How to Buy a Used Wood Stove
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Wood Burning Stoves
This past year I wanted to purchase a wood stove for use in the house I rent. In the northeastern US - and any place that has cold winters - it is important to have an alternative source of heat in case of power outages, and to help reduce the use of fuel oil, which is very costly.
With a supplemental way to heat the house the oil bill can be cut dramatically. And unless you have a fireplace or own a large generator to power the furnace, you will be very cold in the event of a long range power loss.
After shopping around at the the local stove shops (I couldn't find one near me that sold used stoves), I realized that I could not afford to buy a new stove. Even the smallest Jotuls are very expensive and I needed fairly large stove since mine would be in the basement.
The only alternative was to buy a used one. So the hunt began, and I'll tell you it isn't an easy shopping experience, but it is very worthwhile. I've also listed what it cost me in the long run so you can decide if it's worth it.
In the winter of 2008 my area lost power for 8 days and I had no way to keep my place warm. The temperature inside hovered around 36 degrees. I was stuck at the house because I had a little, old dog who didn't travel well and I couldn't take him to a hotel. Fortunately I have wonderful neighbors who had me over for dinner and let me use their shower and even let me sleep over (and they put up with my dog too). I survived, but it was miserable. I had no way to heat food (I didn't even have a gas grill) and I was determined to be ready for the next time even though everyone said the 8 day thing was a fluke that happens only once in 20 years.
In 2009, we lost power again, and this time for only 3 days, but I was thankful to have my stove in the basement to melt snow (for flushing toilets) and heat water and cook on and keep the house heated into the 60's.
Here are my tips for buying a used wood stove with some information I learned along the way - like what are those bricks for?. And if you are wondering how much a cord of wood is, see my photo.
With a supplemental way to heat the house the oil bill can be cut dramatically. And unless you have a fireplace or own a large generator to power the furnace, you will be very cold in the event of a long range power loss.
After shopping around at the the local stove shops (I couldn't find one near me that sold used stoves), I realized that I could not afford to buy a new stove. Even the smallest Jotuls are very expensive and I needed fairly large stove since mine would be in the basement.
The only alternative was to buy a used one. So the hunt began, and I'll tell you it isn't an easy shopping experience, but it is very worthwhile. I've also listed what it cost me in the long run so you can decide if it's worth it.
In the winter of 2008 my area lost power for 8 days and I had no way to keep my place warm. The temperature inside hovered around 36 degrees. I was stuck at the house because I had a little, old dog who didn't travel well and I couldn't take him to a hotel. Fortunately I have wonderful neighbors who had me over for dinner and let me use their shower and even let me sleep over (and they put up with my dog too). I survived, but it was miserable. I had no way to heat food (I didn't even have a gas grill) and I was determined to be ready for the next time even though everyone said the 8 day thing was a fluke that happens only once in 20 years.
In 2009, we lost power again, and this time for only 3 days, but I was thankful to have my stove in the basement to melt snow (for flushing toilets) and heat water and cook on and keep the house heated into the 60's.
Here are my tips for buying a used wood stove with some information I learned along the way - like what are those bricks for?. And if you are wondering how much a cord of wood is, see my photo.
The Hunt Begins
Don't wait for winter to arrive before thinking about buying a stove
I began my search early in the Spring. If you don't wait until Fall and cool weather, when everyone else is looking to buy a stove too, there will be more used and new stoves available for purchase. Plus bad weather could come early making delivery more difficult.I started my search by asking friends, neighbors and relatives if they knew of anyone who had a stove they wanted to sell.
Pellet stoves are very popular around here for their "clean" way of burning and of course there is no wood to stack and lug, and many people are converting to them for heat. I was hoping to find someone I knew who was doing just that and would sell me their unwanted wood burning stove.
I also looked online at Craig's list and adds in the paper, but I wanted to see a picture of the stove before I considered traveling miles to most likely purchase it. Even though I didn't find anything online, viewing what was out there for sale gave me an idea of what a used stove would cost. I figured I'd be paying $300-$500 for the large type of stove I'd need.
Some of the stoves on Craig's list were very old, some were not the right type and some were too fancy and expensive for what I needed. I didn't need a glass door or fancy ceramic since my stove would be in the basement.
Important!
Begin Your Search Early
Don't wait until the weather starts to get cold when everyone will be shopping.
