Inside the house, our shiny Kimberly wood stove awaits that hole in the roof, through which it will vent what little smoke it produces straight up, out of the house. As we summon the will to cut a hole in the roof, we've gathered up the pieces of stovepipe, the ceiling box, the rain shield, the end cap. We've built a woodbox that the stove will sit atop. We've started the fire resistant base (cement board to be topped by ceramic tile) and installed heat shields (metal panels "floating" an inch out from the adjacent walls). Outside, we've set up the ladder and plugged in the drill that's ready for our new, super-long drill bit and hole saw kit. It's go time.
To be continued...but, in the meanwhile, I'll say a word (or two) (or many more) about wood stoves in general and our wood stove in particular.
Burning wood produces gases, particulate matter and other pollutants harmful to us all. But not all wood burning is equal. New designs for wood stoves, in particular, have dramatically reduced emissions while enhancing efficiency—which means less wood burned to begin with, plus what wood is burned produces a fraction of the harmful byproducts of open fires or old stoves.
A prime example of this: our Kimberly wood stove by Unforgettable Fires. Currently, the EPA certifies new wood stoves that produce no more than 7.5 grams of fine particulate matter per hour. That number is being slashed by the agency; soon, new stoves will only be allowed to produce 4.2 grams per hour. The Kimberly produces 3.2, but even that performance will have to improved if the EPA moves to the proposed 1.3 grams/hour in five years. Stove makers, like Unforgettable Fire, are answering the challenge to reduce the pollutants released while increasing the heat output from each log burned through the development of increasingly efficient internal gasifiers.
Besides performance, we love the love the look and footprint of our Kimberly. It's a two-foot high stainless column only 10 inches in diameter. It fits easily into a tiny, 250-square-foot house like ours, though it could heat up to 1500 square feet. And because the stove's designed to draw in outside air for combustion, it addresses air quality issues in a compact space. (We'll still run a carbon monoxide detector!)
I'll do a review of how the Kimberly works for us after we've had it fired up for a while. Right now, keep your fingers crossed for an easy, leak-proof install.