Unreasonable expectations during this sub zero weather

saskwoodburner said:

Small home, small stove, and she really has to work when the temps are super low (-30 f or lower). I can keep half the mobile home warm, but there's no way to keep the water lines inside a little chase on the floor from freezing without running the furnace overnight.

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I talked to an installer today about the pipe issue with Mobile and Manufactured Homes. He said this is a common issue when the home is in a park and not on a foundation. As you stated they run in a chase along side the heat ducts. The design needs heat in the duct work. I was told to run the furnace blower along with the stove. That will put enough heat down there to keep them from freezing. I will find out as soon as i get my stove back up and running.

My stove has done good through this cold snap. Feeding it a diet of red oak and locust. Usually temps around 80 during the day, but the other night when it dropped to 2 with a howling wind woke up to 68 in the living room. Where I live the sun doesn't get up till about 10:30 or later and goes down around 3 so not much solar gain to help heat the house. Every time I go outside I hear the neighbors heat pumps singing and think to myself glad I don't have to pay that bill. There is times I wish I would have gotten the endeavor but when its cold like this i'm very glad I have the extra fire power of the liberty.

It doesn't really become a problem until we have a cold snap. In years previous (heating oil only) the furnace was always cycling in and out, so it would have to get pretty brisk before they would start choking up. I cycle the furnace for 10? minutes every now and then, and I don't run a fire at bedtime, just let her die down. This is the only real weakness I'm finding.

When it's not too cold out, the warmth from the stove takes quite awhile to simmer down, and I imagine the furnace doesn't kick in for hours.

maybe this post is more about my own stupidity than anything else, but hopefully it can help someone too…

curtains! i love the light and the views from my home and generally hate curtains, but with the this 2nd year of crazy cold curtains have made a huge difference in heat retention and overall comfort.

obviously, insulation and chasing down every possible crack and hole with a good caulk/sealant in hand also makes a difference.

for me, with my stove doing the best it can with good, dry wood and every other effort made to seal up the house, this darn curtain thing has been a life changer. i also built some removable interior storms with the clear plastic kit, and these have been great too.

here's to keeping whatever heat we can generate in the house!

It was -40F two days ago and I had no problem keeping the house warm with my Jotul F600. Insulating my basement has made all the difference in the world in keeping the house warm. The only time the furnace kicks on is when I'm away at work and the wife forgets to feed the stove...

No matter what the situation, if your furnace was running every 10 minutes in cold like this before you had your stove, it's probably running a lot less now. Take what you can get, look into more insulation, and be happy that once these crazy temps rise, you'll be heating without your furnace running. Tightening up your home is priority one. If not now, than in the future. Half a loaf is better than none!

I also have a Napoleon 1402 that I had installed last March. I Think it is the location of YOur thermostat and type of Thermostat. In my house we have 4 programmable Honeywell thermostats. 2 on the 1st floor 1500 sq feet. We program them to be tuned on below 58 degrees. The stove runs when we get home from work and all weekends. If YOur thermostat is in a cold location it will keep on turning on. See if you could move it to a more central location. So far this year I am seeing a 50% reduction in oill used. I could not be happier with the Napoleon 1402.

delp said:

maybe this post is more about my own stupidity than anything else, but hopefully it can help someone too…

curtains! i love the light and the views from my home and generally hate curtains, but with the this 2nd year of crazy cold curtains have made a huge difference in heat retention and overall comfort.

obviously, insulation and chasing down every possible crack and hole with a good caulk/sealant in hand also makes a difference.

for me, with my stove doing the best it can with good, dry wood and every other effort made to seal up the house, this darn curtain thing has been a life changer. i also built some removable interior storms with the clear plastic kit, and these have been great too.

here's to keeping whatever heat we can generate in the house!

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I must be stupid too. When I moved into this house the previous owner had these thick god aweful curtains on the big windows in the living room. First thing I got riid of! This past year I have really been learning what they were for!

Typ0 said:

I must be stupid too. When I moved into this house the previous owner had these thick god aweful curtains on the big windows in the living room. First thing I got riid of! This past year I have really been learning what they were for!

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I have your situation too, 13' x 5' bow window hand made onsite when house was built., 18 separate panes. They are double pane though. My solution, I insulated under with foam board- and stuck an insert in the fireplace across from it.

