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The good news is that traditional small iron stoves are being made
again. The bad is they are priced at 10x what they should be and
scandalous. A new tiny cast woodburner the size of a breadbox costs
$1,600 and the one I inspected close-up last week was a piece of sh*t
in terms of good cast stove construction, not worth $50 to a serious
woodburner, there have been many iron toys for children made & fitted
much better to use than this stove.

A small iron stove of good quality - if you can find one - is better
than other ways of burning wood.

For a long time small laundry stoves & heaters were made for bathrooms
in houses, and you may luck out and find one that has not fallen into
the hands of a stove restorer, who will charge you as much or more
money for one as the new repros above. But at least they are made very
well.

For heating a small space well & effiicently with wood, one must do
opposite from what has become popular today for wood burning practices,
and this will also affect the design of stove to use (that is, if you
can find much of a choice these days), as well as its installation.

Adequate supply air is not likely to be any problem on a houseboat or
other boat, but adequate draught (flue height) for efficient combustion
is. The more you can provide, the better. In practical terms it is
impossible to have too high a flue on a boat, and whatever you can
manage will still have you wishing you had more.

No "airtight stove" type burning should be contemplated. It is very
wasteful of fuel to "hold" or restrict a full fire in a woodstove "to
make it last a long time", it will make smoke outside that will be
miserable with its short flue height, and it will foul the flue. A
boat does not have a woodshed for fuel storage and the resulting waste
from such burning will nearly double the fuel requirement.

Only finely split, DRY (meaning at 20% moisture or less) wood which has
been cut to the proper length for the firebox should be burned. Many
hardwoods take 2 years or more of drying out in the weather to get to
this point. Fires should be kindled quickly and burned hot with
correct underfire & overfire air at high efficiency, and resulting heat
"held" in the stove & mass of the space, rather than trying to hold a
cooler fire for a longer period. This means either brief, hot fires
that are permitted go out, or continual ones which are frequently fed
only one or two sticks at a feeding, depending upon the weather. Such
fires produce very little flue smoke after warmup and sometimes none
that is easily visible, when an experienced person is operating the
stove, and they emit a good deal of heat for the size of the thing -
especially when it is in the "clear fire" stage (mostly charcoal & no
yellow flame). All this stuff may seem obvious but firing a tiny
woodstove well is more challenging than one of larger size, and makes
bigger differences in the heating results.

Remember you will have to deal with ashes and more frequently than in a
bigger stove. On a boat a covered ashcan is needed because there is
usually a breeze when they have to be taken out. People are wierd
today too & some may get ****ed off when they see you dump wood ashes
into the water downwind because they have been culturally deprived.

It IS possible to bank a fire with fresh fuel for delayed burning at
night at starved draught - which is not the same thing as the usual
"airtight stove" inefficient operation but has some similarities. It
will also use up a lot of your ashes & cut back on their disposal, for
there is a lot of unburned material in once-burned ash. Allow a clear
fire to almost burn out, with only some remaining coals, and shake or
remove any excess ash around them. Close all air inlets entirely.
Place on top of them the largest piece of dry fuel that will fit into
the stove, usually through its lifted top & often an unsplit round
section loaded on its end (but it must be *dry wood*). Load the whole
firebox with ashes, all the way up to & over the top of the fuel.
Close up the stove & all draughts & dampers as tightly as possible
(this technique depends on having good flue draught height which will
pull tiny amounts of air into the stove anyway). In a few hours,
everything inside the stove will be one glowing mass, and much later
when it has burned out you will be surprised by now little ash is left
in the morning. Throw *this* ash out, don't try to reuse it for the
next banked fire.

One of the best, least messy & easiest to stow fuelwood sources for a
tiny stove is bagged hardwood waste product from a mill operation, such
as cutoff birch dowel pieces and the like. This is kiln-dried material
and it is so easy to handle and burns so fookin hot, that you will
laugh at anyone who derides you for heating your boat with wood.
You'll still need other larger fuel for more balanced & controlled
fires, and it is easy to overheat & ruin an iron stove burning hardwood
waste if you are not careful.

As well, pellet stoves can burn small wood efficiently, with forced
draught. The best pellets are made from waste from flooring and
cabinet scraps. The ash all goes up the pipe. Haven't seen any small
pellet stoves, though.

Terry K

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