Waking up to refill

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WellSeasoned

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Am I the only one who gets up in the wee hours of the night just to add more wood?


From what I have learned here on hearth is to burn in cycles. This is a practice I have learned to do only for the past week. However, after about 5 to 6 hours of the stove running, its still plenty hot, but the btu's get less and less. As I have said in previous posts, I live in a mobile/mfg home, so so insulation. I don't have the luxury of having pipes coming into a warmer basement, and running through the house with good insulation. The pipes are insulated, but are running under the home, in rough conditions. when the stove cools down, the first thing to cool off significantly is the floor in spots. Right below the floors are the pipes. It may be a waste of wood to do it this way, but it is essential. I feel the bit of wasteful burning is better than frozen pipes, and even worse the oil kicking on. :ahhh:

Anyone else with similar situations, or who just reload in the middle of the night?
 
Only on the coldest of nights, otherwise it is three loads a day.
 
It's been many years since a mobile home..many years.
That said I have thawed pipes on mine and others..not fun.
Then I learned about heat tape and great skirting.
It's the wind blowing what little heat there is under your floor away,that is the culprit.
Not wind itself because wind chill really only effects living things.

I just had a fireplace with glass doors in mine...also hard to get a all nighter with any real heat.
I would think your stove would do 8 hours pretty good though.
 
HotCoals said:
It's been many years since a mobile home..many years.
That said I have thawed pipes on mine and others..not fun.
Then I learned about heat tape and great skirting.
It's the wind blowing what little heat there is under your floor away,that is the culprit.
Not wind itself because wind chill really only effects living things.

I just had a fireplace with glass doors in mine...also hard to get a all nighter with any real heat.
I would think your stove would do 8 hours pretty good though.


I have used heat tape until a long power outage, froze a bit, I have also used heat tape that has just plain failed. I have pipe insulation and re insulated, with the thick stuff. We have it skirted completely. No problem getting 8 hours, even 10 a couple times, but its the final couple hours of the cycle I was trying to re vamp. Mainly when it has gotton below 20f at night. We will have at some point this winter, a couple days to a week (s) of nighttime lows in the negative digits like every other year.
 
Im usually up until around 11 pm or so checking systems for my job and load the stoves with usually 5 medium size splits and when I get up at 7 the stove still has a nice bed of coals. With my previous stove I used to get up earlier since I used to get about 4 hours max. I doubt you are the only one, we all hate cold starts. I for one would forgo sleep in exchange for coals. lol.
 
Well if the oil burner only kicks on a few times before you get her fired back up in the morning all is pretty good right?
Do you burn E/W?

I did google your stove.
Looks and sounds decent..actually very nice looking.
 
I frequently get up at night to reload. On cold nights I always get up. Tonight will be only about 32 and I'll probably not bother get out of bed and reload. I generally wake up once or twice per night even if there is no fire to mess with, so it isn't a big deal to get up and reload. I fall back to sleep as soon as I want to. If I don't reload the stove will be pretty cold in the morning. With one reload I have a warm stove with some coals in the morning.
 
Maybe the night load could be eco bricks or the sort?
You can stack them in tighter for a longer burn.
 
Nope i dont get up at night to reload. My Catalytic stove will go 12 hours or more damped down, and will burn 8 on say 50% air. I will get up and its always over about 73F in my fire room and my bedroom is 60F on the cold nights. I Try to wait till as late as possible so it have plenty of coals in the mourn. Sometimes its a chalenge to get the air right so it will burn the coals down far enough to allow me a decent reload in teh mourning and not have 7" of coals to lay the wood on.

At the farm i do not have an insert yet, i have to get up 3-4x a night to chuck wood in the fire place in the bedroom to keep it in the 70s.
 
HotCoals said:
Well if the oil burner only kicks on a few times before you get her fired back up in the morning all is pretty good right?
Do you burn E/W?

I did google your stove.
Looks and sounds decent..actually very nice looking.

E/W yes. I haven't tried n/s yet, actually need to cut a couple splits in order to do so, wanna try it tho only about 9 inches of room....plenty for next year....oil burner can go on, thats fine, but every time it has,i jump outta bed as if I'm late for work our something and quick get the fire going. I really just don't want it to, ya know. Very rare pipes freeze, maybe happened twice in 7 years.
 
I don't usually have to get up to reload.

I have been thinking lately that I would like to find a wireless thermometer that can have the sensor set in the stove room and the display up in my bedroom. I would want one that can be set to sound an alarm in the event that the stove room does drop below some pre-determined temperature. That way, I can be woken up to reload if necessary.

I haven't found one that does what I want though.

-SF
 
I was setting an alarm for about 4am on really cold nights to refill my furnace, or at least add a split or two and open the air up to burn down the huge bed of coals. Usually back to tolerable by the time we got up for good. The first winter we had it, I worked an afternoon shift and got home at 3am. That worked out perfectly.
We haven't had any cold weather to test the new stove, but the shortest burns we've had have been around ... yeah, nevermind. I think it will work out pretty good.
 
HotCoals said:
Maybe the night load could be eco bricks or the sort?
You can stack them in tighter for a longer burn.

