house temps overnight...

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TTigano

Member
Jan 19, 2012
129
Southeastern, Ma
Just curious as to what everyone is able to maintain for temps in their homes overnight. Please post stove temp when calling it a night...what time you retire and then wake up, and also outside temps. I had an energy audit today and the company had an infrared heat camera and amazed me at the hkrrible insulation the house has...

I have my thermostats ( 1 upstairs zone and one downstairs zone ) set to 65... I load the stove chuck full EW slowly closing down the air at about 500...Ieave the air open about an 1/8 when I go to bed...usually about midnight ( load stove an hour before )... house is usually 68 on the oposite side of the house only because fans moving the air. ..upstairs about 70...wake up about 6:30 to the oil burner working upstairs and down... outside temps in the teens or twentys.... stove top reading about 150-200 with decent coals.... im hoping to get a little more heat staying in my home after some insulation upgrades....just curious what everyone else was seeing..
 
Most of the time I go to bed between 10 and 11:30. Normally I usually load 4 large splits in the liberty, but tonight I'm going to fill it up because its supposed to drop down to 13. Stove top temp is usually between 550 and 750 when I go to bed and living room temp is between 85 and 90. In the morning when I get up usually around 6, living room temp is never below 80 depending on outside temp, and stove top is usually between 200 and 300.
 
When i wake up of the morning stove room is in the mid 70's other parts of house low 60's
 
Since my stove is in my basement it is not quite as warm. I like to keep the house at 70. I go to bed it will be 72-74 and wake up with it at 70 or maybe 68. Some nice rock maple in the stove with a stove top of 700 and slu temp of 500 makes heat throughout the night.

A
 
Im jealous of all of you.... what layouts do you have? Open? I have a rather small but hard to navigate ( for air ) cape.
 
I think the size & insulation values of your house explain most of it. I have a 80some year old house of 1000 sq. heated with a 2.4 sq ft. firebox. Holds room temps pretty good (65F+)if overnight lows in 20's. However there is a big drop-off in wake-up room temps when overnight lows are in teens or lower. Tonite it's single digits--so I'll either feed it when nature calls me during the night or wake up to the sound of the furnace.
 
Im jealous of all of you.... what layouts do you have? Open? I have a rather small but hard to navigate ( for air ) cape.
My liberty is in a 25x13 living room with two 5x7 openings on either side. One side leads into the kitchen with two 5x7 openings on either side of the dinning room the other side of the living room leads to the hall way and stairs. Downstairs layout is very open almost circle like. I have a floor vent leading to one of the four bedrooms upstairs which allows for the hot air to rise through it and you can feel the cold being drawn down the steps and around the corner and back to the stove. Heating a 2400 sqft house by the way
 
Outside temp is 21f. Going down to 15f tonight it's almost midnight and the stove was loaded on the main floor at 9 pm. Indoor temp was 70 f and after a cold night I'm expecting it to be around. 64f at 6 am. The Eco fan will still be turning slowly and the thermometer on the stove will read 125 or so. The house cools off during the day also.
 
Loaded the Regency up last night as usual. Shut it down around 10 at ~ 500 on the front t-stat. LR was 85F at the time, MBR (farthest away from stove) was 76. Temp outside was -23C. Woke up this morning at 6, temp was still -23C out, stove was around 275 with lots of big coal chunks. LR was 75F, MBR was 69F. Wife was still toasty warm, so I was a happy camper. Threw in a few splits and got another nice hot load going now.

Geez I love the big forebox on the Regency :)
 
Living room (where the stove's at) will be between 75-80 when I turn in ~10pm. By 5am it'll usually be down to 65 or even below. Cooler parts of the house probably right around 60. If it's <20 degrees out I'll usually set an alarm and reload overnight, overwise it can be tough to get the temperature back up in the morning. The joys of living with a small firebox, I guess...
 
Chart.jpg
If my insert is running, and loaded before we go to bed, I'd be very surprised and disappointed to see temperatures in the kitchen below 70F when I wake up, lower 60s upstairs with doors closed and I don't push for long overnight burns.

