advice on wood stoves??

[Christina]

We are getting ready to move into a 2000sq doublewide. We have about 4 1/2 months of cold weather and would like to get a new, high-efficiency wood stove installed where the wood burning fireplace is. The furnace is electric, and electric is expensive here. Power also goes out sometimes during ice/snow storms. It is a rural electric co-op, and I'm sure it takes awhile to get restored!

Any advice or experience with this would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks! Christina

[Eugene]

My advise is don't do it!
Manufactured Homes are very tight. you will need to bring in combustion air from outside the home and to make sure that the fireplace is listed for manufactured housing.
Your new fireplace will likely be heavier than the older one and you will need to support the floor better.
From all the homes I see, the ones that install fireplaces and kerosene heaters and such, generally create big problems for themselves.
sorry

[Mac]

I live in a two-year-old Karsten that we had the fireplace deleted from for the express purpose of putting in a woodburning stove. We have an abundance of firewood free for the cutting and splitting, and high electric bills to boot. Here are things to consider:
1. Don't get a pellet stove; they need electricity to function.
2. The stove must be approved for a MF home. Air is drawn in from the crawl space via a duct cut into the floor. This is barely visible, if visible at all, from the room it's in.
3. Get a stove without a catalytic converter. It was easier to slap a converter on existing stoves than to redesign them to EPA standards without a converter.
4. It's worth paying to have it installed. This ran us about $500 for installation and about the same for the piping, etc. The pros will install it with the proper side clearance. At a minimum, you'll need to buy a "mat" for the stove to sit on, of tile, stone, etc. but this will likely not be needed for the side walls.

We love our stove and would do it over again in a heartbeat. We have a Quadra-Fire cast iron stove - a bit more expensive, but quite pretty.

Visit the stove shops in your area and see who has the expertise.
Happy heating! Mac

[Christina]

Mac, Does it heat your whole home? We are concerned that the heat wouldn't reach the other end of the home.

[Mac]

We had a ceiling fan outlet placed in the center of that room, and that does a good job of heating most of the house. Also, you can usually circulate air without heating it, by turning your thermostat to the FAN position - simply running the fan. If your thermostat doesn't have this option (It may be basic and not have this), you can replace it with a programmable one that does, for low cost (it will pay for itself over time, too). They're not hard to install.

We had an ice storm and lost power for several days (thus, lost water too). We stayed quite warm, and were able to melt snow for water (two pots full = one toilet flush).