Chile Forum

I'm working out a list of what I'm buying here in the States to bring down, and what will be better to purchase once in Chile. I'm shipping down a couple containers, so that's not so much the issue as what makes sense to buy where.
What is the consensus; better to buy a wood burning stove here, or wait till I'm there? Price? Availability?
I appreciate any thoughts on this.....

I see no reason to move a thing like that. They're heavy and widely available here. You'll need to get replacement parts for it every couple of years when the insides rust. You can get a small Bosca (the more expensive make) for a couple of hundred thousand or a larger one for a bit more (up to something like 1M for large fireplace inserts, which you probably don't need). The small size is fine for a small to medium-sized house. The chimney & installation will cost you something like another 100k.

James.

chilco wrote:I'm working out a list of what I'm buying here in the States to bring down, and what will be better to purchase once in Chile. I'm shipping down a couple containers, so that's not so much the issue as what makes sense to buy where.
What is the consensus; better to buy a wood burning stove here, or wait till I'm there? Price? Availability?
I appreciate any thoughts on this.....

Not sure if a wood burning stove would fit under the seat or if you'd have to put it in the overhead compartment.

Seriously, since you are shipping a container with unlimited weight capacity. And that the stove would be part of your menaje (household goods) valuation. Two containers you say?

It also presumes not for installation in Stgo air basin where with hoped-for sense the authorities may be banning them.

The larger Amesti and Bosca stoves here are generally OK. I imported a huge old Orley insert which I use as a free-standing and it is the single most valuable item that came in that container shipment. Half of patagonia is lusting after my wood-stove. The other half hasn't seen it yet. Most agree you will not find anything as nice in all of chiledom.

Stove safety in design and installation is generally more risky than in the civilised countries. Many of the stoves in Chile are built with "safety" in mind. Like the following design that has a combined wood storage and air-intake lower compartment, which allows flaming cinders from the firebox to find their way to the kindling you store in the lower compartment. I think that the UL/CSA standard for North America banned this approach in 1889.



There is also an Annual Installers Competition to see how close they can place a stove and single-wall pipe to combustibles.

also you should know if you are moving to Santiago they are illegal to use here because the smog.

Ha ha,px, nice photos. Thanks for the responses; it definitely seems more affordable there and the better option. And no, no big city for me....it's into the Patagonia I go.

chilco wrote:Ha ha,px, nice photos. Thanks for the responses; it definitely seems more affordable there and the better option. And no, no big city for me....it's into the Patagonia I go.

Where in the patagonia? And how are you going to get those containers from port to patagonia? By truck we would presume. If you don't mind revealing your secrets.

BTW there is a Sodimac in Coyhaique that normally has a good supply of Bosca stoves and installation kits as well as chimney cleaning kit. But you already knew that.

suerte

jessicak1234 wrote:also you should know if you are moving to Santiago they are illegal to use here because the smog.

um, just according to the published restrictions:

Si usa este tipo de calefacción sepa que en las situaciones de alerta, preemergencia y emergencia ambiental, está prohibido el funcionamiento de todo tipo de calefactores que utilicen leña o biomasa ( pellets , aserrín y similares) destinadas a la calefacción de viviendas y de establecimientos públicos y privados, estén o no provistos de sistemas de doble cámara de combustión, en toda la Región Metropolitana.

El horario de restricción se inicia a las 24 horas del día en que se declara el episodio crítico antes señalado y durará 24 horas, prorrogables.

El período de vigencia de las medidas asociadas a la declaración de episodios críticos es el comprendido entre el 1 de abril al 31 de agosto de cada año, según el Plan de Prevención y Descontaminación Atmosférica para la Región Metropolitana.

patagoniax wrote:

chilco wrote:Ha ha,px, nice photos. Thanks for the responses; it definitely seems more affordable there and the better option. And no, no big city for me....it's into the Patagonia I go.

Where in the patagonia? And how are you going to get those containers from port to patagonia? By truck we would presume. If you don't mind revealing your secrets.

BTW there is a Sodimac in Coyhaique that normally has a good supply of Bosca stoves and installation kits as well as chimney cleaning kit. But you already knew that.

suerte

Yes, actually we're moving about 1 hour outside of Coyhaique, and I'd hoped the Sodimac there would be our go-to stove resource center. We're shipping the containers to Chacabuco...I have a friend who has done this a few times (shipped to Chacabuco & trucked to his place near Coyhaique) who will be arranging the shipping & transport to the site, so I just need to do the acquisitions & packing of the containers on this end. I've down-sized my original plan of an Airstream trailer to a Canned Ham trailer-more compact & easier to pull, and certainly cheaper.

Sounds excellent. Lots of container shipping from Pto Chacabuco as you know and it's not far up the hill to Coyhaique. I am guessing that your site is prepared with enough of an all-weather road for the trucks to dump the containers, likewise you are probably already planning to install blocks under the containers to keep some airflow. Keep me posted and I'll try to visit next time I am around Coyhaique.

Yes the Sodimac should be your go-to place in the area.

There is also a large and busy Unimarc in Coihaique now as you probably know. I knew the assistant manager of the store in the same building before Unimarc took it over.



Lots of containers go on those Navimag ferries to Chacabuco.

