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Exactly what we had RO

Been to enough ranch auctions and seen stock tank heaters that are fired by wood with under water firebox that snorkel stove ain't a new idea...mb

I've been using the same Pacific Energy stove for about 17yrs. Money well spent.

Dry wood is the key to all stoves. I buy my wood in the spring of the year and burn it the next year's winter.

What he did was make a creosote maker.Better to run your Flue pipe hot a burn up the creosote then cool it and manufacture creosote.A chimney fire waiting to happen.The newer wood burners with cat converters burn all the excess gas and eliminate creosote.Of course you will use extra wood,but your house will not burn down.

I guess it was unique enough when first created in the late 70s.

I'm a woodstove rookie, did a search on the main cause of creosote, moist wood and low temps in the Flue.
Good info. here.

“Moist” as in green, uncured, wood.

First house i bought with my ex wife had a "COBELSKILL" brand woodstove in the basement.It had a series of pipes in the top that was hooked up to the hot water lines to the boiler.It had safety valves and a heatmixer/water pump all hooked up.It worked well enough,IF you didn t let the fire get too hot.But,a nice fire going,when the thermostat would call for heat,the water in the system was already hot,boiler would not have to come on and burn oil so it was a savings,i got plenty of wood for free then so it was cost effective.Worked out well during a couple of bad winters we had back then.

The old cookstove in our kitchen had a built in waterheater.

A friend of mine did his thesis on wood stove control programming.

He kept saying to me, "Stoichiometric burning".

Stoichiometric Combustion Impact on Boiler Efficiency
https://sagemetering.com/combustion...ion-and-its-impact-on-boiler-efficiency/


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combustion

A Montana relative of mine purchased an old homestead next to his ranch. It is 4 sections of land with a log cabin, corral and three sided shed. The cabin had not been lived in since the 1950s. He called me and asked for some help to fix it up so I loaded up my tools and headed west. It was in pretty rough shape, the logs were chinked with Montana gumbo, but where solid. One portion of the roof had caved in and the 12'x20' lumber lean-to on the north side was shot. Log cabin footprint was 16'x20' with a rock pillar foundation.

We tore off the lean-to, put on a new roof, busted out the gumbo and re-chinked the walls. Our attention then went to heating the place. There was an old walk-around cast iron cookstove that was cracked up beyond repair, so we drove to Lewiston to buy a stove. He bought a box stove, black pipe and insulated chimney pipe and got it installed.

A year later I helped him put on 12'x20' lean-to on the north side and did some mule deer hunting there. In a typical non-insulated cabin with the wood stove going, the floor area is cold and we talked about that. I called him a few days ago to wish him Happy New Year and he said he made an improvement in heating the cabin and he described what he did, but I was not sure what to expect. He said he got the idea from a friend over around Grass Range. He and some friends hunted mule deer and later coyotes out by the cabin and stayed a few nights. The stove improvement eliminated the cold drafts drawn to the stove from the floor and windows. I will have a chance to check it out this fall.

Sorry to hear of your bad experience.

Don't know how long this one was installed before we moved in here Nov 2016, but it's been working fine for us for 5 years. Only thing I've had to do was tighten the camming nut on the handle to make up for the compression of the seal over the years.

quadrafire fan here, too...

saw a stove once that had steel pipes wrapped around the fire box. They opened on the floor and above the stove. Convection made the air in the pipes rise pulling in cold air from the floor and hot air out the top. no battery or electricity fan required. worked very well. but most stoves will run you out of a room any way.

Have a catalytic King sized Blaze King that seems quite efficient purchased in 2008. Cold air intake comes from our garage below. Takes about 20 minutes to get the converter up to temp when one can see it glowing in the top of the stove. One can put his hand on the single wall pipe about 2 ft up from where it exits the stove. It was a replacement for a Lopi that came with the house, and it cut our wood consumption by about 25%.