Wood Stove

[LadyByrd]

Well, I'm not a welder by any means. I like the idea of a cubic because of all the features it offers. I'm not 100% certain I'll go with wood, but I have to admit after watching that video, I am becoming more and more enticed with wood and particularly the cubic.

[newhaul]

The plans I have are also good for burning nut coal.

[newhaul]

Can't find the plans right now but here is one I googled up
Duckworks - Homemade Wood Stove For a Small Boat

[PortClydeMe]

Originally Posted by LadyByrd

Well, I'm not a welder by any means. I like the idea of a cubic because of all the features it offers. I'm not 100% certain I'll go with wood, but I have to admit after watching that video, I am becoming more and more enticed with wood and particularly the cubic.

Ahhhhh, the wood burning stove. Wood heat is great. It’s constant, radiant, and dry. If you have wet clothes or shoes / boots, they can be dried quickly right next to the wood stove. The challenge with wood is it requires a constant supply of logs to operate, which means that you will be packing wood in every trip. Wood storage takes a lot of room. As for the size of the stove, yes, the size (length - beam) of the boat is important. However, the outside temperature needs to be considered. Snow? Ice? Frosty the snowman? Most sailboats have thin fiberglass walls. They are not the traditional fully insulated houses of the great white north. Thin walls ... snow ... bigger stove ... more wood.

Me? I can sit for hours, totally transfixed, watching a wood fire. It's tribal. It hits the inner deja vu of humanity. It's more fun than watching dance parties on MTV. Wood flames dance like no other dance.

[Buzzman]

About time someone mentioned insulation. Without it a small stove could be marginal, comfort-wise, but with proper insulation (and appropriate clothing) a small stove could be all a boat needs, even a 30+ footer.

I'd definitely be insulating the saloon, if not the foreberth as well.

Elsewhere on here is a discusson on insulating the underside of the foreberth with foam floor tiles (very cheap) that prevented condensation forming due to lowering the condensation point, thereby preventing a wet bed in winter with the heat on. Think it was sailorchick34 performing that experiment.

No reason why saloon ceilings should not be insulated with 20-50mm of foam insulation, at least, as this would help prevent rising hot air simply losing all its heat to the atmosphere through a non-insulated ceiling/deckhead.

Can't remember the thermodynamics of it, but essentially the heat energy is 'sucked' thru the deckhead if the hot air inside is in contact with it. Hot-to-cold transfer, energy density, blah blah, can't remember (high school physics was a LOOOONG time ago..) sc34 would know....

Same as what happens in a fridge, basically, - heat 'pumped' out making inside colder. Or same principle, anyway....I think.....

[newhaul]

Yes wood is nice and novel but compare it to my diesel furnace same dry heat .
Estimated between 15 and 20 gallons fuel for the heating season. Much easier to refuel. And just flip a switch and set a thermostat.

[rsn48]

Arguments for a wood stove:

1) Ambiance - much mentioned in above posts.

2) Redundancy - my propane system died on me and took out the Dickinson propane heater along with it. I'm a big fan of redundancy. It wasn't the cold so much when I and two old college roommates went out two weeks ago in Desolation Sound, it was the condensation. The wood stove would have solved that right away even while underway.

3) The "Cool" factor - I visited the Classic Boat Show in Victoria on Labour Day and a number of these older boats had a wood stove along with other forms of heat. The wood stove fits right into the gemeinschaftsgefuhl of classic boats and will give my boat that "authentic" quintessential feel.

4) Balance the heat in the boat out - My propane heater is down in the V birth galley/head area so the forward section of the boat can be nice and toasty. I often like to sleep out on the aft deck with the side walls rolled down, even in the rain, and it can be a moist cold sleep. With the wood fireplace in the dinette/instrument control cabin leading into the aft deck, with wide double doors that can be left open, the wood fireplace will offer some heat into the early hours of the night.

5) Becoming an Enemy of the State - Often I'm the only boat into an anchorage, I like to leave early, arrive early and settle in. We all know the phenomena of homophily (like minded people do what other like minded people do - see the Ted Talk below on" The Curly Fri Conundrum.") So when you anchor in a spot, others coming in to anchor, and so do around you - homophily. My fire place can be on putting out wood smoke smell and if another comments on it, I get to say - "Well, I chose this location as no one was here specifically so I wouldn't bother them with my wood stove smell." hopefully I'll become "that guy" or "that boat" that pollutes the area and no one will want to be around me - I can only hope.

6) Extend my propane supply - by using the stove as a dehumidifier while travelling and at anchor I don't have to use my Dickinson propane heater, not a big deal on a short cruise but a bigger deal when into isolated areas on a longer cruise. I like to cruise frequently in the off season - translation: wetter and colder season.

7) You can only sing "Cum by ya my Lord" around a fire.

8) You need a proper fire for your S'mores!

Now try all that with your diesel heater!

Curly Fries:

https://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_g...ge=en#t-263434

For those who are going to tell me my propane heater throws out condensation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4LLJWMawV0

[Michael Conway-Brown]

Curly Fries


If the stove has a glass front you get better entertainment than any TV programming too. Cave-man TV. Neanderthal News channel. Beats the reality-TV/soap opera schlock of the "real" thing. And it sparks romance. Cuddle with your sweetie while watching the fireshow and see how hot it gets.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by rsn48

Arguments for a wood stove:

1) Ambiance - much mentioned in above posts.

2) Redundancy - my propane system died on me and took out the Dickinson propane heater along with it. I'm a big fan of redundancy. It wasn't the cold so much when I and two old college roommates went out two weeks ago in Desolation Sound, it was the condensation. The wood stove would have solved that right away even while underway.

