Update (01/21/2010): This page describes our early usage of the wood stove. A more recent post provides wood stove cooking tips.

Since our wood stove got installed I have been doing all our cooking on it. Cookies, cake and topping, soups, gravy, grilled cheese sandwiches, eggs, bacon, sausages, biscuits, fried potatoes, popcorn, and ham. It’s been fun experimenting along the way how to get everything cooked best. I have only burned one thing and that was the first batch of cookies. We did just pick up a Lodge cooking trivet so that should make some of my cooking easier.

The most exciting thing we have been doing on the stove cook wise is making popcorn. Yup, you read right. My mom gave us a popcorn maker as a surprise present. It’s all metal and you crank the handle which turns some things (Lee groaning here at my lack of explanation) and moves the kernels around. Then up pops the most wonderful popcorn you could wish for that tastes so much better than that bagged stuff. Not to mention that it has none of the chemicals or bad stuff in it. Then dash salt on it and pour melted butter…..oh its great I tell you. My mom got it from Territorial Seed Company for us if you are wanting one.

This of course is Edgar watching over me as the popcorn is getting made. He has an INTENSE weakness for popcorn and has to supervise the cooking of it always.

Yes we did it again. After much putting off on Lee’s part we finally worked on tearing out most of the living room ceiling. We left a stretch on at the very front of the house as it helps keep the heat in. That part of the ceiling goes straight up to the roof so we aren’t taking it off until we have too.

Lee starts out the nasty job by wearing eye protection but forgetting his breather mask. That and MUCH grumbling. We moved most of what we could out of the way.

I help out by vacuuming the plywood ceiling before it was all way pulled down. That way it helped contain the mess and get less poop everywhere. It actually worked pretty well. There were no clouds billowing up. Still a lot of mouse poop and what not every where, but that couldn’t be helped.

Lee remembered to put on his breather mask. Jessica and I resorted to using our shirts. After Jessica left I went and got my mask though.

Lee was thrilled to see that the builders of the house cut into the ceiling floor joist to install the light fixture. I think that they wanted people to fall through the floor.

We also discovered that there was a house fire at one time. Lee had to take off a few paneling boards by the kitchen to get the ceiling plywood off. When he did that we saw this…

So we are thinking that there was a kitchen fire at one time. The paneling boards are not put back in order so some are chared an others are not. There are also some new two by fours and different nails used to put the paneling boards back up. It will be interesting to see how many more boards are burned like that in the kitchen wall.

And finally the air quality picture…..I so hate mouse poop….

After all the floors had been vacuumed up and then mopped, couch disenfected, showers taken, poop clothes taken down to my mom’s to be washed, and the kitchen wiped down, we are all ready to put off taking out the rest of the ceilings for a long while again.

Lee tore out the paneling by the front door in the living room. Nothing too exciting. Things we discovered by taking off the wall paneling are:

• Tongue & groove covers at least one wall in the front bedroom
• Plywood is nailed over the tongue & groove
• Strange zigzag bracing fills that wall  … more badly done sheer support?

At first blush, wood burning might not seem very environmentally friendly.  Cutting down big stately old-growth trees, sawing them up with gas powered saws and log splitters, and then throwing them into a roaring fireplace belching smoke … yeah, I see your point.

However, there’s lots wrong with that picture.  First, nobody should be cutting down old-growth timber for firewood.  There’s plenty of dead wood in most areas, and fast-growing timber on small managed woodlots can be indefinitely sustainable.  Also, cutting smaller trees or dead limbs minimizes the need to split wood, and (for the energetic) makes hand-cutting a possibility as well.  Third, fireplaces are decoration, not a heat source.  Modern air-tight woodstoves can be 80% efficient.  Combine this with a highly insulated home, and you’ve got the ultimate in renewable ‘green’ heating.

