A Boost for Your Wood Stove

When I was a boy I recall very vividly my grandparent's farm house. It was a large expanse of a thing with many rooms, layed out in the typical fashion of having the bedrooms upstairs and the living quarters on the main level. The basement was a very scary root cellar for which I did not care. A city kid can only cope with so much. It was built in the early 1800's on prime PEI soil that my great, great, great grandfather cleared. The house still stands today.

One design feature that was very common in those homes built before central heating was a simple grate that passed through to the upper floors right above the kitchen wood stove. This simple device allowed heat to pass from the warm kitchen below and rise to the upper floor. There was no duct work involved at all. You could look straight through the unit and see the other side clearly. It also made for some good spying for a little boy to pass a rainy day on the farm.

Fast forward thirty-plus years to when I was finishing the basement in my own house. As a primary heat source the wood stove in the basement was just what was needed. Wood remains the least expensive way to heat a home, not to mention that the fuel is renewable and stays on when the power goes out. One issue bothered me though. There was enough heat coming off of that stove to heat two houses but much of the heat was staying in the basement level. Having this large area as a finished family room wasn't going to work if it was going to be 30 plus degrees down there, not to mention that I could heat the whole house much more efficiently if there was a means to get that heat upstairs. I couldn't help but think of the grate at my grandparents house, so I went on a hunt for such a thing.

In a country with roughly one million wood stoves (Stats Can), mostly in the basements of homes, you'd think that the old farmhouse grate would've survived into modernity. Wrong. Sure, one could custom build a duct and affix a floor grate to the top and a ceiling grate to the bottom, but I wanted an off-the-shelf solution. Preferably with a fan. None to be found. Called ventilation shops all over town and they hadn't heard of such a thing. So I gave up. Until...

I was reading a trade magazine and low and behold, there it was. A fan to move air from one level to another and it was enclosed in a telescoping duct designed to fit between floor joists. I called the company for the local distributor, had them order it for me and voila! Its now installed.


The results? The fan does two main things. First, it equalizes the temperature between the two levels in both winter and summer. Meaning that it both warms the air upstairs with heat from the wood stove in the heating season and it also brings the cool summertime air from the basement upstairs too. Its a dandy little rig.

For those looking to make this a DIY project, make sure you have decent skills. It took me a full morning to install the unit and there is a cut that needs to be made in both your downstairs ceiling and upstairs floor. The reason I'm bringing this to you all is not as a DIY tutorial. Its that I believe that more homes should have one of these units for the benefits listed above.  Even I had trouble locating an off-the-shelf solution and I do this stuff for a living.

If you are building a new home or doing a renovation and you have a wood stove, consider this unit. Its worth the investment.

With the Grain

A past customer of mine had contacted me and wanted to talk kitchen cabinets. Looking at being empty nesters in a few years they were tackling a laundry list of items to update their home for resale. Now, when these cabinets were originally constructed they were in the “dream kitchen” category. They were a raised panel oak with a golden/honey tone stain that would’ve been the envy of the block. Also, there was a lot of them. Nearly thirty doors.

Sadly, even with the excellent quality workmanship that was very apparent throughout the kitchen, the time was nigh for an update. She had already received a quote for a re-facing of the cabinets (that’s new doors and face-frames) that was more than she thought she thought needed to be invested for a good re-sale. New cabinets were out of the question as the return on investment just wouldn’t make sense. The obvious next suggestion was paint. Would that help update the kitchen so as to not be a stumbling block in a sale of the house? Her interior decorator thought so and picked out a colour for her.

The problem? Her cabinets were oak, with the inherent deep, open grain of that species of wood. Run your hand over a piece of oak in your home. Rough eh? When painted that grain doesn’t go away and shows very poorly on cabinets. They end up looking… painted. And not in that fresh-from-the-factory kind of way. Any painted oak projects that I have seen looked really home-spun, even if a pro did them. The grain is so visible that it looks like the Dickens. My secret weapon? Grain filler.

Click to enlarge to better view the open grain on the back side of this drawer face.

Now check out the smooth finish on this door front...

Grain filler is a product that comes either in an oil or water based form. Different manufacturers differ in their suggested application method but essentially it allows you to finish an open grain wood like oak or walnut to a glass like smoothness. Species like maple or birch, although with their own challenges for finishing, are tight grained and can be painted without the unsightly open grain. With oak or walnut, you simply apply the filler, sand it down, then prime and paint. Sounds simple but do it for thirty doors! If you happen to be staining raw wood, you can tint grain fillers so that the entire surface looks natural. Important: Grain filler is not Wood filler and cannot be used as such. Many finishers have a home-made blend that they create in their shops but it can be bought on-line through many distributors. Local paint shops tend not to carry it as it is fairly obscure.

The results for my customer? I applied the filler to both the doors and carcass faces of the cabinets, sanded and painted. The doors were sent off-site for spray painting. The result was excellent. The door backs, which were painted but not filled, had very pronounced grain showing but the fronts were as if they came from a factory. In that really-nice-job way.

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Welcome!

Hey Folks,

As the description hints at, I do hope to pass on to you some things that interest me. I'm fortunate to have found joy in the things that I spend the most time doing. My livelihood and other distractions keep me pretty busy. Namely: my construction company, a park that I'm helping to create in my neighbourhood and my semi-active music performance habit. Rather than maintain separate spaces for all of those, I'm just sticking it all in here.

In order of appearance, Echelon Home Improvement and Repair is a construction company that I began upon my departure from my long-time employer, Imperial Theatre. It was a new path that I had pontificated for some time, so once I finished up a major construction project at the theatre the time was right to start Echelon. We do general home improvements and repair with an eye for exceptional quality. It was a fantastic decision and I hope to pass on some tips to those who may be interested in a project around their home or just general how-to points.

Secondly, I'm the President of the Little River Reservoir Association. Several years ago, just around the time I moved to the neighbourhood, there was a glaring item missing from the community. A park. For those familiar with East Saint John, the "Rez" as its know in these parts, is the obvious locale for such an amenity. With the help of the community, the park is just about done. Its one of my rare points of pride to have been the one crazy enough to propose the idea and to have it actually get done. You can read way more about the Rez here.

Finally, I'm also a sometimes musician. I recorded a CD a few years back and was just on the cusp of organizing a tour when a little bundle of joy by the name of Reilly arrived. Being a new dad and a touring musician just starting out didn't seem like the right thing to do so that part of my life got iced. As of right now I'm starting a new project that you'll hear more about as time progresses.

Other stuff will creep in too. I often get riled up over politics and I occasionally like to prattle on about our changing world and our profound connectedness to each other.

I know you'll find some interesting stuff in here every once in a while so follow me and please comment often.

Cheers.
Glen