3) The "Cool" factor - I visited the Classic Boat Show in Victoria on Labour Day and a number of these older boats had a wood stove along with other forms of heat. The wood stove fits right into the gemeinschaftsgefuhl of classic boats and will give my boat that "authentic" quintessential feel.

4) Balance the heat in the boat out - My propane heater is down in the V birth galley/head area so the forward section of the boat can be nice and toasty. I often like to sleep out on the aft deck with the side walls rolled down, even in the rain, and it can be a moist cold sleep. With the wood fireplace in the dinette/instrument control cabin leading into the aft deck, with wide double doors that can be left open, the wood fireplace will offer some heat into the early hours of the night.

5) Becoming an Enemy of the State - Often I'm the only boat into an anchorage, I like to leave early, arrive early and settle in. We all know the phenomena of homophily (like minded people do what other like minded people do - see the Ted Talk below on" The Curly Fri Conundrum.") So when you anchor in a spot, others coming in to anchor, and so do around you - homophily. My fire place can be on putting out wood smoke smell and if another comments on it, I get to say - "Well, I chose this location as no one was here specifically so I wouldn't bother them with my wood stove smell." hopefully I'll become "that guy" or "that boat" that pollutes the area and no one will want to be around me - I can only hope.

6) Extend my propane supply - by using the stove as a dehumidifier while travelling and at anchor I don't have to use my Dickinson propane heater, not a big deal on a short cruise but a bigger deal when into isolated areas on a longer cruise. I like to cruise frequently in the off season - translation: wetter and colder season.

7) You can only sing "Cum by ya my Lord" around a fire.

8) You need a proper fire for your S'mores!

Now try all that with your diesel heater!

Curly Fries:

https://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_g...ge=en#t-263434

For those who are going to tell me my propane heater throws out condensation:

I grew up on wood heat . Now days I like being able to just pump my btu's into a tank at the beginning of the heating season . No weekly ash cleanings either.
You want smores and ambiance that's what beach fires are for. Not near a beach ? Where are you getting your firewood from?

[rsn48]

I'm not a beach wood kind of guy. Coming from a backpacker background you're taught to leave the wood in the woods - their break down over decades is critical to the biological local flora and fauna. Also some of the wood is quit wet in our local coastal area.

I do a combo of hard and softwood, the softwood I can get for free from a local furniture builder. The hardwood I purchase from the Canadian equivalent of the Eagle hardware and garden store.

Also with beach fires, you end up smelling like the fire.

I also like my Dutch boat hanging kerosene light:

https://www.everythingnautical.com/b...oil-16-5-x-10/

With the warmth of mahogany wood in the cabin lit by fire light, the cabin feels very warm and inviting.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by rsn48

I'm not a beach wood kind of guy. Coming from a backpacker background you're taught to leave the wood in the woods - their break down over decades is critical to the biological local flora and fauna. Also some of the wood is quit wet in our local coastal area.

I do a combo of hard and softwood, the softwood I can get for free from a local furniture builder. The hardwood I purchase from the Canadian equivalent of the Eagle hardware and garden store.

Also with beach fires, you end up smelling like the fire.

I also like my Dutch boat hanging kerosene light:

https://www.everythingnautical.com/b...oil-16-5-x-10/

With the warmth of mahogany wood in the cabin lit by fire light, the cabin feels very warm and inviting.

ok but my point to the where do you get your wood comment was relating to being off the grid for a few weeks at a time . You can't store more that a couple weeks firewood on many boats without compromising the rest of the storage .
Then there is simply the space that the wood stove occupies.
On smaller boats it matters.

[rsn48]

My boat is a power cruiser and the bilge area you can't stand up in but you can hunch over in it. Lots of storage plus the fireplace when it gets used, is used primarily at night. Fortunately our late fall to early spring disgusting weather isn't all the time. We do get some nice days, even several at a time.

The bilge on my old Catalina 27 sailboat had a bilge that was one foot deep and 8 inches wide, couldn't hold anything. Coming from a sailboat background, I couldn't believe the size of the bilge that came with my power boat.

The trick is to stay out of the fjords here like Desolation Sound, Jarvis Inlet and the Broughtons as fjords hold those clouds in until the rain comes out.

Realistically at this time of year, the most I will be out is two weeks at a time, longer in the warmer months. But what's great at this time of the year is public docks with only one or two boats tied up along side, no search for a place to tie up.

And no competition at anchorages.

[PortClydeMe]

Originally Posted by Michael Conway-Brown

Curly Fries


If the stove has a glass front you get better entertainment than any TV programming too. Cave-man TV. Neanderthal News channel. Beats the reality-TV/soap opera schlock of the "real" thing. And it sparks romance. Cuddle with your sweetie while watching the fireshow and see how hot it gets.

In total agreement. Nothing like the real thing!

For example, you can look at 1000 photos of jalapeño-spicy "Tex-Mex", but until you travel to Tejas and bite into the real thing ... well ... you just truly cannot understand the heavenly goodness. Yes, I'm speaking from experience.

Tex-Mex Tres Hombres, anyone? Hot, good, and spicy, just like a real wood stove on a monohull.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/381129/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov22...&frags=pl%2Cwn

[newhaul]

Here is a good looking one that just loose up on cl here
https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/b...711688065.html

[LadyByrd]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Here is a good looking one that just loose up on cl here
https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/b...711688065.html

That's a deal. Are you considering the switch yourself?