where it never gets really cold, not Maine cold) and people take them seriously. I'd urge you to do likewise. Anyone who's done any significant amount of wood heating has some stories of near misses.
What he said. It's pretty clear from the OP's posts he has no experience with this. The best stove pipe you can get now is stainless steel and I think triple walled, even with a chimney fire burning in it it hardly gets warm on the outside surface. You want to have the chimney installed such that it is tall enough and straight enough that it draws properly.
You know actually you probably want a rather small stove, it's better to have a stove on the small side that you can turn the draft up to burn a good hot flame, rather than have an oversized stove that you have to choke the draft down so the house does not get hot. There in the SF area you are not going to need a lot of heat.
Now the question of the SMOG police hassling you for having a wood stove is one issue, and the issue of where are you going to buy firewood there? If you are buying small bundles of wood from retail stores your per-cord price is out the roof. I'm in fruit growing country so apple, pear, and cherry branches pruned from local trees are easy to source by the truckload or cord.
You can heat a house with a good fireplace and a good quality cap on the front of it... and GOOD Quality Wood!! The in-laws heated their ~1200 sf house with a large fireplace and an eagle cap on the front of it. It was a large fireplace that held 1/2 or 1/4 split logs. Putting in three or four pieces at bedtime would burn through the night. It would keep the house hot to warm when is was -20F outside in the foothills in far NE Oregon. Neither the fireplace, nor the Eagle cap, where cheap end items, so if you are looking to go cheap, then go with a moderate sized wood stove.
For your fire window. The Eagle cap had windows on the doors, but after a few burnings they were pretty much covered in soot and you only got a bit of vague yellow/orange light shining through. That will happen to your unit too if you are using the fireplace/wood stove as your primary heat source and burning wood all day most everyday. You likely won't be able to keep up with cleaning the windows, and after a few tries, likely won't want to.
You can heat a house with a good fireplace and a good quality cap on the front of it... and GOOD Quality Wood!! The in-laws heated their ~1200 sf house with a large fireplace and an eagle cap on the front of it. It was a large fireplace that held 1/2 or 1/4 split logs. Putting in three or four pieces at bedtime would burn through the night. It would keep the house hot to warm when is was -20F outside in the foothills in far NE Oregon. Neither the fireplace, nor the Eagle cap, where cheap end items, so if you are looking to go cheap, then go with a moderate sized wood stove.
I was not familiar with the term 'Eagle Cap' so I googled it. It appears to be the name of a state park in NE Oregon.
Fireplaces: traditional fireplaces are usually multiple tonnes of stone or brick masonry, with one side of the thermal mass facing the living room of a house. The fire in a fireplace is surrounded by the thermal mass of tonnes of masonry. You are heating a lot of thermal mass. Since three-quarters of that mass is sitting outside, as it radiates heat three-quarters will radiate to the great outdoors. At most you might be able to get one-quarter of the thermal-mass heat to radiate toward the house.
I prefer the idea of having my firebox completely inside my home. So as it radiates heat in all 360 degrees around it, all of that heat remains inside my home.
Our heating woodstove has 50-feet of 5/8" copper tubing coils in it's secondary combustion chamber. In the hope of getting as much heat as possible into circulating water which later heats our floor.
What he said. It's pretty clear from the OP's posts he has no experience with this. The best stove pipe you can get now is stainless steel and I think triple walled, even with a chimney fire burning in it it hardly gets warm on the outside surface. You want to have the chimney installed such that it is tall enough and straight enough that it draws properly.
You know actually you probably want a rather small stove, it's better to have a stove on the small side that you can turn the draft up to burn a good hot flame, rather than have an oversized stove that you have to choke the draft down so the house does not get hot. There in the SF area you are not going to need a lot of heat.
Now the question of the SMOG police hassling you for having a wood stove is one issue, and the issue of where are you going to buy firewood there? If you are buying small bundles of wood from retail stores your per-cord price is out the roof. I'm in fruit growing country so apple, pear, and cherry branches pruned from local trees are easy to source by the truckload or cord.
