NDL Hearth Blog

It was cold this weekend. If you live in the Northeast and you were on the fence about adding a wood burning stove, fireplace or insert to your home, a couple days with no power may have changed your mind!

Unless you have an alternate heat source like a fireplace insert or wood burning stove, the houses are refrigerator cold after almost two days without power. Utility companies are working painstakingly to get to all the downed wires, but it could be a week before some people get their power turned back on.

Enter the convenience of wood burning fires! Not only are they relaxing, they give your home and family warmth when the winter storms hit.

No Electricity required for heat! But wood fires also make power outages more fun, more relaxing, more romantic. Sit around the wood stove or wood burning fireplace insert, look at the fire, play games with the family, or get cozy with your spouse and forget about the storm outside.

For information on wood burnings stoves or wood fireplace inserts, contact Northeast Distribution LTD.

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If you are getting your home ready to put on the market this spring, think of adding a few luxuries to entice potential buyers. Set your home apart from the others with a new gas or wood stove, fireplace or insert. As you know, homes sales in New England and the Northeast are increasing, but home pricing has become much more competitive. With the spring comes an increase in home sales, and with interest rates still low compared to years past, and a rebounding economy, it is the perfect time to sell your home.

Gas fires add convenience and ambiance to any home. With the touch of a button potential buyers know that in your home, they can enjoy a relaxing fire anytime. And, how nice to showcase your home at an open house with a cozy fire blazing in the fireplace.

With a wood burning stove or insert added to your home, your realtor can show potential buyers the advantage of your home over the competition, a decrease in home heating utility bills. Not only will potential buyers save money heating their new home next winter, they will be able to enjoy the ambiance and beauty provided by a beautiful fire.

But whichever fuel source you choose, one thing is certain; working fireplaces add atmosphere and ambiance to any home. New home buyers love the idea of a working hearth and they make your home more enticing. Home buyers are looking for a unique and homey piece of real estate. With all of their options make your house the home they are looking for.

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It is approaching the time to clean out your wood stove, fireplace or insert, hopefully for the rest of the winter season! We have worked our fireplaces hard this winter, and they need a break, a cleaning and a polishing after what we have put them through this year. The winter of 2010-2011 has entered the history books for the Northeast, and our stoves and inserts need a break.

Northeast Distribution, LTD has all the products you need to make your stove, insert or fireplace look brand new again. We offer many different styles of ash buckets and shovels for cleaning up after a wood burning fire. It certainly is an unpleasant job, but there's but you can at least make cleaning as quick and easy as possible.

Imperial also makes the best line of maintenance products and stove paints on the market today. For easy cleaning of your stove, fireplace, or insert we carry all that you need. Glass door, gas log, and masonry cleaner along with gold and brass cleaner and high heat stove paint.

For everything wood stove, fireplace and insert related for Spring Cleaning, call Northeast Distribution today.

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Surely this winter you have been to a home that has felt cozy, welcoming and warm with a fire burning the fireplace. Fireplaces instill a sense of warmth and security in any room. The firelight sends a sense of calm through the atmosphere. You can have this in your home too, with Vermont Castings Wood Burning Fireplace.

The heat generated by a Vermont Castings wood burning fireplace is just the beginning. The room feels welcome, with a cheerful and relaxing ambience, but also, the Sequoia Wood Burning Fireplace by Vermont Castings can heat up to a 2,500 square foot home as efficiently as a wood stove. Efficiency and beauty are combined in this fireplace design.

And, they are less expensive than you think. But, thanks to newer fireplace technology, the efficiency of a Vermont Castings fireplace drives down your heating costs. Wood is a cost effective, efficient and comforting way to heat your home. Not to mention the traditional look of a wood burning fireplace brings people more comfort, and provides a focal point to your room. You’ll notice the fire becoming the gathering place in the evenings. Contact us at 866-602-7227 for more information on any Vermont Castings Products.

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Creosote buildup inside your chimney is the primary reason you will need to have the chimney cleaned, and it is the primary cause of chimney fires. Creosote is one of the chemical products of “incomplete combustion of fuel”. It is one of byproducts of burning fires that is carried up your chimney through the flue to be vented safely outside.

There are several steps you can take to minimize creosote condensation inside your chimney. The first and easiest is to always burn well seasoned wood in your fireplace or woodstove. Green wood, or unseasoned wood, has high water content so it burns cooler with more smoke. Cooler burning and more smoke both contribute to creosote buildup in your chimney.

