This is mostly going to be a blather post.
The stove we installed is a free-standing woodburning stove, because what we had was a hole in the wall.
If you have an extant fireplace, however, you have a pretty hole in the wall that will vent smoke and let a little heat into the house; a woodburning stove insert will actually heat the house (And also give you a place to heat your tea)
How to install:
http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/install_insert
If you are installing it in the winter, you’re going to pay an arm and a leg for seasoned firewood, if you can find it.
Ecobricks http://ecobrick.net/ are compressed sawdust. They burn nicely, are available year-round, and come in shrinkwrapped packages.
More links coming!
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/633698.html. You can comment here or there.
I knew someone who was renovating their house, which they hadn’t had for long, and discovered that the previous owner had put the wood burning heater in straight down on wooden floor boards. Apparently that was just one of a number of “interesting” decisions she came across that had been made there.
Well, considering we had to install the concrete board/granite tile between the subfloor and the stove, and the chimney was already there…
That whole ” install the concrete board/granite tile between the subfloor and the stove” step was what the previous owner had missed, which is why Carol found she had scorched and even charred floor boards under the stove.
Myeeeee.
What I’m finding is that it might be equally expensive to get a fireplace insert as to get a stove put in someplace else, because either way there’s chimney inserts to put in and large iron things to buy and chimney guys to certify everything is okay. Alternatively, we could just put one by an outside wall and put a hole through the wall, but that doesn’t sound pretty. >.>