Mon-Fri my house is heated by propane, and I've been keeping a long term track of how far the temperature drops overnight, and correlating that with average outside temperature. Last night was 23F outside, at 10:45pm the thermostat switches from 70 to 58, and by 6:15am my downstairs was at 58F, although the heat had not kicked in yet. I'd rate my house as average insulation, with much room for improvement.

Even if I didn't reload the insert before going to bed, the thermal mass of the surrounding bricks would keep downstairs warm for many hours, the chart above does not include any nights that the insert was running anytime the previous day.


TE
 
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my plan:
(24h time / house temp) - notes
500 / 60-64F - wakeup and start fire, few coals
530-540 64+F - leave for work with stabalized fire
630 - wife is up running the fire the rest of the day.
1600 66-70F- fire running when I get home from work
1700 64-68F- reload (this varies based on what the stove is doing when i get home. It can be a full load or a light load, the target is to burn hard and get it to coals by 2030 to top up the heat in the house)
1900 - open bedroom door to get some heat in, bedroom temp will go from about 52F to 60F by 2100.
2030 68-70F- reload
2130 - 2200 68-70F- fire stabalized and bedtime.

This plan does keep the house warmer overnight then I would keep it with the thermostat, BUT it keeps the centeral heat from running, and the house is still a civilized temperature in the morning. note, the bedrooms are WAY colder than the house temps, they are behing closed doors. Our room is effectively unheated. My daughters room runs a electric space heater at night to keep the temp right (she isnt quite 2 yet). The blower on the insert is on high 24/7 and I go through about 2.5-3 cords a year. supplement is heatpump with oil fired backup.
 
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Loaded up not the fullest load last night at around 10. It went down to 11° overnight. Woke up to 62°in the dining room, which is connected to the living room where the stove is. Approx 150° on the stovetop with lots of coals for restarting. Two hours later it's up to 68°. The bedrooms upstairs stay in the 70s throughout much of the night if the doors are left open.
 
Keep the Farmhouse between 70-72,, Load the Esse and the Fireview @ 10pm,,, 6 am the furnace is running and set to 62 and it's been below zero outside.. plus I'm burning nothing but sliver maple,, have 6 cords to go through before I get back into my hardwood,,,, that will be night and day as far as long duration of heat output. Plus I'm not driving either stove like a blast furnace either. The Esse is usually at around 300 surface temps and the Fireview is between 400-500... Too hot and the heat just puts you to sleep.
 
If we woke up to 62F, my wife would be telling me to forget this whole woodburning thing. Load at 10pm, family room and kitchen at 71F. Cat engaged and stove dialed down to low'ish setting (can't go too low, re: backpuffing) by 11pm. Wake @ 6:30am to living room around 68F and good coal bed.

edit: Outside temps bottom out around 20F overnight. Burning mostly medium/light hardwoods (walnut, maple, sycamore), as my oak, dogwood, locust is not yet seasoned. Stove top 300 - 400F at bedtime, 150 - 250F in the morning, as measured on front corner of stovetop (i.e. stove "body" temp, not stove "top" temp). Pot of water sitting in center of stove top for some humidity and temperature regulation.
 
Temps in the low teens last night went to bed on a light load in a 2.1cu ft firebox at 11pm with stove top tempatures of 500 with open less than 1/8th stove room 72 bedroom 70. 9am bedroom 62 stove top 200. I like it a little cooler in the house though, if I really want to I could push 70's all the time. mix of dogwood and oak.
 
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-Load for the night between 7:00 and 8:00 pm.

-Head to bed around 11:00 pm with stove top between 400 and 550 depending on load size which depends on outside temps, house between 72 and 74.

- Wake up around 7:00 am. Stove top between 250 and 325, depending on load size. House between 67 and 70.

-Load stove for the day. Rinse, repeat.
 
Loaded the 30 full of oak N/S last night at nine. 30 degrees outside. Finally went to bed around midnight with it 28 outside stove top at 650ish. Downstairs 79 upstairs 71. 2500 square foot center hall colonial. Lazy from staying up too late and didn't get up until ten this morning. upstairs 69 and 74 downstairs and stove at 240. Enough coals that I won't put in wood until after breakfast (guess it is brunch now) in a little while. Checked and low last night was 24.
 
