A Stove in the Forest

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The firebox is 40 inches long, making the ideal firewood length about 36 inches. However, if you accidentally get one a little longer, there is about a foot of space at the bottom of the first flue where you can shove the end, so you can actually accommodate a four foot piece of wood. It is ideal for burning the long, skinny alders I am removing to make room for the conifers. Also, in some areas of the property, too many conifers are squeezed in together for good growth. Thinnings from those areas fit the stove very well. Then, of course, there are lots of deadfalls. The smaller the diameter of the wood, the faster (and therefore more efficiently) it burns.

Once you have a hot fire going, there is no visible smoke coming out the chimney. By the time the flue gasses have traveled about 35 feet from the firebox to the ceiling, they are barely warm. The heat all soaks into the bricks. A chimney fire is impossible. I open the two cleanout doors at the bottoms of the flues about once a month and take out the little bit of fly-ash which accumulates there. There is no buildup of creosote, although I do find a little on the inside of the doors occasionally. I believe this forms as the fire is just starting and before it has gotten up to speed.

Besides the physical warmth the stove gives, seeing the blaze through the door, "warms the cockles of the heart" On winter evenings, we sometimes start a short fire just to get that glow. It helps to make a house a home. Sometimes I am kept awake at night by a sore back. When this happens, I sit with my back to that hot brick and soak up the heat. Keeps me from reaching for the aspirin.

A friend gave us some two-inch maple that had been only rough sawed. We cut it and sanded it down to make mantels for each side of the stove. "J" bolts (secured in the inside brick as we were building) provide a solid anchor for the maple brackets that hold these mantels.

The in-floor heat distribution has not worked as well as expected. This is primarily due to the fact that we don't burn the stove often enough to keep the concrete heated up, and the extra concrete and steel they made us put in has expanded the size of the block we have to heat. However, we manage to keep quite warm and comfortable. It is fortunate that we built when we did, because under today's building rules we would have to install a heat pump anyway whether we needed it or not—and we certainly don't.

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