You also want the most complete combustion of your wood that is possible for your fireplace or woodstove. Meaning, you want to burn the wood in the fire as completely as you can at a hot temperature. A small, hot fire burns the fuel more completely than a large, cooler fire.

Non-toxic and environmentally safe creosote cleaner is also sold. Creosote cleaner, which you can spray inside your fireplace or wood stove, and on the wood within the firebox, helps prevent chimney fires, and turns dangerous creosote and soot into a harmless ash or char that can be easily removed. Once your fire is lit, creosote cleaner helps reduce the amount of buildup in your chimney and helps breakdown the creosote that exists there from previous fires. Although sprays do decrease the creosote, it by no means is a real substitute for a regular chimney sweeping.

However, anti creosote sprays are a great addition to your cleaning repertoire, helping prevent the creosote from becoming too solid. Spraying your fireplace or wood stove regularly is a very good idea for chimney maintenance.

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For 23 years, Julie Gore has heated her Ada, Ohio, home with a wood-burning stove. When the old one wore out, she didn't hesitate to buy another for her family room.

"It's warm and toasty," said Gore, an administrative assistant at Ohio Northern University. "I wouldn't trade it. If you get a chill you can stand by it and warm up."

Stoves as secondary heating sources are growing in popularity, and come in two basic varieties: wood stoves and pellet stoves.

Some proponents say the stoves can be more environmentally friendly and help cut energy costs; other experts say that can vary from household to household.

Traditional wood-burning stoves like Gore's enjoy stronger sales, but pellet stoves, which burn compressed sawdust, may be gaining, according to the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association, a manufacturers trade group. Wood stoves and wood fireplace inserts saw an 81 percent increase in shipments in 2008, the association said. Pellet stoves and pellet fireplace inserts increased 161 percent that year.

Both kinds of stoves are meant mostly to heat specific rooms or groups of rooms, not entire houses. They cost between $3,000 and $4,500 including installation.

The federal government is offering a 30 percent tax rebate in 2009 and 2010 for purchases of wood or pellet stoves that meet a 75 percent efficiency requirement.

Here are some of the ways wood and pellet stoves compare:

Effort

Wood stoves must be fed with logs, while pellet stoves use 40-pound bags of pellets poured into a hopper.

Most pellet stove hoppers hold an entire bag of pellets, which will last about 24 hours before needing to be reloaded, said Leslie Wheeler, spokeswoman for the trade association.

With pellet stoves, look for a model with a large hopper opening to make it easier to load pellets, and check for an easily removable ash pan to make cleanup quick, suggested Bob Markovich, the home and yard editor at Consumer Reports magazine, which recently profiled heating stoves.

A safety precaution: Homeowners should place carbon monoxide and smoke detectors near the stoves, Markovich advised.

Efficiency

Pellet stoves produce very little smoke, giving them a reputation as more environmentally friendly, Wheeler said.

"There's very, very little moisture in that pellet," she said. "It burns very cleanly, very efficiently and leaves very little ash."

Ken Hellevang, an engineer with the extension service at North Dakota State University, noted of pellet stoves: "Even the most efficient burning units, there's still ash that needs to be discarded. There's some labor involved on a daily basis."

Pellet stoves also require electricity, since fans circulate the heat, so it's a good idea to purchase a backup battery, Wheeler said. Wood-burning stoves don't need electricity.

Markovich of Consumer Reports described all heating stoves as "a large version of an electric, $30 space heater."

"People have this sort of rising desire to be off the grid and control more of their own expenditures," he said. "People are looking for any way they can to save."

But if you're trying to lower home heating bills, Markovich said, you'll need to turn down the heat in the rest of the home when using a wood or pellet stove. "To really save money, you have to keep the rest of your house colder," he said.

Another tip: Make sure the square footage you want to heat matches the square footage the stove can warm, Markovich said.

Cost

About half of all households nationwide depend on natural gas for heating, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. The agency recently forecast that costs for heating fuels this winter -- including natural gas, propane, oil and electric -- should all be down.

Based on today's costs, Markovich said, burning pellets costs about 15 percent less than oil and 40 percent less than electric heat, but about 25 percent more than natural gas.

"If you're in fact burning natural gas now, buying a pellet stove is a mistake because it costs more," he said.

Wood stoves can be a bargain for some. "A lot of people are near rural areas where wood is cheap or free," Markovich said. "If that's you, that makes financial sense."