Wow...the second photo makes me wish I were there already, but the first one makes me want to run for the hills! My friend is buying the containers, and plans to use them to build a garage to work on cars, particularly Fords, as he's been a bit frustrated with that issue in Chile. He also plans to build an English style pub, so if it's built by the time you're up there I definitely owe you a few rounds for your always invaluable advice.

To buy or ship a wood stove is a very good question. I would say it depends what you are going to do with the stove. If it is for a pretty fire, the Amnesti or Boscas will do just fine. However, if you actually plan to heat your house, you might consider shipping. Our place is a bit north of you but slightly milder verson of the same climate. In winter we have frost crystals 2-3 inches high and 4 inches of ice on the hot-tub, not to mention snow.

The chileans in Coyaique don't need as much warmth as you are going to need. Trust me. Keeping warm will make the difference between success and failure for a Gringo in Coyaique. I would ship down best wood heating stove you can find!

The Bosca and Amnesti stoves do not store heat very long. They are made of steel rather than cast-iron and if you want to keep the house warm at night you will have to get up a couple times every night. They are a very low-end heating stove made for people with antifreeze in their veins. Remember most chilean houses don't even have insulation in the floor, walls or ceiling.

You might consider a soap-stone stove. http://www.hearthstonestoves.com/wood-s ... oduct_id=2 These stoves are amazing. They keep putting out heat for 14 hours! The heat is stored in the soap-stone. They can burn for 10 hours on a single filling.

If you need to cook on a stove, the Amish in Canada make a really wonderful stove called a flame view http://www.comforttimestoves.ca/flameview.html. I would have bought one except they had a 1 year waiting list at the time. So we ended up getting one that I think is even better in Chile.

Unlike wood heating stoves, there are some good wood cook-stoves in Chile. We bought ours in Osorno from Inductometal. This is a foundry that casts the stoves from Iron. http://www.inductometal.cl. Its made out of cast-iron and is an 850 pound beast. But we love it because it keeps us warm! We had them cast it taller than most Chilean cook stoves so we don't have to bend over it while cooking. It has a huge fire box. I can put small logs in it. We have an oven thermometer and I have seen it nearly 800 degrees. My wife makes bread in it routinely (we have no other oven or stove) and it heats our water. We have an 80 gallon hot water tank that thermosiphons through the stove and in winter we have a hot water disposal problem--baths become mandetory because we have to clear out the tank as the water approaches boiling in the tank to make room for more hot water. This stove has a large top. When we are canning, we can put on the square canner and 4-5 pots as the whole top is a cast-iron cooking surface and it has a large warmer underneath where the jars are waming up. And, of course, it heats our house. We only use the other stoves if it is very cold and we are feeling whimpy. Otherwise the cook stove keeps the entire house warm. The stove also is the place everyone (including the cat) likes to sit and read or talk because it is warm and has a homey glass window for watching the fire.

Our stove is one of the more important things in our house--cooking, baking, canning, heating the house, heating the hot water and making a pretty fire--so if this is to be your situation, I would suggest getting the best wood cook-stove you can find, even if it means less furniture or something. In a wood heated house, the cook-stove is the heart of the house.

Just one word of caution. If you plan to heat your water tank with a thermosiphon from the stove, make sure you bring down an industrial hot-water thermometer that measures the temperature inside your siphon pipes. It will keep your pipes from exploding when the water turns to steam! PM if you want more info...

Kel wrote:The stove also is the place everyone (including the cat) likes to sit and read or talk because it is warm

The cat here has trouble turning the pages. Ha ha.

But all of that which Kel says is good, gold, sage advice from someone who sounds like a truly experienced rural patagón. They are near La Junta, true? And perhaps know Benjamín O if he is still running a gas-station there?

I am not sure if it was made clear that most Chilean-made stoves, in addition to be made of thin metal as Kel says, tend to have very small fire-boxes. My big old Orley here has a large and long fire-box and this gives more flexibility to the size of wood that will fit. And a full box and a slow burn will keep it going and warm all night.

Provisional installation of the Orley here during construction of the present house



It is getting harder to find good new steel 55-gallon drums in this end of the patagonia so if you do get some good ones, consider them for workshop stoves using these kits. You can take a couple of these kits in your container ( I would take a dozen and sell them here !) What is better, if you can find some of the old heavy-duty Argentine steel drums. They are considered gold down here, for making heating stoves. The thinner wall of the newer barrels will not hold heat for long but they do take a lot of wood which you can slow-burn. They don't last a long time for me, maybe 4-5 years and then they rust through even with periodic high-temp painting on the outside. They are leaky and stinky and tend to get way too hot if you are not careful. But they do use standard 6 inch stove pipe. As a shop stove or backup, maybe, but not as a main residence stove. Clearance from combustibles is enormous. You can surround the barrel stoves in a thermal mass enclosure that will absorb and release heat over time, and the enclosure also helps to keep a hot-burn for more efficiency and lower pollution. There is a lot written about these cheap barrel stoves so study first - there are lots of negatives.



There is also a "Top Barrel Adapter Kit" to get some degree of smoke re-burn and additional heat capture. They only seem to work with a truly hot fire. This foto was taken during the fall and shows their elaborate mating ritual.


And don't forget the CO detector.