Considering the frequency and length of electrical outages in Maine, having an emergency heat source in place was a high priority. I’ll explain later what derailed us from going directly from an emergency generator. Wood heat was the more obvious answer for us, but the big obstacle was that we didn’t have a usable chimney. We couldn’t just run up to Tractor Supply or Tru-Value, pick out a cast-iron stove, plug it in, and breathe a sigh of comforting relief.
Instead, we needed some professional advice, and that’s where we were stymied. Local inquiries led nowhere. The nearest wood stove and fireplace dealers were 2½-hour drives away.
Since Ellsworth has two, that’s where we headed. The smaller dealership was far more helpful than the other – and it referred us to a nearby chimneysweep who, after we approached him, did agree to install a stove for us as well as, more crucially, addressing the chimney situation.
While a previous woodburning cook stove in the kitchen had vented into the same flue that the furnace uses, that’s now contrary to building code.
Tim confirmed that our best smoke-venting option was to run an insulated metal chimney pipe straight up next to the existing brick one. At this point, with our upstairs about to be torn apart and the rafters exposed, we wouldn’t be disrupting anything there. Our ultimate placement of the stove itself would require moving a water heater and a cold-air vent in the floor. Not that big of an issue, now that we had a contractor. Glory be!
As for the existing but inefficient hot water heater? That advanced our planned acquisition of a heat-exchange water heating unit, but just where?
That’s when Adam, our contractor, lined up a license plumber, Thomas. You’ll be meeting more of him later.
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Back to the central decision, which stove?
From my days in the Pacific Northwest, I was impressed with the pioneering Norway’s Jotul brand, a view reenforced by our purchase and intensive use of a small model in New Hampshire two decades ago.
Still, looking for maximum efficiency of our new stove, I was pressed to research other available options. After all, a lot has happened in the interim. And how, as I discovered.
Since our stove was also for a power-outage alternative and not just supplemental heat, wood pellets were out of the question. Alas, perhaps. A pellet fire isn’t quite the same when it comes to simple repose.
Two new considerations for me were cast-iron versus straight metal. The former takes longer to warm up but holds longer. The latter, the opposite.
Since much of our usage Way Downeast involves offseason chilly mornings and evenings in spring and autumn, the metal models gained an advantage over cast iron. We’ll see how that holds.
A complicating factor was catalysts, which would require attention every few years – and, more critically, by whom? By this point, Jotul slipped from the picture.
From my book Quaking Dover, I knew that soapstone and other heat sustainers worked as efficiency boosters, but in this round, the added cost and weight didn’t fit our setting.
Vermont Castings, which had been our principal rival to Jotul, fell from consideration over quality control issues, as other, newer, brands came to the fore: Ambiance, Blaze King, and HearthStone, among them.
We did have to quibble about how our stove would look and function in our situation, but in the end, after a thorough review of the efficiency specs, sizes, and prices, we went with a Lopi model, one from an enterprising Pacific Northwest outfit.
Alleluia. We even got it installed before deep winter kicked in.
Second floor.
A view up the pipe before it was capped.
Meanwhile, on the ground floor.
And there it was, just in time for Christmas.
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Let’s be honest. The new stove wasn’t entirely about emergency heating. It was mostly about having the utter pleasure of wood warmth. It was even about reducing our onerous fuel oil bills, even before we add heat-exchange units upstairs.
After waiting three years to get the renovations underway, the unfolding events sometimes felt chaotic. So much happened at once.
Still, looking at the glossy brochures, I’m left thinking there’s a much bigger picture left to be presented. Sitting back against the unrivaled comfort of a wood fire and reading in my favorite chair is an unsurpassed pleasure in my book. This was a definite improvement over our previous winters.
As a slide flash, as a writer I’m reminded about the adage, “Write only about what you know.” Is there anything like this in a novel? Or even a movie? Maybe the bearskin rug in front of a fire as a photo?
By the way, we never heard back from the other stove dealership. The bigger one. We do have an affinity for smaller is beautiful, especially when it’s family-centered.
Jnana's Red Barn 