The Stove I Bought
I haven't lived in this area of New Hampshire for very long and I don't know many people. I was giving up hope on my search and figured I'd have to either buy a small new one or forget about having one at all, when my landlady called to tell me she she had found a stove I might be interested in and did I want to go see it?
So we traveled up to Washington, NH and looked at the stove which was in the sellers basement. It is an "All Nighter, Little Moe" I think. (A reader tells me that mine is actually a "mid Moe" because of it's size.) Supposedly the little man sitting on the bottom of the door is "Moe". It came with an electric blower which can be used to blow heat out through two vents (the white knobs in the picture) in the top, but of course that will not work when there is no electricity.
I knew so little about stoves that it seemed like an okay stove so I bought it. Once it was in my place I realized I would have to add new bricks to line the inside.
The term "all nighter" refers to being able to burn wood all through the night to keep the house fairly warm and have coals at least left in the morning to start it up again. I have found this to be true of this stove, which is nice.
The Task of Delivery
This is where your strongest acquaintances come in handy
Even though finding a good stove at a reasonable price is difficult, the most difficult thing about buying a stove is that they are heavy. Very heavy. It takes at least 2 strong guys and special equipment to load a stove into the truck or vehicle it will be transported in, and then someone to unload it and get it into the house or basement.Lots of people probably have relatives, or a husband and his buddies who will help them out with this, but I had to rely on my landlord to find the people to do it for me. And it's not my house so I figured if they chose the movers it would be done to their liking.
So I was lucky enough to know someone who knew someone else who had the means to transport the stove from the sellers home to mine and then lug it down the hill in the backyard and into my basement.
Wood stoves are made of welded steel or cast iron and weigh hundreds of pounds. It was NOT an easy job. It might be right where it is forever!
Setting Up The Stove
My landlord had had the chimney cleaned out so it was ready to be hooked up - by someone experienced - and then I could try it out. Or so I thought. I asked him about the missing brick inside and he thought it would be a good idea to buy some. He said he could install if for me.
The pipe cost me around $70 and I gave our "friend" $20 to hook it up. Next thing to do...find some bricks.
I did a post about the total cost of all this on my New England's Narrow Road blog.
New stove pipe
will give off a strange odor the first few times you burn in the stove.
It's a good idea to use one of these to let you know if the fire is getting too hot.
Do You Have an Alternative Heat Source For Your Home?
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Wood or Pellet?
Pellet stoves are the new, clean way to heat, but a power loss means no using the stove - as far as I know. Which do you prefer and why?
Wood stove or pellet stove?
Good old fashioned wood.
lomax108 says:
wood stove
Maine Chowd says:
The All Nighter is a fine stove. I grew up with it and it served us well during many cold winters in Maine. Our All Nighter was also in the basement and my father cut out register vents in the ceiling around the fireplace so the heat rose to the first floor. There were also additional vents so that the heat would make it all the way to the attic where we had additional rooms. Our workflow consisted of obtaining the wood in the fall, and stacking and covering it with a tarp so it could further dry and not get wet from rain. Come winter we took out the wood steps leading to our basement (bulkhead) and put the steps up against the door jam. This served as an intermediary holding pen between the wood pile outside and the stove inside. I'd grab 10+ logs or so and split them to size with a hatchet if need be in order to start a fire. I'd then stack several other logs on the brick mantle surrounding the stove so that they.could dry out from the stove's heat. I am an adult now, and looking back at the hard work I did when I was a teenager makes me proud. It was honest work that helped our family and helped me grow to be a man.
SudokuNut says:
It has to be wood.
Pastiche says:
Wood stove! No power = no heat.
denny says:
My main source is my little moe flat top that I sold to my father in law in 1977.He gave it to me in 1986 when he converted to natural gas,I also have a fisher grandpa bear double door fireplace woodstove we use when the daily highs stay below the teens.My backup is passive solar.you can read alla about this at four seasons gardening at blogger.com
Pellet stoves all the way.
What Does A Cord of Stacked Fire Wood Look Like?
Here's a photo of my cord stacked in 2009
After the stove is bought, delivered and installed, it's time to find a reputable fire wood provider.Ask your neighbors to recommend someone they trust to deliver good hardwood (all wood is not the same) that is cut and split the way it should be.
