Wood stoves and safety
Wood stoves aren't as romantic as open fire ones, but they are significantly more efficient at generating heat from the same amount of wood. Not only can wood stoves be used to generate heat and for cooking, but they can also be used to heat your water supply. Once you've made sure your stove is airtight, you can load it, close it, and then forget about it, long after you've gone to bed while working, keeping your home warm while you sleep, without you worry about sparks or lost logs. .
Wood stoves these days are quite sophisticated and high-end models have built-in thermostats that can be set to the preferred temperature. So you will no longer be subjected to a stifling room of overheating. They have also been designed to be more efficient and reduce wood burning. They are also equipped with emission retarders, making them more environmentally friendly.
What size wood stove should you buy?
The size of the wood stove should really match the space for which it is required. If it is too large for the space needed for heating, it will still fail, causing creosote to build up in the chimney, causing air pollution. If you want to live green, this is obviously not what you want. And a small stove in a large space will be inefficient and unproductive.
Where to place your wood stoves
Choose the location of your new stove carefully, taking into account its distance from your wood source, which could leave a muddy footprint lingering around the house every time you go to get wood. Also using an existing flue is much cheaper than having a new flue built. However, you may be forced to not use the existing conduit if it does not have what you need for optimal efficiency.
Your chimney flue should be wide and straight, minimizing distortions in the pipes, and the chimney should be 1 meter higher than the roof line, and 3 meters from other structures, and covered with an anti-chimney cap. rain. The flue must also have good draft so that the stove does not smoke. If the chimney capacity is too high or too low, smoking will occur in both cases.
Installation of wood stoves
When you purchase , check with your council to ensure all planning permission is in place. Just like if you didn't have a wood stove before, modifications to your home will be necessary.
Also check with your council for acceptable smoke emission levels in your area. Both of these things should be done before making the purchase.
The dangers of wood stoves
Finally, don't let creosote build up in the chimney year after year , as this is again a dangerous practice and the chimney could catch fire. Creosote is caused by incomplete combustion of wood. The unburned material, or tar, mixes with the water vapor released by the fire and rises up the chimney in the form of smoke. As the smoke rises up the chimney, it passes through the cooler upper surfaces of the chimney where the steam and tar condense to form the black, sticky substance called creosote. As it is built, it flows drop by drop into the chimney flue, over edges, bends and junctions; If you used your wood stove during the winter, call a professional chimney sweep to clean it in the spring.
To reduce creosote buildup over months of operation in your airtight wood stoves, burn a small, very hot fire for about 20 minutes each time you use it. In fact, some of the condensed creosote is then revaporized and blown out of the flue. This also works well for open fireplaces, but only after they have been thoroughly cleaned by a chimney sweep.
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