Hello everyone, making my first post. Im 21 years old have been burning wood my entire life, as far as i can remember have been loading the stove. Many hot humid days and cold windy days cutting and splitting wood. Mom and dad used to split and sell firewood when they were dating in the 80s. My dad and our longtime family friend built our splitter in88. Parents bought our 1988 ford f350 cabandchassis dually brand new. Dad built wooden bedsides for it to fit a full cord. Still have both truck and splitter running and operating, both still on the road. Completely original everything except changed the old flathead briggs motor to a newer kohler ohv motor 9.5hp. We have burned anywhere from 4-5 cords up to 10 or 11 once if im remembering correctly. Many friends and family have borrowed our splitter, a lot of firewood has been made with it. Have had the same all nighter (mid moe i think?) throws heat like crazy, but is obviously a pig on wood. Long story short dad moved away 6/7 years ago, parents are in divorce. My brother and mom no longer help with wood, so 98% of the wood is felled cut split stacked bought scavenged whatever it may be by me alone, occasionally i can get a friend to help. Currently i have roughly 4 cord of birch/hickory mix split & stacked for next year, didnt do much splitting in 2021 so were running low. Looking to improve my all-nighters effciency to help ease my back and knees lol. Also would like to get house warmer, stove has trouble keeping the upstairs warm in harsh cold like these past few days -15 wind chill, sound of the furnace kicking on frankly pizzes me off when we have this beast in the basement lol. It has no baffle or damper, has the electric air blower, always change the door rope every fall. We have 2 vents in the house floor with small electric fans to pull the air up from the basement. We live in Prospect,Connecticut. On a mild winter day say 30-40 degrees house will be 70. Cold days the thermostat will hit 65 and furnace will fire up to help the stove. Would like to add another floor vent at some point. Sorry if this is a little rambly run on paragraph.Been doing reading on the forum and decided to join to get everyones thoughts and opinions on how to improve my setup. Please leave me some suggestions thanks everyone
Welcome Ziti97mx !!! You sure have a lot of experience to share here.. if you could add an inline flue damper, that would help you to control the burn to allow less heat up the chimney. A piece of metal behind the stove to reflect heat away from the foundation which has no R value.. can you add insulation to your basement to keep more heat in?? I’m sure the regulars will be along tomorrow to offer suggestions.. be ready to take more pictures. Might as well post some of the splitter and the old truck. Again, welcome!!
Basement (un-insulated walls) are notorious for sucking up the heat that you would rather have upstairs. I was able to section off the stove room into a 16x18 room just by using firring strips and 1/2 foil backed R-max insulation. I also used rmax on the 2 exterior walls in the stove room. I went from having the whole 30x32 basement 70° to the stove room getting to 90° + Now the hot air comes up the steps and heats the main level to 70-72° easily. Is there a way you can insulate and section off part of your basement?
Also, i know you won't like this idea. But that "All Nighter" will never be efficient. 90% of the heat goes right out the flue. And yes, the wood is "free", but what if you could cut your wood use in half AND have a warmer house at the same time. Call Woodstock Soapstone and get yourself an Ideal Steel Hybrid Stove.
Yep, put in a flue/damper and get something to deflect heat off the basement wall (at least right behind the stove).
My parents still burn an all-nighter stove. You can pick up quite a bit of efficiency by adding a steel baffle inside the stove. Do some searching on the forum and you'll find some good threads on how to do this.
Welcome to the forum Ziti97mx. You have a difficult situation with the old stove and especially trying to heat from the basement. Like TurboDiesel stated, most of your heat is either going up the chimney or going right into those cold walls. In addition, you are trying to suck the heat up but believe it or not, that is doing it backwards. That is because of the dense air. That is, cool or cold air is more dense than warm air. This makes it difficult To move warm air into cooler air. However, if you move the cool air into the warm you will get better results and as the cool air leaves (down low) it will be replaced with the warmer air. Also, it usually takes just a small fan set on the lowest speed. Higher speeds will move more air but will also give you a very drafty house which is not comfortable. Also, even though you have much experience with wood heat, Many of the old practices are not the best, especially wood that has been put up to sell. Here is some reading you might like: Primer on Woodburning by Backwoods Savage | Firewood Hoarders Club
Thanks for the inout everyone. To clarify while i would like to find a way to boost the efficency of the stove, i understand its an old pig and not expecting fantastic improvment. My goal is more like maybe burn 1/2 or a 1/4 cord less, and utilize ways to get the house up a few degrees, especially in harsh cold. So maybe the household feels the need to BURN less/not always stoke up a tight packed hot firebox, if anyone is catching my drift. Also get a longer burn as the “allnighter” will leave a good coal bed but definetly will not burn all night lol. Thank you again everyone keep the suggestions coming, will out up some pics of the trucks saws and splitters later, thanks.
Definetly saw some good ones on here. Gonna add a damper this week and try it out for the rest of this burning season. Will look into heavier modification like a baffle when im not dependent on the stove heat, and also when i have some of this nice birch ive been splitting seasoned to test it with
How large is the basement? I like the idea of building a stove room, maybe 10’x10’ to keep the heat near the stove and essentially improve the radiant floor heat for the first floor while reducing the heat loss through a good portion of the foundation.
Hey Ziti97mx I used to live over in Prospect over on Matthew Street. Ana's of Prospect had the best calzones if they're still open. From the sounds of it you've come to a cross roads with the amount of effort it takes to keep the stove going with the technology the stove allows for. Doesn't sound like you're doing anything wrong- more to the point, sounds like you've got this set up going about as well as anyone could expect. lukem's suggestion to add a baffle would probably be the best short term improvement you could make. After that you start getting into territory where you thank the old stove for its service and the memories and move on to something that will run more in line with what you hope to get out of it.
Yup, add a pipe damper, then a baffle...beyond that, limiting exposed basement walls is about the only thing that will help heat the upstairs more...and maybe moving cool air instead of warm, like Backwoods mentioned...
Welcome to the club. Lots of great folks here to share knowledge and humor, as you've already seen. Hope you can improve your heating situation
Update: so added a vent in the floor with a fan on the bottomside of the floor, to attenot to pull more warm air from basement, instead of a mix from upstairs and basemnt. Had a pain in the azz time but removed old piece of pipe and cut a new piece to fit in the elbows with a new damper. So far so good. Had some slight bit of smoke leakage once the fire got hot, seemed to draft better by opening vents and closing the damper. Hopefully that brand new section of pipe and the old elbows will bond better after a few hot/cold burns from the expansion and contraction. Need a few days to experiment on how to keep a warm fire with a longer burn playing with the air controls. Vents open a good amount and damper closed its holding 300/350 but has no coal bed either. Also sealed up the pipe where it meets the foundation and the chimney outside with some cement in a caulk gun. Also have some more pictures as requested.
That's a mean looking splitter! Rugged as all heck Welcome, I live in Bristol CT and often visit my buddy in Prospect who lives right off route 68, close to the Naugatuck line.
