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I have always had a thing for the cast iron stoves and now that I am getting my first house its the first "modification" I am looking into. The house has a natural gas forced air furnace so there are gas lines available.

When I search for cast iron stoves I see 3 types, wood, pellet, and gas. Gas seems interesting, clean, and quick and easy.

Does anyone have any input on the 3 different materials???

Thanks!
 
Pellets are clean(ish) and efficient , but most require electricity to work (at all) so aren't viable as an emergency heat source and the cost of pellets fluctuates so storage and buying in quantity is almost a necessity..

Gas is relatively cheap but pipelines rupture and cause system failure...Gas is an explosive .....and poisonous...the cost will only go up and storage poses another problem....

Wood is filthy, laborious and needs almost constant attention (when operating) and require annual maintenance even if not used........Yet...the work is honest and very good for you (aerobic and anaerobic using core muscles and all major muscle groups).. wood heats you at least twice.. You can obtain wood almost for free (time investment) and can be a beautiful way to spend an evening....

Get a wood stove with a glass door and enjoy....

Airtight is better....
 
Woodstove. There will always be trees. Pellet stoves are more efficient than any of the other options, but you do need electricity to run them. To get a near-match to that efficiency and heat output you can get presslogs for the woodstove. They're the same thing as the pellets and are pretty cheap.
 
My only concern about wood, maybe I should of noted it is that this stove will be on the first floor of a 2 story house, so it will have the 90 bent in the smoke pipe and vent straight out the side of the wall. So smoke may possibly damage the siding?
 
If you go wood or pellet you will need to run a chimney to above your roof line, this can get expensive.

Gas are a little easier to install because you can direct vent it easier. Most gas fire places are now furnace rated, 80% plus and will work in a power outage.

if you have an existing fireplace then you could do an insert (wood, gas, or pellet)

If I had a cheap supply of wood I would do a wood burner, other wise my personal choice would be gas. (about $3500 to retro fit one into an existing home including the cost of the fire place.)
 
We dont have a existing fireplace, that why I want a cast iron stove :) I guess gas is the way to go, a pipe running up along side the hosue to above the roof line would look stupid haha! I have seen the gas cast iron stoves for around $1500, so maybe $2000-$2500 installed? I would do everything myself but run the gas line, as that would kinda worry me.

Would a gas stove work the same as a wood stove? Heat up the cast iron and then pretty much heat up the whole house? My buddy has a cast iron stove in his place, and he would start it up in the afternoon and by late at evening we would have the windows open and be sweating in the middle of the winter with snow on the ground haha!

I dont have connections on a wood supply as we will be living in the middle of the city haha!

We are going to put an electric fireplace in our bedroom, more for looks than heating, we have one now and it has like a lcd display of a fire. People actually have thought it was real, it looks just like a gas fireplace when turned on.
 
I'm sorry to be the wet blanket, but you should first check out your home-owner's insurance to see what changes are covered. You should also look into getting a building permit for the modifications. The thing is, most insurance policies will not cover ANYTHING new unless it is legally installed to building code specs, usually by a licensed contractor with govt. inspectors involved. Oregon has legal standards for wood stoves now; you can only install certified stoves legally. Your insurance company might happily keep taking your payments, yet later deny you any claims if you have any kind of disaster even not related to the new stove! You are ripe for a total exclusion of coverage, in spite of your payments!

This is not all bad. The legal stoves are certified to burn cleanly so as not to pollute the neighborhood, and efficiently so you don't waste fuel. Building code and licensed installers ensure that the installation is SAFE and that it will not poison you with carbon monoxide.

I'd go with wood, which will warm you in a power outage, for whatever reason (earthquake?) A wood stove will burn anything, even trash and newspaper, and you can cook on it too. I lived for years heating with old shipping pallets and recycled newspaper bundles, which are everywhere for free. Yah, a lot of work to haul and cut up, but most of the pallet skids are made of bone-dry hard oak wood, and the price is right!..........................elsullo :s0155:
 
My only concern about wood, maybe I should of noted it is that this stove will be on the first floor of a 2 story house, so it will have the 90 bent in the smoke pipe and vent straight out the side of the wall. So smoke may possibly damage the siding?

Once the pipe is outside, run it straight up above the roofline.

However, elsullo makes a good point about insurance coverage and building codes. Make sure your paperwork is squared away.
 
A couple of winters ago my yearly propane bill was $3K. I spent a grand and installed a woodstove, best purchase in years. I work construction so the first year I burned free construction scrap. The second year my neighbor had most of thier trees cut down so I heated the whole year on the smaller stuff that the mills don't want. This year was the first that I bought firewood already cut, it looks like I'll burn 4 cords total so that's $500.

The power goes out a few times each winter. It's nice to know that my heat and some of my lighting is independent.

Gas and wood sounds like a good combo.
 

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