Round 2..Bitter cold..whatcha gonna do differently tonight?

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P38X2

Minister of Fire
Mar 11, 2012
1,670
Jaffrey, NH
OK...

What, if you had problems last night, are you gonna do differently tonight in an attempt to beat the cold?

My 38 let me down a bit last night for the first time, understandably. I put in a bag of softies thinking I'd have a slight advantage over the stoves usual fodder. Woke up to 66, instead of 70 as I expected. I gotta think it had nothing to do with the pellets and everything to do with the sub zero temps, although it's been in the low single digits many times and I haven't had any prob maintaining 70.

Anyway, in an attempt to out think, rather than out muscle the cold, my only "mods" are a larger fan at the bottom of my stairs blowing towards the stove, and 2 fans blowing cold air out of the ends of the house on the second floor. Gonna give the softies another go tonight too.

What yous guys n gals doing?
 
Normally I run my cpm at about half power. When 25-30 outside, maintaining 70 inside is no problem. Last night it was 8 and 61 inside. Changed a few settings to 4-5-1 and 6-9 and barely holding onto 65 degrees. Stoves are room heaters. My furnace is out of comission so suffering with 65. The real problem is when we used propane, 64 was the normal temp. Englander pellet heat has spoiled us.
 
blowing air toward the stove from the back bedroom here doesn't work so great. too many obstructions.
but i have placed a box fan just outside the stove room blowing in.
this is getting the hot air flowing back out under the doorway and also giving the two vornados i have (one in the stove room doorway and one in the kitchen archway) plenty of hot air to grab and move to the back bedroom.

honestly though, muscle is a good part of the plan as well.
had the feed gate closed down more than i should have yesterday for these MWP softies.
and i just waited too long to really start things cranking.

back bedroom is above 70 now at 5:35 PM. and i'm not taking my foot off the pedal from here on out.
i did back it off several times today. but not too much or for too long.
 
Status quo here. Sets are in the hopper, stove is on 4-7, house is 70::F.....all I'm changing tonight is raising the heat level to 5 or 6....that's the highest it's been so far.
 
Going to crawl under the covers and sleep. Well, they say to dress in layers when it is cold, so a sheet, a couple of quilts, and a doubled over wool quilt ought to do nicely.

As for the heating system nothing different than last night set it to 4 and let the t-stat do its thing.
 
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Problems here.....same old crap with the convection blower being undersized for this unit. Third time the hopper high temp limit switch has shutdown in 3 days since using the Hamers, flashing code 4. Last year it did it on Heat Level 4 out of 5. This year it has been on Heat Level 3 but overnight last night on Heat Level 2! I think it happens when the hopper becomes less full and there isn't the pellet buffer to the sensor. I refuse to use the damn adjustable plate given to me last year because I don't believe it to be the proper fix and don't think I should be adjusting the damn plate auger plate every time I change pellets!! Besides, alls you are doing is cutting down on the available heat that could be produced anyway. Currently working with my dealer to replace the current convection blower with the new turbo model...we'll see how that goes....whole nother topic altogether.

Anyway, to answer your question P38X2; tonight I will be adjusting the trim levels (pellet feed to 1, combustion air to max (4?) and leaving the stove stoked on HL 2, and keep the dino juice thermostat a little higher in case it shuts down during the night. :mad:
 
I have a big bow window in the front of my house (old window) that is drafty when I turned the stove up last night felt a good draft (I know add an OAK)will do that in the summer I have a broken leg. So I went to the store to get that plastic crap for the window and when I went to install it I noticed that the wife cracked the window open when she was hot LOL so I closed the window and what do you know the draft went away. But since i had that plastic crap anyway I put it on the window. the good thing about going to Home Desperate is that for the first time they had Stove Chow pellets so i filled the car with as many as I could fit
 
I turn mine down some in the day when I am gone and then back up to around 68 when I get home and it has been working wonderfully. I am glad I bought this thing, wish I would have looked into them years ago.
 
Im keeping the same settings from the previous night. Forecast calls for 9 tonight which is a few degrees higher than the last 2 nights but there is a lot more wind today.
 
Temp not dropping so much tonight. Forecast is for only 19deg overnight so the Beast is off and the Quad is idling away on Somersets.
 
I haven't. I'd be bored if I couldn't fiddle with the stove all the time.
 
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Hehe, Why ya buy a Harman then. Just kiddin. Gotta have some fun. ;)

No problem.

I don't think a T-stat would work that well with my layout. It's the reason I go to stove mode when the temps get below the mid 20's.
 
I'll be on heat level 4, feed trim 3 tonight. That kept the whole house in the 70s last night. It's on 3,3 right now, and he living room is 75.
 
Seems like I got mine to match the heat loss pretty good. Running on low with the feed gate open just enough to maintain 73. Takes it a while to get the circulation pattern to heat the upstairs properly but when it running at a steady rate like it is now its perfect. Not cycling on and off has kept a much more even temperature.
 
Forecast for around here is -10 to -15 tonight. My basement is a walk-out and it gets pretty cold on nights like this. The pellet stove kept the rest of the house toasty last night, but I'm bringing the wood stove out of retirement for some added basement insurance. Even a low fire will keep the basement well above freezing. I see us replacing the wood stove with a small pellet stove just for the basement someday (when I find a bag of money).
 
Nothing different stove is on level 3 feed trim 1. House is a comfy 74, I'm not in the cold north, only supposed to get
down to 6 or 8 so no minus numbers.
 
Nothing different, running wide open, stove seems to keep up even at the 2* we had last night. This house had electric heat back when, so is insulated pretty well.
 
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