Wood Stoves

[SandeeAR]

Just curious, for those of you with asthma, Does a fireplace bother you?

[Blackcat31]

Just curious, for those of you with asthma, Does a fireplace bother you?

I don't know about asthma, but I have a dcm who's child has eczema pretty bad and she swears that the woodstove his grandparents use cause his eczema to flare up because the heat is a dry type of heat. He has also had a big problem with bloody noses and says his doctor said the dry heat makes it bad. I do not know if any of this is true or not as I don't have any experience with wood stoves for heating except for as a child being at my grandarents house. I LOVE the smell and it always reminds me of childhood.

[DancingQueen]

if you have a woodstove you should always use a humidifier.

[SilverSabre25]

Man...you guys are making me wish I had/could get a wood stove!! Do you really manage to heat your house without electricity/gas? How does that work? How much wood does it burn/how much does it cost for wood for the whole winter? And how much does it cost to get one put in, how difficult is it to do that?

[DancingQueen]

I'm sleeping in shorts in a tank top tonight

I usually go through about 2 cords per year and they run about 150 per cord of wood.
I personally do not touch my thermostat during the winter UNLESS we've let the wood stove go out for some reason.
If we are away for the day and come home the house is cold and I'll put the heat on a tiny bit until my husband gets the fire going and then I shut it off.
We had the windows open today it was so warm in here.

I have no idea how much they cost to put in though - My house came with it.

[tenderhearts]

We're looking at about $3000 but that's with my husband installing it(thank God he can). Plus there is all those tax breaks this year, that's why we're really wanting to do it now. Plus they have an excellent sale and a manufacturers coupon at the Coastal Store Now I know code has changed ALOT since like the 80's the stove is suppose to be so efficient that no smoke goes out the chimmney just vapors and other code things. I do have a baby that has eczema but it's only on the backs of her legs. I wont need to really discuss with new clients about the stove because well it will be right here in the daycare room. We will be cutting our own wood, we will only have to pay for a permit once a year to go cut, it's not very exensive like $50 or less. I'm looking forward to it. I will definetly get a humidifier.

[caitlin]

We have a woodstove and if we don't run humidifiers we all get itchy skin, nose bleeds, my daughter's ecezema starts acting up, and we wake up with sore throats. We have a humidifier in the basement with the wood stove, in the living room and in each of the bedrooms.

Have you considered an outdoor woodstove? They are really cool (well, actually they are really warm) and they can even heat water for you.

[care-care]

wow we cant even run our fireplace here not even gas run how can you use a wood stove?

[momofboys]

Ours is easy to run.
Our outdoor smells strongly of wood burning stove but it is different than a campfire smell.
t.

I wonder if this is why my home sometimes smells of a fireplace/wood burning stove. We think a neighbor of ours uses one. Sometimes in the winter it literally smells like we have a fireplace in our home. We do not. But we think one of our neighbors does. Is this even possible? Our homes are not that close together!

[melskids]

wow we cant even run our fireplace here not even gas run how can you use a wood stove?

here (in NY) we have to have it inspected and put a fence around it and we're good to go.

and honestly, if they didnt allow it, i wouldnt have gotten licensed. we cant afford the gas bill to heat this house otherwise. the first month we used the heat (propane) it cost us $600. we cant swing that every month. plus, are electric runs us about $150 on top of that!!!!

we bought a used woodstove for $750, and we cut and split all our own wood. if we had to buy it, its about $225 for a seasoned cord around here. and i'd say we use between 2 - 4 cords a season. sometimes when we get ahead of ourselves with the wood, we sell it, so we make a little extra cash on the side. every bit helps, right?!?

it heats the whole house for the most part, except our bedroom on the other end of the house is a little cooler. we dont have to turn the heat on until almost February, and even then, we only have to do it once in a while. typically when the outside temp dips below 10 degrees.

and we do run humidifiers continually, but its nothing compared to a
$600/month fuel bill.

as far as the smell....the inside of our house doesnt smell like wood burning, but you can smell it when you are outside. so i guess the smoke from one chimney could wander into someone else's house... but where we live, EVERYONE burns would. it the way of life when you live on a mountain in upstate NY

someone mentioned outdoor furnaces....i heard around here they were going to ban them. too many people burning garbage in them, ruining the ozone or something. i dont know though....just something i heard.

[DancingQueen]

I have to say that last year our humidifier broke and we didn't use one 1/2 the winter last year and haven't replaced it yet.
no dry skin, nosebleeds - none of it.

and I sleep about 5 yards away from the wood stove (in a tank top with a fan on..LOL)

[kitkat]

I wonder if this is why my home sometimes smells of a fireplace/wood burning stove. We think a neighbor of ours uses one. Sometimes in the winter it literally smells like we have a fireplace in our home. We do not. But we think one of our neighbors does. Is this even possible? Our homes are not that close together!

Yup, it's from the neighbor's stove. Our neighbor across the street has a wood burner and every now that then we'll get the smell in our house. I don't mind too much because I grew up with one and it's only once in a while that we get the smell.

As far as eczema flare ups...everyone has different sensitivities and causes of flare ups. My sister had/has eczema, but the woodburner didn't bother her. DD has it and had it all summer...we cut out chocolate milk and her skin cleared up almost immediately. It just all depends on the person.

All this talk of woodburners makes me want one! I loved sleeping in shorts and a t-shirt as a kid...my room was near the woodburner and it would be 80!

[tenderhearts]

I would definetly need a humidifier, or water on the stove because I already suffer from nosebleeds ALL the time and get try and staticy hair in the winter so I'd have to foresure do that. So do you put the humidifier in the same room as the wood stove????? We will have to turn our central air fan to circulate the heat so just curious as to where we would put the humidifier.

[DancingQueen]

all this talk and my husband had a nose bleed this morning LOL

[tenderhearts]

I did look in my regulations for daycare and I have to have a gate that just meets certain guidelines, so I'm assuming it shouldn't be too hard to find...Hopefully.