The perfect homestead???

[halfabuck]

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

I sprayed two inches of urethane foam [which is really cool stuff to play with. At the end of the project I discovered how to get it to basically double it's output]. Then nine inches of fiberglass batting.

Foam has it's own qualities which balance out those of fiberglass. It is structural, sound deadening, stops drafts, but expensive.

I found a New England supplier that markets a generic formula at half the price of the DOW product.

That's awesome. I am using 1" foam board and then planned on using an R-19 fiberglass over that between 2x6 studs. I'm in Maine not too far away from you. I hope that's enough with a woodstove. I contemplated using a few inches of foam as well instead of the board but I have already purchased it. I'm not that good at some projects and managed to fall backwards while putting up the board through a doorway and I broke my wedding ring in half. Who's telling me what here?? Thanks for the update.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by halfabuck

That's awesome. I am using 1" foam board and then planned on using an R-19 fiberglass over that between 2x6 studs. I'm in Maine not too far away from you. I hope that's enough with a woodstove. ...

Radiant heated floors are great too.

Consider Jerry rigging copper tubing in your woodstove to heat water and circ that into a thermal storage bank. Then circ warm water through radiant floors. A pretty sweet setup is possible.

[halfabuck]

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

Radiant heated floors are great too.

Consider Jerry rigging copper tubing in your woodstove to heat water and circ that into a thermal storage bank. Then circ warm water through radiant floors. A pretty sweet setup is possible.

Amazing suggestions. Builder wanted to do radiant heated floors as he has them (no heat in house yet) but I worried about the tubing but where I have a daylight basement it would be easy to get to if I had to. Love the idea of heating water with the wood stove. Thank you!!

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Don't use copper pipe or tubing in a wood stove. The heat will melt the solder and the pyroligneous acid will eat the copper. Instead use steel pipe, preferably stainless steel if you can get some from a scrap yard. It's OK to mix regular iron pipe with stainless in the same loop. Don't use teflon tape on joints in this application. Use metallic based "pipe dope". It should be copper based such as the "Never Seez" product. You want to be able to have a fire in your stove when there is no water present. You can't do that with copper tubing. Over sixty years ago I liked hearing the two check valves in the system go "tick a tick" as the water heated up and began to circulate with no pump in the system.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

Don't use copper pipe or tubing in a wood stove. The heat will melt the solder

Solder?

I have no solder on my copper tubing.

... and the pyroligneous acid will eat the copper.

'pyroligneous acid' is formed as a by-product of making charcoal. In an environment with no oxygen. It is not made in a woodstove.

... You want to be able to have a fire in your stove when there is no water present.

True.

I have done that a few times [drained it so I can use the woodstove without heating water].

... You can't do that with copper tubing.

I did not know that I can't do it.

I must be like the honeybee. Engineers agree that a bee's form makes it impossible to fly, fortunately bees do not carry engineering degrees, so they fly anyway.

... Over sixty years ago I liked hearing the two check valves in the system go "tick a tick" as the water heated up and began to circulate with no pump in the system.

Natural convection systems works neat too.

I did one woodstove hot-water system long ago that ran on natural convection.

Three of the boats I served on also used it for their reactor cooling systems. No pumps means quiet operation.

[bobbybloom]

Has anybody considered Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB) for construction of a homestead in Maine? From what I understand, it's dirt cheap if you have enough clay in your soil and with the right block press a person able to put in the labor time can build much of the structure at a very low cost.

[RHB]

Maybe this is "understood", but it wasn't to me, so I'm going to say it - there are 2 pressure release valves on the cooper tubing so the cooper tubing will never explode if the water gets too hot, of if the pump quits working.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by bobbybloom

Has anybody considered Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB) for construction of a homestead in Maine? From what I understand, it's dirt cheap if you have enough clay in your soil and with the right block press a person able to put in the labor time can build much of the structure at a very low cost.

To suggest that 'Earth Blocks' [dirt] are dirt cheap seems like a pun, to me.

[bobbybloom]

Yeah, a Cheap Pun. Though I couldn't take credit for it. I stole it from a resource on CEB I was reading about.