Too long and it won't fit in your stove - Too big around and it won't burn well. The wood in this photo is too big - not split into small enough pieces to burn well. I had a lot of trouble burning it and bought from someone else the following year.
Seasoned cord wood is ready to burn and will cost more. Unseasoned has to be bought early in the Spring to sit around in the sun and become "seasoned" by winter. In Fall 2010 I bought one cord of seasoned wood for $240.
A cord of wood when stacked should measure 4ft. wide by 4 ft. tall by 8 ft. long.
The wood in this picture is my cord from last year. I bought it from some guy whose name I got out of the paper and the wood was too big around. Many of the pieces I could not burn and will need to be split for next year.
I'll be getting my wood from someone else this year.
Why I Don't Want a Pellet Stove
At least not right now
Pellet stoves are the new, modern and clean way to heat a home. The stoves run efficiently and are popular because there is no storing and lugging wood. You purchase bags of pellets -whichever kind your particular stove runs on (I think) - and just dump them in and burn them.
One down side to pellet stoves is that they require electricity to run so they are useless for heating your home in a power outage. If you have another way, such as a wood stove and/or fireplace as well as the pellet stove then you are all set.
The other problem with them is that the pellets must be purchased, and I know that at times they have been hard to come by. Wood is everywhere in my area and if I had to, I could have some one cut up a tree for me to burn. (I'm not too good with the chainsaw yet.)
One down side to pellet stoves is that they require electricity to run so they are useless for heating your home in a power outage. If you have another way, such as a wood stove and/or fireplace as well as the pellet stove then you are all set.
The other problem with them is that the pellets must be purchased, and I know that at times they have been hard to come by. Wood is everywhere in my area and if I had to, I could have some one cut up a tree for me to burn. (I'm not too good with the chainsaw yet.)
Something I Wish I'd Known
The actual cost of the stove might be higher than you think
As I've said, this stove was installed in the basement. It was the simplest place to put it and although a small stove could have been put in the living room, that room is very small and I think we would have been too hot. So I go up and down the cellar stairs to take care of my fire. It has to get very hot, and burn quite a while, to have enough heat to come up through the floor and the basement steps to heat the entire upstairs.My "new" used stove had been, at one time, lined with fire bricks. When I went to look at the stove at the seller's house, he said that the bricks were missing but it could be used anyway as long as the fire doesn't get too hot.
I knew nothing about that and bought the stove for $450 as it was. But once I had the stove, I started to look into the reason for the bricks and how necessary they are.
It turned out that the bricks are there for a reason - they hold the heat and keep the stove from warping - and I had to buy new bricks and have them installed to line the inside of my stove.
The cost for 2 boxes of bricks was $70 (all but 2 or 3 bricks were used and some had to be cut with a special saw to fit correctly). The bottom of the stove still had the old bricks in place so I didn't need to get new ones for that area or I would have needed another box!
I paid the guy $50 to install them, which was well worth it since he had to first pry out the old broken pieces and cut and place the new ones.
I'm very glad I added the bricks, because I do have to get a decent fire going to heat the upstairs nicely.
I mention it so you will realize that if you buy a stove that is missing bricks, or has old and broken ones, you will want to take that into consideration.
The photo below is how the inside of the stove looked before the addition of new fire brick. The pipes along the bottom are for the blower attachment.
Old and broken bricks needed to be replaced
Where is your stove?
Main house, basement or outside?
When I moved back to the northeast after living in Florida for almost 27 years, the house we bought had a big wood stove in the kitchen area. It was time to learn how to use one.
It turned out that my husband was incapable of starting a fire, (or maybe that is just what he wanted me to think), so I got the chore, which I actually enjoyed. It was nice having the stove right there in the kitchen where I could keep an eye on it and just throw in a couple logs every now and then.
I liked having the stove up in the house as compared to the basement. It seems like a waste of heat to have to get the basement warm in order to warm the house.
But some people love having the stove in the basement. The mess is all down there and the house is less likely to become too hot.
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Keep the fire burning
at a low heat the first few times if you have installed new bricks. I've heard that it keeps them from cracking.
Using the Dampers
to control the burn
Every wood stove should have some sort of knob or something that allows air in while the fire burns. These dampers allow you to control how hot the fire gets.When starting a fire in a cold stove, the dampers will be opened up for maximum air - or just leave the door ajar a little (only while you are standing right there - never leave it unattended) until the fire gets going. My stove has two knobs that turn on the front.
