how do i keep my pipes from freezing

[Graydoc]

what is the best wood stove and way to keep the pipes from freezing in the winter?

[Jafo]

Not sure what the best wood stove is as it depends on a lot of factors. What are you

heating

? How are your pipes laid out?

[Graydoc]

We are just getting the planning started and haven't even bought property yet. Love the forum. Planning on a 30' yurt with plumbing at a shared kitchen bath wall.

[Jafo]

Well as far as the wood stove goes, money will determine what the BEST stove is. If money is not a pressing issue, I have been hearing some great things about these stoves:

Unforgettable Fire, LLC | Kimberly & Katydid Wood Stoves

Namely the Kimberly stove:

Produces up to 42,500 BTU/hour
Heats up to 1500 square feet
Burns up to 8 hours on a load of fuel

Some people I have talked to at

Rainier Yurts

speak very highly of them. They take up much less space than an average stove. A hefty price tag for just the stove though: $3,800. That's quite a bit of money if you ask me.

If that is too much, just try to size out a stove for double your square footage as a rule of thumb. 1,500 feet at least IMO. Radiant heat only. For example, I would not get a pellet stove as that is just force air heat and would not take advantage of reflectix

insulation

.

As for pipes, I would think that your platform would need to be enclosed underneath and insulated a bit, but that is really not my area of expertise.

[Graydoc]

Ok thanks a lot!! We'll check them out. People are raving about their Jotul stoves and I need to find out if we can stuff those with 16 inch logs.

[Bob Rowlands]

I weatherized house trailers back in the early 80s in Jackson Wyoming. Jackson regularly got down to zero, and well below. With that kind of cold, pipes under the floor, in the trailers crawl space, had electric tape and

insulation

wrapped around them, or they would freeze solid. We also upgraded the perimeter skirting with foam insulated panels. That really helped with frozen pipes.

I would imagine a yurt on an elevated platform would be similar. You certainly would want any visible piping under the platform to be very well insulated in a cold climate. Pipes within the floor framing should have pipe wrap around them as well.

[Surely Yurts - Steve]

I notice you are in Little Falls, NY which means that using only wood heat with traditional plumbing in the winter will be a full-time occupation and one that will tether you to the yurt. You won't be able to leave for more than ~12 hours at a time without pipe freeze up (I know from experience). Also, (if you are off the grid) AC electric pipe heaters will suck your battery power down in a matter of hours.

My way of solving this was to throw out my old view of plumbing and replace it with something more yurt friendly & much less expensive. What I would do is to support the countertops with 55 gallon barrels which will hold your winter water supply. If you are not using a flush toilet, I've found that about 5 of these barrels (~250 gal.) per full-time dweller is enough to get through the winter. Once you fill up your barrels in Nov-Dec you can use a 12 volt pump from them to either fill a gravity barrel which you would have elevated on the counter top for cold water , for hot water you can pump directly to a tank-less water heater (LP) and then route that to your sink and/or shower.

If and when you need to leave for a few days just make sure your lines are purged, your drains are pickled, and the barrels aren't so full that they will bulge up when frozen.

-Cheers

[Surely Yurts - Steve]

WiseWay Pellet Stoves - Stoves | Central Point, OR

Check out this new technology! I'm seriously considering putting one of these in my new 20' yurt. They have dealers setup all over the country already.

[Marshall Eppley]

love the link it looks to be a rocket stove sort of set up with a gravity feed for fuel. Great design and a quality product. waiting for a price list. If you gys want some other ideas check out rocket stoves with bio mass heaters on you tube. I have picked up a lot of ideas watching these videos.