That’s our motivation for buying this woodstove.  Unfortunately, time constraints force us to buy wood from others, and bad insulation means we’ll be burning far too much the first year, but at least our Lopi Endeavor stove will ensure that it burns cleanly.  The Lopi produces only 4 grams of particulate pollution per hour, the cleanest for it size of all EPA-certafied wood stoves.  It does this by injecting fresh heated air directly into the firebox at the top.  This fresh air combines with “exhaust gases” and causes a secondary ignition.  The result is more heat output and a cleaner final exhaust.

The secondary burn is that line of fire across the top of the stove.  It looks like natural gas is being injected into the stove, but it’s actually just oxygen igniting the tars and wood alcohols in the smoke.  It only kicks in when the stove is appropriately hot (woodstoves burn most efficiently when they burn very hot).  Sometimes it can dance across beautifully, like the Aurora Borealis, or even totally obscure the viewing glass in a blazing inferno.  The result, is this:

Where there’s smoke, there’s a fireplace.  Where there’s no smoke … maybe a modern woodstove?

We got snow, snow, SNOW! Maybe it’s not that exciting to the rest of you, but after living in the desert for five years it’s exciting. And yes I know, it’s not that much compared to “some” of you and your snow piles. But it’s beautiful and I’m loving it. Okay, so maybe I do have one complaint with it. There isn’t enough to build anything with. If there had been more I would have been out there making snow sculptures.

Not to leave Edgar out here, this was his first snow he had ever been in. Did he notice anything different? If he did he didn’t let on and had much fun zooming around in it. Business as usual for him.

Tonight’s accomplishment is two indoor outlets.  I haven’t done it sooner because I was concerned about it interfering with the first stage in county electrical inspections.  Ever since we moved in, there have been two extension cords dangling from our living room window and plugged into boxes below the service panel.  There have also been lots of emphatic “when you get electricity” phrases uttered by in-laws, and lots of tripping over cords running about the place.

However, with tonight’s temperatures hovering around 10 degrees and cold air streaming in through a window held open for ridiculous reasons, I reached my limit.  If the county inspector wants to complain, I will apologise for having the audacity to simultaneous want electricity during a home renovation project and live in a county where the building department is owned by special interest groups.

So, 40 minutes to Jerry’s for two plastic outlet boxes and two outlets, one hour with a hammer, drill, wire strippers, etc, and the luxury of indoor electricity is ours!  Admittedly, we still have extension cords, but the location allows me to route them almost entirely out of the way.  No more tripping!

And yes, the outlets are strictly temporary.  For one thing, new code regulations require tamper proof outlets.  Also, I’m not sure I meet wire strapping requirements with this installation.  Given there is less than 3 feet of wire in the longer run, I’m going to worry about something else though.  Like our dwindling firewood pile …

Yup, that time again. Another burn pile bites the dust. This is burn pile number number four. I really need to get busy and make some more piles. I don’t want to get caught in the summer with 27 piles and not being able to burn.

I’m so glad that we have our stove installed now. There is a forecast of snow for this weekend. Even if we don’t get any it’s still going to be cold. I love my new fire place. Have I mentioned that already?

What’s been holding up the wood stove install was two things: stovepipe and hearth.  At my brother’s suggestion, we decided to forgo a pretty hearth and just temp in something that would be safe and quick.  With all the jacking up and hammering left to do around here, probably a good idea.

As for the stove pipe, after finally picking a location that would allow a diagonal stove install on the first floor, I figured out the components needed.  We decided to go with Excel pipe, even though it’s significantly more expensive, because it has a lifetime warranty and meets the much stricter Canadian chimney-fire survival codes.  No chimney fires are going to burn down our house!  (If we are using the stove right, this shouldn’t be much of a risk anyway … but perhaps for the next owners.)

On Friday I picked up the last pipe component at Midgley’s in Eugene.  It was time to begin the actual install.  I laid out where the chimney would intersect the second floor, and cut a hole.  The location will add a 2.5 foot bump-out into the master bedroom, but makes for a much better first floor position.  On the diagonal, the fire will face the whole living room.  No other position would be as attractive and still keep the chimney on the back of the house.