Once the fire is burning nicely the temperature will rise and the dampers will have to be shut down. It takes getting used to, and each stove is different, so you will just have to play around with it.
Having a thermometer lets you easily see if the fire is getting too hot. (See my photo below). If it gets up into the red zone, just close the dampers tight and it will begin to get under control. They you will have to open them up again.
I can't tell you how many times I go up and down my basement stairs in the winter to throw in wood and mess with the dampers!
A life saver when the power is out.
In December 2008 the northeastern U.S. had an ice storm that left me without electricity for 8 days. I did NOT have a stove and my side of the duplex I rent and it was cold!
After I bought this stove in 2009 we lost power for 3 days and I used it to melt snow to flush the toilets and to heat food.
And when the power is out...
Creosote Build Up Is a Bad Thing
Wood fires build up a black, sticky soot that can be dangerous
I have a bottle of spray - not this exact one - that I use as directed to keep the soot from building up inside my stove and in the pipes and chimney. A firefighter recommended it to me and I used it for an entire season at my previous home with great results.
Chimney's should be checked for creosote build up each year and mine didn't even need cleaning. I used it again this year but haven't had the chimney checked yet.
All it takes is a few squirts when the fire first gets going (read directions). **You should still have your chimney checked each year for build up to be safe.
Chimney's should be checked for creosote build up each year and mine didn't even need cleaning. I used it again this year but haven't had the chimney checked yet.
All it takes is a few squirts when the fire first gets going (read directions). **You should still have your chimney checked each year for build up to be safe.
Meeco Mfg. Co., Inc. 12 Liquid Creosote Destroyer
Amazon Price: $6.81 (as of 05/31/2012)
Description: Reduces formation and accumulation of creosote. Transforms existing creosote deposits into a powdery ash. Helps prevent chimney fires.
Cost Comparison
Small Jotul - Brand new, around $900 (not including delivery and installation).
My stove total cost - $760
Hey thanks for reading. I hope I've been of some help.
I'm not an expert, leave advice and corrections here too!
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lomax108
Feb 4, 2012 @ 10:45 pm | delete
- I have a wood burn stove and I wanted to know do you have to clean the damper I had to replace it last year because it would open
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flicker
Jan 18, 2012 @ 11:42 pm | delete
- Very nice lens! My wood stove is in the basement, too, and it does take a lot of trips up and down the stairs to keep it fed. But I don't have the space in the livingroom both for the stove and to store wood. Also, the basement door is convenient to my stacks of firewood. I lost power in the Ice Storm of 2008, too. Was very glad to have that wood stove!
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Pam...
Sep 16, 2011 @ 4:27 pm | delete
- OMG! I live in NH and am currently looking for a wood stove... so I searched and searched online for advice on 'how to buy a used wood stove..." and I found this blog that is just so helpful, with pictures and everything! Meanwhile, a friend of mine called with a number (he found on a wall...) of someone near my home who was selling a good, old wood stove - so I called and set up a time to go see it, and I printed this blog to take with me... Then, just by chance - I looked at the author's name on this blog... and it is the same as mine... well, the girl I spoke to on the phone who owns the wood stove for sale's name is the same, too! When I read the entire article again - it sounded so familiar. I am convinced I am going to see the star of this blog - this very Mid Moe All-Nighter! If it is truly a crazy coincidence - see you at 9AM tomorrow!
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dustytoes
Sep 17, 2011 @ 10:14 am | delete
- Hi Pam, It was great meeting you and I hope you will love having this stove in your home! I'm also thrilled that you found my Squidoo page and read it.. ;)
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Pam
Nov 4, 2011 @ 11:29 pm | delete
- Hi Pam! Thanks for responding to my post. It was great meeting you, too! Just an update... "Moe" is safely installed in the "dome"... and simmering away. We love the stove, and are so happy we bought it from you. I am learning how to keep it going all day when I'm at work, and was very grateful for the warmth and hot food with our latest power outage... The cats love the stove, too, and bask in its heat whenever there isn't a sun spot to be enjoyed. Thanks again!
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Click These Links For More Useful Wood Stove Info
- How to buy the right wood stove
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by dustytoes
After spending eight days freezing in my house, I bought a used wood stove for the next season. This is my story of how I did it and what it cost.
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