Article by Caryn Rousseau Associated Press, Click Here for Original Article

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Last night, the House voted 177 to 148 in favor of the $858 billion Tax Cut Compromise Package of 2010 that reduces the biomass heater tax credit to 10 percent with a $300 cap. The bill now goes to the White House for the President's signature. Another significant change that further restricts the tax credit for biomass appliances is that Congress removed the lower heating value measurement and only allows the credit toward the purchase price and not for installation.

Energy efficiency provisions were shortchanged even further by a clause that says the $500 tax credit is a lifetime maximum, meaning that if a homeowner has used this credit anytime since 2005, it cannot be used again. During the past two years, the credit up to $1,500 could be used regardless of whether the family has used the credit between 2005 and 2009.

The reduction to 10 percent tax credit affects all energy efficiency measures that had enjoyed 30 percent credit for the past two years. Many members of Congress felt the 25C tax credit program had cost the government too much money and should not be extended in its current form at 30 percent up to $1,500.

This setback for incentives for wood and pellet heating systems is a result of biomass appliances being considered an energy efficiency device instead of a renewable energy system. Solar, wind and geothermal systems still enjoy the full 30 percent tax credit with no maximum and are not set to expire until 2016.

"This creates a terrible double standard for incentives between renewable energy systems favored and affordable by the wealthy and systems favored and affordable by average American families," said John Ackerly, president of the Alliance for Green Heat. "Fortunately, we understand that Congress will be revisiting these tax credits again in 2011 and advocates for cleaner and more efficient biomass appliances need to be prepared," he said. Instead of using tax credits based on a percentage of purchase and installation costs, Congress is likely to consider performance-based credits.

This report prepared by the Alliance for Green Heat.

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As the days get colder and the heating bills get higher it is time to think about adding a wood burning stove to your home. With wood heat you can cut your energy bills, increase your heating efficiency and add atmosphere to your home. Wood burning stoves increase the efficiency of your existing wood fireplace, and they come in all different sizes, and styles. Do you have a modern home? No problem. There are many sleek, modern designs and colors that can add to the décor of your home. If you have a traditional colonial home, there are wood burning stoves to fit your home style as well. From Vermont Castings, to Pacific Energy, there are many styles to choose from. Let the room you gather in this winter keep you warm and provide an ambience to come home to.

With energy prices rising, why not heat your home with a renewable energy source? Wood is an eco friendly, renewable energy source, and the technology in wood burning stoves today has made them much more energy efficient than in years past. Along with the energy tax credit that is available until December 31, 2010, now is the time to buy.

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At NDL we would like you to know that along with our retailers we support our communities. With the help of our retailers, last year we provided $1600 dollars worth of toys for Toys for Tots in and around the Northeast. That is hundreds of toys!  And this year, again with the help of our retailers, we are providing hams to the local food banks in our communities. Our goal is 130 hams! The hearth shops of the Northeast will order the hams through NDL when they place their orders. 

NDL will match the amount of hams bought by the distributors. These holiday hams will then be distributed by the local food bank in your neighborhoods to families in need this holiday season. So if you are in the market for a fireplace, insert, or wood stove or any hearth accessories, let us connect you with the retailer in your area. By supporting  your local hearth retailer you are supporting you community. No one supports your neighborhood more during the holiday season than local, small businesses.

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Our fires are lit, and you surely remember the dry air inside your home from winters past. For the health of both your family and the wood furniture in your home, consider how you will humidify your home this winter. One of the most practical fireplace accessories on the market today is a wood stove steamer.

At NDL, we offer steamers in many shapes and sizes manufactured by Condar, Minuteman, Imperial and Last Waltz Clay Studio. These steamers come in styles that range from traditional teapots, to animal shapes, to hand-made and hand-glazed clay designs. With this many varieties and manufacturers, you are sure to find one to match your style. They are quite easy to use, just fill them with water and place it on the stove. You may also turn these steamers into aromatherapy solutions by adding potpourri, spices, or stove scents to the water. Once the steam begins to be released into your home, it not only becomes a room humidifier, but it will release the sweet smell of fragrance as well.

Wood stove steamer add decorative value to your home. Due to their unique shape and quality, just leave these decorative pieces on the wood burning stove for all to see. If you wish to add a unique touch to your home or you need extra humidity; a wood stove steamer is what you are looking for.

Of course, NDL offers a full range of fireplace accessories including fireplace glass doors, fireplace tool sets, chimney caps, and ash buckets. Let us direct you to the finest hearth dealer in your area. Contact us today.

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