Wood Burning Stoves

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Leicaman
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Re: Wood Burning Stoves

Post by Leicaman »

Zasso Nouka wrote:So it's that time of year again, break out the ladder, non slip tabi and chimney brush set and get up on the roof to clean the chimney

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And once clean fill up the maki stove ready for when the nights get cold enough

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Can't wait for it to get cold enough to light it now.
Great looking house. Does the stove keep the whole house warm enough?
My stove is on its way down to the south coast of England as I type this, at the start of its journey across the oceans to Japan. If all goes well, it should arrive on Dec 31st. Not the greatest timing I know as customs will be shut until Jan 3rd, but very exciting nonetheless.

Today my friend asked me if I knew the commodity code for wood stoves. The shipper needs it apparently. After going through the Japanese tariff lists (boy, are there a lot of items on those lists) I think I found the right one. Am I right in saying that a maki stove falls under

7321.89 000 Other, including appliances for solid fuel

The lists aren't the easiest to follow.

Thanks again for your help.

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Zasso Nouka
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Re: Wood Burning Stoves

Post by Zasso Nouka »

Thanks man, it's Mrs Nouka's design.

Yes, this stove keeps the entire house warm. Although on sunny days it gets a lot of help from the OM Solar type roof we have but even on cloudy days it will keep the house at around 25C if we keep it burning all day long and burning it overnight means you wake up to a warm house, which is nice.

I haven't come across commodity codes before, perhaps our supplier filled those in for us but that looks like you might have the right one, I thought it could be 7321.19 000 but that seems like it is for cooking ranges. Your wood stove looks to fall into the 7321.89 000 category as it's made from iron or steel and isn't specifically mentioned in any of the other categories.

It's going to be great getting the stove fitted once you've picked it up, I'm surprised there will be anyone working at the port on new years day to unload the ship but I guess there are some folk who have to work then. It's not long to wait now so best of luck when you do go pick it up and hope you don't give yourself a hernia unloading it when you get home :D

Here's a photo of one seriously happy cat enjoying the warmth.

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Re: Wood Burning Stoves

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Ha ha, that is one pretty happy looking cat. There is a little English pointer that is first in line to take the best spot in front of the stove once it gets here ;)




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Good to hear that your stove keeps the house nice and warm. I bet you get through a lot of maki though.

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Zasso Nouka
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Re: Wood Burning Stoves

Post by Zasso Nouka »

Your pointer is going to love it once you get the stove fired up, animals seem to enjoy wood burners more than people and they don't seem self conscious about getting right in front of them and hogging the heat. I'm sure they think we went to all that work just for them :D. Your house looks a lot tidier than ours :oops:

We do get through a lot of wood as it's mostly softwood like hinoki and sugi but it's free of charge and the lumber yards will often deliver it to our land so never one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

What make wood burner did you go for ? If you don't mind me asking.

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Re: Wood Burning Stoves

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She is a real sofa hogger so it would be nice if she decided to lie directly in front of the stove instead ;) . She loves the gas heater we have but the maki stove will be soooo much nicer.

We finally decided on a Heta inspire 45 high (which means it has an integrated log store which will means the stove will quite high off the ground, meaning we don't need any thermal insulation under the stove, just something to stop falling embers from marking the wood floor. Looking at the prices of the sheet steel floor protectors here in Japan are crazy at around 35,000 to 40,000 yen so I went to the local home centre and bought a big piece of sheet steel. Used my grinder to clean it up and round off any sharp edges, decreased it, primed and then coated it with 3 coats of stove paint. Cost me about 5000 all in :)

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As we live in the suburbs, there isn't such a plenty full amount of wood to be had however I had found a construction that leaves all its "seconds" logs in a pile with a "Free maki" sign. It's about 1 hours drive away but it's in a beautiful area so I usually make a day of it, loading up the 4x4 to the brim with maki. It doesn't get too cold here in Saitama so I don't think we will be using the stove everyday, more as a treat at the weekends I guess so we don't need cords of maki.

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Zasso Nouka
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Re: Wood Burning Stoves

Post by Zasso Nouka »

That's a lovely looking stove and good idea with the maki store underneath, I bet if you had some hinoki in there it would smell wonderful as it warmed up when the stove was burning.