Agree with all of this.
FWIW, all my woodstoves have had firebox windows: light, easy to monitor what the firebox is doing, psychological heat from watching the flames.
Based on your questions, you need to locate and listen to a respected wood stove professional OP, not DIY.
Avoid angles/bends in the flue as much as possible. That's where creosote tends to build up and makes the flue more difficult to clean.
An oversized stove that requires damping down all the time so the house doesn't cook will require frequent cleaning due to creosote buildup. A PITA. Yes, getting the stove smogged will be an issue for you.
The type of firewood you can source locally will affect how efficient your wood heater is. If all you have available is softwood (conifers etc.) you'll burn through a lot more of it during the year. Hardwoods are more desirable. No way would I ever depend on little bundles of kiln-dried sticks from some store!
Another significant aspect of wood-based heating is where you will store all those future BTUs. You will need somewhat protected space to stage, stack, split, it before it ever reaches the stove. AND easy access to that spot for whoever delivers it. Effective woodpile management can be an art form. The wood can be too wet or green to burn, but if it's too dry, it will burn too fast. Plan ahead. Laying in greener wood in advance and letting it season will cost less. Depending on the size logs your stove will accept you'll be spending time prepping the wood to burn.
As philosopher Aldo Leopold so famously wrote "Wood you cut yourself warms you twice." The reality is, by the time you find, fell, buck, load, haul, unload, stack, split, and haul it to the stove, it warms you about 8 times.
You can heat a house with a good fireplace and a good quality cap on the front of it... and GOOD Quality Wood!! The in-laws heated their ~1200 sf house with a large fireplace and an eagle cap on the front of it. It was a large fireplace that held 1/2 or 1/4 split logs. Putting in three or four pieces at bedtime would burn through the night. It would keep the house hot to warm when is was -20F outside in the foothills in far NE Oregon. Neither the fireplace, nor the Eagle cap, where cheap end items, so if you are looking to go cheap, then go with a moderate sized wood stove.
For your fire window. The Eagle cap had windows on the doors, but after a few burnings they were pretty much covered in soot and you only got a bit of vague yellow/orange light shining through. That will happen to your unit too if you are using the fireplace/wood stove as your primary heat source and burning wood all day most everyday. You likely won't be able to keep up with cleaning the windows, and after a few tries, likely won't want to.
When it's cool, i do a pretty good job of cleaning the wood burner door window by using WD-40 on crumpled newspaper. It takes some scrubbing. To finish up, i use some windex with paper towels.
Sometimes, i like to sit in front of the fire to day dream while looking into the flames...lol
Here in Oregon, i have a double walled chimney pipe, about 8" diameter, straight up through the roof.
... Avoid angles/bends in the flue as much as possible. That's where creosote tends to build up and makes the flue more difficult to clean.
I read a book once on routing stovepipe. Every bend will concentrate the heat.
Never mind the creosote. There are hundreds of myths about creosote. For many people it is their favorite boogey man. Just refuse to violate building codes and you will never have a 'problem' with creosote.
Creosote burns, it will heat your house.
Creosote can only harm your house, if and when you have first chosen to violate building codes. Dont do illegal stuff and you will be fine. Every year in my area there are house fires, and every time the arson investigation comes out later saying that the homeowner stacked firewood up against [touching] the woodstove, or else some carpenter built wooden framing that was touching the stove pipe.
How many homes have 2X4 framing supporting their stovepipe? Illegal!
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... Another significant aspect of wood-based heating is where you will store all those future BTUs. You will need somewhat protected space to stage, stack, split, it before it ever reaches the stove. AND easy access to that spot for whoever delivers it. Effective woodpile management can be an art form.
I have had to deal with firewood that was encased in ice. Go out to the woodpile with a sledge to break a few pieces loose, then bring them inside and try to thaw the ice off of them. etc.
Pellet stove? Since you said the five hour limit (for wood) might be an issue, pellet stove could be better alternative. Easier to get pellets than wood for stove.
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