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Big Ideas,
a Tiny House
And Simple Living

And We Have Heat!

10/29/2015

4 Comments

 
Picture
It's been about a week since we got brave, cut a hole in the roof and installed the pipe for our Kimberly wood stove. The first time we lit the stove, the two of us sat watching wood burn for a good part of the evening. Several fires later, it's still rather captivating to watch as the flames start swirling around when the gasifier kicks into action, and the secondary flame burns off most of the smoke.

Standing outside you can see when this happens. The first smoke is clearly visible, a white stream coming out of the black pipe. We look again about 15 minutes later, and we have trouble sighting so much as a whiff of smoke.

The stove magically heats our space. I say "magically" because though the top and front heat up significantly, the heat spreads across the tiny house evenly. I boiled water for tea the other night by putting a kettle atop the stove; I was amazed by how fast the water reached a boil. 

I'm not going to do a full-blown review yet of the Kimberly Stove from Unforgettable Fire. We're still figuring out which wood at what size works best and trying to see how long we can get a fire to stay burning through the night. (We aren't anywhere close to the "up to 8 hours" we've been told a fire can burn in one of these stoves.) We also got some compressed sawdust logs to try out, after seeing them recommended as a good backup/supplemental fuel.

In the meanwhile, it's simple to light the stove as the temperature drops in the evening. And it's still novel enough to stoke the fire, lingering each time to watch the flames flicker and dance. Much technique to learn, much warmth to savor.

4 Comments
Josh
6/15/2017 04:17:57 pm

Any chance you plan on writing a long term review of this stove? I would be interested to see how it turned out.

Thanks.

Reply
Erik
11/28/2017 12:01:35 pm

Also curious to get your thoughts on the stove :)

Reply
Paddlevan link
1/25/2018 04:25:04 pm

Hello You probably have the only Kimberly stove in GA .
Can you send more details and cost ..
Anything you dont like about it ??
How does it do burning oak ??
Thank you

Reply
Jody link
1/25/2018 06:33:55 pm

Hi, Paddlevan. Our Kimberly is in Virginia! It's expensive ($4K+), but we still love it after two years in our house. A few reasons: we love the look, it takes almost no room/clearance and it heats our space wonderfully. We use kiln-dried wood so it burns cleanly and efficiently. That said, any dry hardwood cut to the right size would work great. So, yes to seasoned oak! What we don't like is that we can't "bank" it and have it burn through the night. It always goes out. So we have back-up, electric heat set to turn on when the temp dips. Please let me know if you have anymore questions. --Jody

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