I know the market for stove accessories is quite small here but honestly some of the prices are nothing short of a serious rip off, right now Komeri and Cainz Home are selling small bundles of logs for around 600 - 700円 :eek:. Ok it's hard wood an all but I think we'd use one of them up just bring our stove up to temperature. I often wonder what they do with their unsold stock at the end of the winter, does it go back into the warehouse to be trundled out next year ?

There are all sorts of sources for free maki and once folk around you know you have a maki stove you might find someone asking if you want wood they consider useless. We get off cuts from a couple of local door making companies, it's not traditional logs and comes in all sizes, some useful as kindling some for main burning but at the end of the day it's lovely and dry and it burns. If you are in a suburban area companies are generally not allowed to burn their waste wood so are more likely to want to get rid of it for free.

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Eric in Japan
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Re: Wood Burning Stoves

Post by Eric in Japan »

I have had both wonderful and terrible experiences with offcuts/ construction/ deomolition stuff. Amazingly, both with one company.
After we built our garage (and got gouged horribly on it) the man who did it offered to give us some firewood. That went a long way towards making me feel better toward him for the gouging- 3 years of heat is pretty nice.
So I met his wife at the bank last week, and she asked if we wanted any more wood. We just finished burning the last of the three year supply, so I said sure, that would be great. Drop it off anytime.
I for some reason assumed it would be similar to the last drop off, which was bundles of arm-thickness branches, and some logs.
On Thursday as my family was having breakfast, a guy in a construction helmet tapped on my window and peered into my house. Why? I have a front door, doorbell, and it is not easy to get around to that window...
So I went out my door, greeted him, and we went down to where they unload the wood. The big truck was full of those giant sandbag/construction debris woven poly bags. He said the wood was in the bags, and he would use the crane to unload them. Not ideal, but the "free wood" mentality, I agreed. After he unloaded 10 bags, he said "I'll be back with more." I said, no thanks, can't store any more than that. He said just a couple more, he had already lined them up to be loaded and all... I caved in and said fine, but just one more load.
I had to leave then for errands and such.
I was gone quite a while...
And when I returned...

Oh what a sight to my wondering eyes should appear,
but 36 bags of garbage stacked all along my property...
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like this, but many, many more...
I looked in them.
The first one was full of branch ends. None larger than a finger in width, and all tangled up.
The second was splintered, painted plywood...
The third was apparently a demolition site garbage bag. Cans, bottles, a few splintered 2x4s, bento boxes...
Another looked like 20-30 cm pieces of 2x2 offcuts. But that was only the top 20 cm or so. Under that was cedar forest floor compost/soil, so a kinda score on that one?
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And so on.

I turned the fiber optic telephone cable blue when I called the guy.
As a result, I now have 10 bags of fairly useful wood, (Chunks of old house beams, roundwood and tree trunks, fairly clean offcuts) the other 26 having been taken back. My sons and I are sorting them out and burning the rejects (painted, ply, etc..) in a big bonfire.

So be careful what you have delivered is the moral of my story.
"... so, the cucumbers said to the cabbage, `Lettuce Go.`"

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Zasso Nouka
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Re: Wood Burning Stoves

Post by Zasso Nouka »

How's that Eric ?

Can't remember what the editing limit is but I think you might have 3 hours to make any changes you want. Let me know if it's not working for you and I'll double check.

That's pretty cheeky giving you all that rubbish, I don't mind taking a small amount of 'useless' wood if the bulk of the delivery is fine for burning but giving you old bento boxes and compost is way out of line. We know the wood the lumber yards that deliver to us has a certain amount of rotten wood on it and that's why they want shot of it but usually the majority is fine.

At least you got it sorted in the end.

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Re: Wood Burning Stoves

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Was just playing around with the slow motion feature on my phone last night and took a short video of the wood stove


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Re: Wood Burning Stoves

Post by Zasso Nouka »

This has already been posted but it's well worth reiterating. Grab yourself a pot of Rutland Creosote Remover or equivalent and use it once a week or less often if you don't use your stove every day. It turns the creosote that builds up in your chimney from an inflammable tar like substance into a dry crystalline powder that is non flammable and thus reducing the risk of a chimney fire considerably. It also makes cleaning the chimney a breeze as the dry powder comes off the inner chimney surface very easily when cleaning.

It is available Amazon at the moment and Komeri's online shop also stocks it. You can pick it up in Cainz Home for around 2,600円 and it goes for around 3,000円 in Joyful Honda. Most maki stove shops also stock it. A single pot should last you through the winter.
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