On Saturday, we screwed down two layers of Hardibacker to form the hearth.  Robin’s parents came by, and Steve and I moved the stove into position using his motorcycle jack.  (If there’s any easier way to move 450lbs, I can’t imagine it.)  Unfortunately, the leg bolt-holes on the back of our stove were tapped wrong (or rather got some welding slag in them after being tapped).  The stove spent the night on the jack.

On Sunday, my brother came by to lend a hand (AKA “end up doing all the hard parts”).  He re-tapped the bolt holes (I need to get one of those sets) and with new bolts we attached the legs.  Then we added 2×6 blocking to the floor joists to install the pipe support.

The pipe support was then added from above.  It has a heat shield to protect the floor members, and is designed to protrude 3 inches below the finished ceiling to cut down on radiant energy off the pipe.  The pipe is 6″ inside diameter, 8″ outside diameter.  The floor support only requires a 10″ hole, but all framing above that require 12″ rough openings.

Next, we dropped a plumb bob to find the roof penetration point.  I had worked this out ahead of time to avoid intersecting a rafter.  Unfortunately, I made the flawed assumption that our rafters are plumb.  If we installed the chimney plumb, it would have been sitting directly against a rafter, and since we don’t want that (2″ air gap required) we decided to install the chimney at a slight angle (2″ off plumb over 12′).  When we re-roof next year we’ll straighten out the chimney.  Cutting the roof hole with a sawzall was a quick, although unpleasant job.  Skip sheathing, cedar shakes, composite shingles .. all of them tried to fly in my mouth and eyes.

Next Greg climbed our very steep roof.  We sent the flashing and shingles up to him on a rope tow.  The chimney also partially intersected a roof vent, so he pulled that out too and then tacked everything back up with new shingles.  Greg’s done a lot of roofing, so he said it might be ugly but it would be water tight. I thought it looked pretty good too.  To add insult to injury, it started pouring down rain at the end.

Back inside, we screwed together the actual chimney sections, and pushed them up through the flashing.

Then it was back up on the roof for Greg, this time in the dark and carrying a storm collar, the chimney cap, and a caulk gun.  Did I mention it was dark?  Robin and I were on the ground with shop lights and flashlights trained on Greg up on the roof.  Needless to say, the few cars that drove by our house at this time did so very slowly.  Thanks for all the help Greg!!

Later that night I added the radiation shield on the second floor ceiling, moved the stove back into position and set it down, installed the adjustable chimney length off the top of the stove, and reinstalled all the firebricks we had removed.  Finally, we lit a fire and laid around in total exhaustion.

Like most projects, unplanned “issues” complicated the process and wasted time.  Since most of our issues this time were caused by quality control problems with the stove and chimney, I feel the need to complain.  Don’t get me wrong, I think the stove and chimney are well made and should last a long time, but when you spend about $3600 on a woodburning equipment, you expect it to be flawless.

• Stove leg bolt holes poorly tapped
• Stove upper firebrick would not seat properly (slightly too wide)
• Stove door gasket did not fully contact door frame (later fixed by Midgley’s)
• Insulated chimney instructions vague and incomplete
• Insulated chimney missing ‘provided’ screws
• Double wall chimney slightly out of round and obnoxious to adjust
• Double wall chimney supplied the wrong screws (or wrong instructions)

Ah, the joys of home improvement.  Finally, there were too many pictures to post them all, so I’m including a gallery here at the end with more.

My Mom and Dad came by along with Jessica for a chat. Little did they know that Dad would end up helping put the wood stove into place. Everything went well until the last two legs were to be put on. They wouldn’t go on right so Lee’s brother is going to bring a thread tap up tomorrow to see if that will help. Us ladies sat around and chatted while freezing. It was like watching our own reality TV show. Jessica suggested putting a tea light into the stove so it would look like it was burning already. Look through the gallery of pictures for the comments to see what is going on.