Do you leave the stove on when you go to work?

When the weather warrants I burn 24/7. After a couple of years, I have learned to trust both the stove's integrity and my burning routine.

Will load, let wood get charred and adjust air down and out the door...

Reload with my starter wood drink coffee, load with good wood, check again before leaving.

I think it burns better when I'm not around fussing with it all the time ;-)

yes, i load it up, get it hot and turn the air down on my way out the door.

I load my stove about 11pm, get it cooking hot, cut some of the primary air, then head off to bed. Keeps the house warm at night. In the morning, when the stove is just coals, I shut off the primary and secondary air and leave for the day...no one is home and the house doesn't need heat. Who ever gets home in the evening (me or the wife) will refire the stove and start heating the house...usually it is down in the mid 60's by then.

Corey

Yes sir! As the folks above describe. I've noticed my folks stop by and drink a cup of coffee, spruce up the fire more often now. It runs 24/7 if I'm around town.

ATB,
Mike P

Nope. I burn until bedtime, close it down, relight in the morning to take off the morning chill, and close it down before heading to work. No need to pump BTU's into an empty house. I get decent solar gain during the day and it's usually around 63-65 when I get home after work.

got wood? said:

I think it burns better when I'm not around fussing with it all the time ;-)

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Yes, I do leave the stove on when I go to work...the MRS is there to feed it! But if she wasn't I'd use my bed time routine of a few splits to get things going, then do a full load, let it char, then shut down for the long haul.

During the day I tend to use lower BTU/cord woods because it can be fed more often, but in the evening I use higher BTU/cord woods.

Stove burns 24/7 unless pops lets it go out.

The electric heat doesn't come on in this house. Period.

However, last night, dad couldn't get a coal fire started and gave up. Closed the stove down and went to bed. Woke up this morning to a 53 degree house. Says he likes burning wood in the new stove better than coal, because he gets to play with the fire and see the flames more.

Mom likes the coal better. Heat is more even and the house hovers at 70 degrees.

precaud said:

Nope. I burn until bedtime, close it down, relight in the morning to take off the morning chill, and close it down before heading to work. No need to pump BTU's into an empty house. I get decent solar gain during the day and it's usually around 63-65 when I get home after work.

Click to expand...

I've always wondered about this, and it makes some sense, but even if out for a while, say on the weekends, I find the house stays more comfortable if the temp is kept up. The theory I have is that the thermal mass of the house (Mostly sheetrock I'd guess) is hard to get back up to temp, so the house is cooler than we'd like for a few hours while the stove runs hard to get that mass back up. If it never cools off the house is more comfotable...of course it take fuel to maintain, but also fuel to move temps up.

The Same probably applies to the discussion on efficiency of setbacks/what temp on your thermostat.

I'm probably still too new at this to be afraid of burning 24/7 ;-)

So far, I have been loading as if I was setting up an overnight burn when I leave the house. I'm in the office now doing paperwork (and goofing off here), insert is going nice and hot. Before I have to leave, I'll pack her full, get a good char going on the wood and shut the air down.

Warren, you're absolutely right.

Same principle that libraries use when they have HVAC systems which are knowingly undersized. Since all those books have quite a bit of thermal mass, they let the heat or AC run all night, heating or cooling those books off. Then, during the day, when the library is packed with people and the doors are constantly opening and closing, etc, the heated books help the undersized unit to keep up.

That theory makes perfect sense to me also. In the summer, it sure seems that my AC works much less to maintain temperature once it's achieved than it does to cool the house from a hot state. I'm sure this works for the heat as well. Plus it's just nice to come home to a house that isn't too cold.

I'm too new at this to be completely comfortable loading the stove up and leaving it.... but yesterday I gave it a try. Tossed some smaller splits on the coals when I got up, then a couple of larger ones and let the stove get up to temp. I tossed one more split on and dampered down before I left.

Nearly 10 hours later I arrived home. House was still standing and was 66 degrees.... even had some coals left to relight. As the weather gets colder, I'll probably need to stuff the stove full to accomplish the same, but it sure is nice coming home to a warm house without letting the furnace do all the work!

Warren said:

I've always wondered about this, and it makes some sense, but even if out for a while, say on the weekends, I find the house stays more comfortable if the temp is kept up. The theory I have is that the thermal mass of the house (Mostly sheetrock I'd guess) is hard to get back up to temp, so the house is cooler than we'd like for a few hours while the stove runs hard to get that mass back up. If it never cools off the house is more comfotable...of course it take fuel to maintain, but also fuel to move temps up.

Click to expand...

I agree in principal. I've been watching to see, where is the efficiency balance point between: the boiler rarely coming on, solar gain is maximized, woodstove provides most of the "btu's on demand", and comfort levels are acceptable. Last year there was no such balance point; the heat loss swamped all the heat inputs. But after putting in mondo ceiling insulation, this year I've discovered that if I keep the boiler thermostat at 63, it rarely comes on during the day, and only comes on at night right before I wake up. The stove quickly brings the living areas above 70 and keeps the bedroom in the 63-65 range, which is just right for me.

The Same probably applies to the discussion on efficiency of setbacks/what temp on your thermostat.

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Exactimundo.

Yep, I was just going to post exactly what you said precaud.

Corie said:

Yep, I was just going to post exactly what you said precaud.

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What - exactimundo? ;-)

yep! I think they're an accent on the "i" though!

We're going 24/7. I made sure the installation was super-safe and feel very confident in leaving it burn while we are away. Only problem so far was when I cut the air back too far and came home to a lot of charcoal chunks in the firebox. Doing better now and have only fine ashes to clean out every couple days.

Warren said:

precaud said:

Nope. I burn until bedtime, close it down, relight in the morning to take off the morning chill, and close it down before heading to work. No need to pump BTU's into an empty house. I get decent solar gain during the day and it's usually around 63-65 when I get home after work.

Click to expand...

I've always wondered about this, and it makes some sense, but even if out for a while, say on the weekends, I find the house stays more comfortable if the temp is kept up. The theory I have is that the thermal mass of the house (Mostly sheetrock I'd guess) is hard to get back up to temp, so the house is cooler than we'd like for a few hours while the stove runs hard to get that mass back up. If it never cools off the house is more comfotable...of course it take fuel to maintain, but also fuel to move temps up.

The Same probably applies to the discussion on efficiency of setbacks/what temp on your thermostat.

Click to expand...

What Warren is seeing is the result of the physics angle of heating mass...warm always seeks cold. If your walls, floor, ceiling...get appreciably cooled off then even if the air temp is warm(say, if you crank the furnace on to warm things up quickly) you will still feel cold. This happens due to your body radiating infrared heat to the cold walls(in physics terms you're acting as a black-body radiator). Well insulated houses feel warmer not only due to the lack of outside air drafts, but in a large part due to the surfaces inside the home being maintained at a higher relative temp.

If you crunch the numbers on the heat required to raise the temp of X pounds of sheetrock Y number of degrees and compare that to the amount of heat required to maintain the sheetrock at some temp (just offsetting the heat loss to the outside), the cool down, heat up, cool down, heat up, cool down cycle sucks up considerably more heat/fuel...while being less comfortable during the transitions.

How about pellet stoves? I'm having a Quadrafire Mt Vernon AE stove installed as I type this. A little leary of running it all day