Cold outside. Thank god for wood heat

Interesting . . . looks like we're going to get some cold, but the weather guessers up this way are mostly calling for temps in the single digits or possibly negative single digits . . . nothing like it was like last week when it was in the negative teens around here and much, much colder up in The County.

6am this morning and the Osburn is doing the happy dance....

We are hovering around zero here in western NC. Thousands in our area are without power. I feel really lucky with the stove and with power.

-18 F and Sunny. Kids are off school today due to school board policy. Wind chill greater than -35F. Got up early and re-started both stoves. House is 75 and toasty.

Doing my best to make sure I stay above 450 degrees on mine today. Hopefully I won't need to make too many trips to the 4-12 F degree woodpile. I know I have far from the worst. Just thinking about the people in -18 F, -43 wind chill makes me want to sit by the fire.

I like my home around 66-68F. It still feels warm compared to the high of -17 I had yesterday and the current -19 I have now at 10am. And they say inside and outside temperature extremes aren't good for a house as vapor tends to condensate on the sheathing in the walls. That means frost. That means when it warms up and it can't dry fast from lack of air circulation mold can become a problem. I built this house and I used a continuous vapor barrier 5 mill with sealed electrical boxes. That is in the newer building codes for northern homes. The Canadians wrote the book on cold climate home building IMO and we catch up after people can't live in their homes from mold allergies and rotten wall materials. So anyways from what I've learned it sounds like if you can keep the house I the mid to upper 60s it helps when the temps outside are in the arctic circle range. Chow

PS. I can be a real kill joy at times....

Lopiliberty, that's a real nice picture of your stove! You must of cleaned before? It sure gets to be a mess around my stove especially when it's cold and I haven't vacuumed in a few days. I have flopsum and gepsum all over then. (Wood bits and ash)

hermancm said:

sheathing in the walls. That means frost. That means when it warms up and it can't dry fast from lack of air circulation mold can become a problem. ...
sounds like if you can keep the house I(n) the mid to upper 60s it helps when the temps outside are in the arctic circle range.

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Moisture from inside on the exterior walls is what you are talking about right? That would most likely be from warm air escaping through holes in your walls, right? Would keeping your house in the upper 60's instead of the mid-70's make a ton if difference? Over time, ok, yes, but on a rare really cold day, I have a hard time believing that a 68 degree temperature differential would behave a whole lot different than a 74 degree temperature differential with this respect (mold).

Now how do you keep your hot air from escaping through your walls... hmm... I guess you'd need to turn your house into a vacuum somehow (so cold dry air comes in instead if cold moist air forcing out through those holes in your walls). Hmm... What would work well to make a house a vacuum? I know! A good old fashioned fireplace with no outdoor air intake!

Toast that fire!

(The colder it is outside, the hotter I like the fire room. It makes those rare trips outside bearable, and seems to kill any cabin fever from staying inside.)

Did I get this post right?

hermancm said:

Lopiliberty, that's a real nice picture of your stove! You must of cleaned before? It sure gets to be a mess around my stove especially when it's cold and I haven't vacuumed in a few days. I have flopsum and gepsum all over then. (Wood bits and ash)

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I agree! And if I had a setup like that I'm not sure if be able to keep the mess on the platform. I'm sweeping with every load in my house, and this is as good as it ever looks. I could never manage carpet!

Even since December we only had a handful of days where the temps got above 0, of course then it snowed.

hermancm said:

Lopiliberty, that's a real nice picture of your stove! You must of cleaned before? It sure gets to be a mess around my stove especially when it's cold and I haven't vacuumed in a few days. I have flopsum and gepsum all over then. (Wood bits and ash)

Click to expand...

I keep the vacuum right by the stove. Every time I load wood I vacuum up the dirt.

lopiliberty said:

I keep the vacuum right by the stove. Every time I load wood I vacuum up the dirt.

Click to expand...

Oh good! I'm not the only one! While we have our stove in the basement (unfinished but insulated), I still like to keep the hearth area very clean. Probably comes from growing up with a mom that was a clean freak.

So with all of the LOWWWW temps up north I am wondering how you guys are making out and the stoves are performing? Any Buck stove owners?

Not a Buck owner but doing just fine with the Fireview. Well, this morning it was a bit cool for us in the house at 74. Normally we don't go below 75 and the regular temperature is 80 or more during the daytime then let it cool a bit overnight.

Good news is that we should be above freezing by the weekend. Bad news is we might even get some rain with it. That would be nasty.

It was -6.5F last night and a high of 2F so far. The house was at 65F this morning , then up to 72F by 9am. Plenty of dry wood on hand only problem I'm having is I have to move the dogs out of the way to put wood in . If they are not laying in front of the stove , they are usually watching the secondaries burn.

So far pretty good. House is staying in low 70's. Burning a little more wood. Feels like a heat wave this afternoon. Last I checked -2* F.

The worst is over. It's warmed all the way up to -2F. It's supposed to slip above zero tomorrow. Hopefully the kids will be going back to school with the expiration
of the wind chill warning tomorrow. My stoves kept the house warm. The insert served its purpose, and I'm back to operating one stove.

-2 here also but in all my years I have never felt the cold as much when I was out walking the dog an hour ago. The wind chill was ripping the tears right off my face.

In our woods, the snow is littered with bits of pine and spruce needles and also our cedar hedges. At first I thought the squirrels had done it but there was so much I think the ends of the branches have frozen solid and the wind has ripped the ends off. Never saw anything like that before.

It's so cold up here that I've got icicles on my chimney cap!

-13 degrees F last night with -30 to -50 wind chills....high today was +5F (a heat wave!)

This is my first winter with my Buck Model 74 (I've heated with wood for the last 6 years, and was using an old Nashua for the last 2 years). The Buck Model 74 promised high efficiency, long burn times and adequate heat for 2,000 sq. ft.... I have to say I've been disappointed. It was doing OK when temps were 30 degrees F and above... but the stove falls short in cold weather... and the last few days it can't do the job. My house is a well insulated 1,800 sq ft. ranch. We got 70F in the main room yesterday where the stove is but had to load it every 2-3 hours, run it on high and we always run the (inadequate) fan on high. Unfortunately my furnace has been making up the difference. The Nashua would have done the job but it would have used more wood.

Last night sucked, -25 windchill (-5 w/o) and it got down to 49 in here. Now it's -13 (6 w/o) wind chill and 67 inside. Running 2 1500w heaters to supliment the stove, and DH baked some cookies and home made bread. Trying to burn down the coal bed before reloading again at the moment it was getting out of control. Been running at 700 top temps since last night, reloading at 400.

Not too far up north. Got stuck with my truck at work diesel froze up and could not get her going after hours of bullet heating and additives. Temps of about 7. It was cold in long island todaywoth a real feel of -10 to -20. Luckily I was able to keep semi warm. Glad to come home to my blaze king still glowing from the morning. Currently next to it sweating. House has been above 75 all day. We're down in jersey tho. Cold sucks! Truckers be prepared! Don't Shut em down

Doing great. It was 7 this morning when I woke up, my wife reloaded the stove (threw some splits on the hot coals). It was 67 upstairs and 65 downstairs. Outside it got up to 13 today and is now back down to 7. But this stove has been a champ and has kept the 1900 SF house warm (68) all day. No oil heat needed so I'm a happy camper.

-13 last night.

Still -3 right now.

Ran the Pellet stove to "take the edge off" of the heat pump.

Country Canyon cookin' wood and me in the recliner watching some hoops. nice

Doing fine . . . no negative numbers up this way. Right now it's a balmy 12 degrees . . . much better than being -12 as it was last week.