Eco bricks I have read a few times here, gotta research em. Unless you'd like to fill me in :coolsmile:
 
Wood Duck said:
I frequently get up at night to reload. On cold nights I always get up. Tonight will be only about 32 and I'll probably not bother get out of bed and reload. I generally wake up once or twice per night even if there is no fire to mess with, so it isn't a big deal to get up and reload. I fall back to sleep as soon as I want to. If I don't reload the stove will be pretty cold in the morning. With one reload I have a warm stove with some coals in the morning.

Woodduck....we have similar fire box sizes, when you load in the middle of the night, so you go right back to bed, or baby sit it? I trend to wait until the new stuff catches, and then turn it down again, but this sometimes takes awhile.
 
My sleep is important to me. If I get up at 3am I probably will not be getting back to sleep. It's exactly: a) why I got a bigger stove and b) why I'm happy to let the thermostat take over at 3am if needed.
 
Backwoods said:
HotCoals said:
Maybe the night load could be eco bricks or the sort?
You can stack them in tighter for a longer burn.

Eco bricks I have read a few times here, gotta research em. Unless you'd like to fill me in :coolsmile:

I have tried them.
Buy a few packages and experiment.
You can really pack them in tight and they gas off really good.
Just try less then a half load at first..maybe even just 3 or 4.
Pretty sure you will get a longer burn time with them.
I pay 60-70 a face cord for wood..I figure the bricks cost me a premium of 20-25% for the same amount of btu's..just a guesstamate.

Just for the night load this may work out well for you.
 
SlyFerret said:
I don't usually have to get up to reload.

I have been thinking lately that I would like to find a wireless thermometer that can have the sensor set in the stove room and the display up in my bedroom. I would want one that can be set to sound an alarm in the event that the stove room does drop below some pre-determined temperature. That way, I can be woken up to reload if necessary.

I haven't found one that does what I want though.

-SF

That is a great idea, lemme know if you find anything. My alarm is the oil kicking in. :mad:
 
For cold nights (<25 F), usually I plan to have the stove fully loaded at about 11 pm. I can get up at 6 am and reload with coals. But if I hear the heat pump running at 4 or 5 am, I usually will get up rather then lay in bed thinking about getting up. If its 5 am or before, I usually get a full load going again and get another hour or two of shut eye on the sofa by the stove.

The 7-14 day forecast looks like we'll be getting that < 25 F night temps.
 
HotCoals said:
Backwoods said:
HotCoals said:
Maybe the night load could be eco bricks or the sort?
You can stack them in tighter for a longer burn.

Eco bricks I have read a few times here, gotta research em. Unless you'd like to fill me in :coolsmile:

I have tried them.
Buy a few packages and experiment.
You can really pack them in tight and they gas off really good.
Just try less then a half load at first..maybe even just 3 or 4.
Pretty sure you will get a longer burn time with them.
I pay 60-70 a face cord for wood..I figure the bricks cost me a premium of 20-25% for the same amount of btu's..just a guesstamate.

Just for the night load this may work out well for you.

I c/s/s all my wood, and refuse to pay for it m but i WILL try eco bricks for the overnight.thx
 
Check out some of the BBQ/meat smoking websites. Some of those folks use remote thermometers w/ alarms cause they do a lot of all nite smoke sessions.
 
I c/s/s all my wood, and refuse to pay for it


I guess I started working on a fruit farm when I was 21..they let me live in a farm house there.
I cut and split apple and cherry for close to 20 years...mostly by hand.(spliting)
I'm in a position now where I can pay less then 800 a year to have it all done for me and delivered.
I bought a new rv a few years back and now the wife,grandson and I camp a lot ..swim in the pool..ride bikes...4 wheelers and go carts.
I'm liking it!
I'm 56 now.
But I do love a wood fire..and it would cost me triple at least with a heat pump and electric forced air heat.
 
Right now in NC we're in a mid to low 30's / 50's cycle of temps and I'm loading twice a day regularly. Usually about 8-9 at night and again about 7-8 in the morning. I have more than enough coals to get it blazing in just a couple of minutes. After many years of the middle of the night thing, I'm loving my CAT stove more and more.
 
This is where a big firebox shines - even on the coldest nights, 11pm load, 6am bed of coals and a warm stove and decently warm house. Cheers!
 
I just leave the thermostat at 65 and let the furnce take over if needed. Until it gets below 15 outside I usually wake up to a 66-67 degree home. Below 15 and the furnace kicks in a few times. I usually crank it up to 68 for 1 cycle in the morning to take the chill off until the stove catches up. I sleep bad enough as it is so once I'm out I have to stay out because once I'm awake I'm up for the day.
 
I have my gas furnace come on if the temp drops so I can sleep through the night and not worry about how much heat the stove is cranking out. I like my house to be cool overnight for sleeping but not so cool that I get frost or condensation on the windows. My goal with the woodstove overnight is to have enough coals in the morning to rekindle the fire. I run the gas furnace in the morning for the humidifier. The daytime goal for the woodstove is to not let the furnace come on.
 
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