Temps in the low teens last night went to bed on a light load in a 2.1cu ft firebox at 11pm with stove top tempatures of 500 with open less than 1/8th stove room 72 bedroom 70. 9am bedroom 62 stove top 200. I like it a little cooler in the house though, if I really want to I could push 70's all the time. mix of dogwood and oak.
I agree not liking the house super warm....better for you as well... If the wife feels it's cool in the morning she just turns on the oil furnace,,,we don't even use 100 gallons for the winter.....our laid up stone foundation creates a cooler basement 50 degrees right now, and by the end of the winter it might get down to 42... I was thinking of stapling up some reflectex underneath our old wood floors,,, I'm sure that draws some heat from our heated area's as well. Plus we have two doggie doors off of our stove room on a back enclosed insulated porch that are always allowing some cold air to filter in,,, so I think all in all we are doing fine... this house was post and beam 1840 and then the owners before us framed up new walls 2x6 over the existing structure, installing batt insulation in the new walls, basically a house within a house. They spent like 20 years doing the house over room by room... We have some deep window sills and door jams.
 
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Just curious as to what everyone is able to maintain for temps in their homes overnight. Please post stove temp when calling it a night...what time you retire and then wake up, and also outside temps. I had an energy audit today and the company had an infrared heat camera and amazed me at the hkrrible insulation the house has...

I have my thermostats ( 1 upstairs zone and one downstairs zone ) set to 65... I load the stove chuck full EW slowly closing down the air at about 500...Ieave the air open about an 1/8 when I go to bed...usually about midnight ( load stove an hour before )... house is usually 68 on the oposite side of the house only because fans moving the air. ..upstairs about 70...wake up about 6:30 to the oil burner working upstairs and down... outside temps in the teens or twentys.... stove top reading about 150-200 with decent coals.... im hoping to get a little more heat staying in my home after some insulation upgrades....just curious what everyone else was seeing..
Stovetop 650* at 11pm main house 74*that's as warm as we want it.Bedroom 75ft from stove with door closed 58* the way we want it.Temps down to 4* last night 11am main house 71* back bedroom 61*stovetop 475*a few red hot coals from a load of BL,I'm fixing to throw on 4 splits till 6pm tonight when I'll reload for evening,house will stay in low 70's till reload time.
 
Stovetop 650* at 11pm main house 74*that's as warm as we want it.Bedroom 75ft from stove with door closed 58* the way we want it.Temps down to 4* last night 11am main house 71* back bedroom 61*stovetop 475*a few red hot coals from a load of BL,I'm fixing to throw on 4 splits till 6pm tonight when I'll reload for evening,house will stay in low 70's till reload time.
First year with the FireView,,, I'll have to try leaving it at 600-650 at night before I head for bed.... I've just left it at 450-500 on a slow burn...Even my Esse I leave at 300 which is hot,, they say 475 max for that big hunk of Iron.. I'll try getting both stoves hotter tonight before turning in... I guess I'm never really cold in the old farmhouse so I don't try to hammer the heat out of our stoves.. I figure when it's 70 outside in the summer, I'm fine with that, so I certainly don't need it to be 80 inside in the winter.... I think doing that makes it tougher for you to tolerate the cold when you go outside.... Years ago I did line clearance all winter , outside everyday trimming trees,,, with our woodstove I had to fight to stay awake after coming home and eating dinner,, makes me laugh looking back on that now! And I always sleep with my bedroom window open an inch or two,,, love that fresh air!
 
Not too cold last night....only down to about 20. House about 68-69 before bed, which was after a "Homeland" marathon.
Loaded the stove about 1:00 a.m., and went to bed about 1: 30. Stove was at 450 when I turned down the air, and it likes to climb to around 650 for a bit.
Stove was @ 400 when I got up @ 9:00, and house was just under 66.
As it gets into the teens and lower overnight, I'll wake to a cooler house and stove.
 
After last nights load of red oak i woke to a 250 degree stove and low 60's in parts of house pretty good i think. Had enough coals to reload with ease.
 
If it gets under 68ish in the main part of the house when I get up in the morning I'm doing something seriously wrong! Have had the bedrooms get down to 63* once or twice, that's about the coldest.

This is even at -30* outdoor temps.
 
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