Laurent Cyr said:

It was -40F two days ago and I had no problem keeping the house warm with my Jotul F600. Insulating my basement has made all the difference in the world in keeping the house warm. The only time the furnace kicks on is when I'm away at work and the wife forgets to feed the stove...

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What exactly did you do in your basement?

I've got well over 300 sq ft of windows in my room. Even though everything else is super insulated, the windows still suck heat all winter but we love the view and when the sun is out, it makes it all worthwhile to gain the solar heat. That's why I upgraded to a huge stove and now we can leave the curtains open all the time.

delp said:

curtains! i love the light and the views from my home and generally hate curtains, but with the this 2nd year of crazy cold curtains have made a huge difference in heat retention and overall comfort

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Interesting - any particular kind of curtains, insulated, etc?

Stove companies are well known for puffing up square foot ratings. Isle Royale is rated to heat from 1300 to 3400 square feet. I suspect that latter number is for Hawaii heating. My stove does fine on three loads per day for 2300 square feet until below zero hits. Then I run the insert too to keep the house balmy.

ailanthus said:

Interesting - any particular kind of curtains, insulated, etc?

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After insulating high, low and the walls, curtains made a difference. We have lots of glass (sliding glass doors for windows) in the stove room and bought the double-pleated ones that pull up and down -- I think they might be called shades, or blinds? Pricey, but will probably last a while.

Jearley35purdue said:

Hi All! My number one reason for getting a wood stove this season was due to last sub zero January and February where my heat pump with electric back up ran non stop causing ridiculous electric bills. I was pumped when finally this weather hit excited to not be awaken by the furnace kicking on or staying on all night. Boy was I wrong. Furnace still hasn't shut off while set at 60 these last few days/nights. Stove is sized appropriately for my home that's reasonably sealed and has a descent open layout. Have wood sitting at 17-20% and getting good burns. Was I being unreasonable to think that the furnace should not be running like it is in this type of cold snap with the stove? I can't tell you how bummed I am, but perhaps my expectations were unreasonable....

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Ah yes, expectations vs. reality. I think the answer depends on your home. Those with newer or better insulated homes will have a much more positive experience with their stoves, especially when it is this cold.

This is my 5th year burning, 3 yrs with a 1.8 cf Drolet insert and 2 yrs. on a Cat Applachian 52 bay insert. I live in a 60 yr old 1900 sf house with several large single pane windows on the first floor and probably no insulation in the walls. During this cold snap I can barely keep the downstairs at 60 degrees with the wood stove alone. I only wish I could experience a nice warm house by only burning wood. When I started burning I had high expectations. I now realize an appliance that produces an average of 30K to 40K BTU cannot be expected to totally replace a 125K BTU central furnace when it gets this cold. I am willing to keep my house around 60 degrees just to save a few bucks and I am fortunate my furnace runs on cheap natural gas when I want the house warmer. However, I will always wonder just how much warmer my house would feel right now if I had not cancelled the Progress Hybrid I had on order a couple years ago.

ailanthus said:

Interesting - any particular kind of curtains, insulated, etc?

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I've had really good luck with cellular shades. I've got the cordless kind and they're on the darker side of light blocking. Huge difference in draft from windows. I think these on every window in my house is a big reason I can maintain heat so well.

ailanthus said:

Interesting - any particular kind of curtains, insulated, etc?

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Walmart has insulated thermal curtains fairly cheap. I use them in my office.

Before we had our windows replaced, we used the window insulation kits.....done right, you'd never know the windows were covered....it wasn't a 100% solution, but it did help, and cost little.

Beer Belly said:

My problem is that our Insert is too small to really fight off the temps to the Wifes liking.....she likes 70+*F in the bedroom (furthest room from the stove).....the stove can do it, but it takes a lot of stokin' and reloading every few hours (and I do mean "few"), no overnight burns here. Just need to know the stove has limitations, and as always, dry hardwood is needed.

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.....she also gets upset when she gets in the car / truck, turns on the heat right away, and it blows cold....."Honey, gotta let it warm up"...."Then why does it say "Heat""

mass_burner said:

What exactly did you do in your basement?

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I insulated the walls with 2 inch foam insulation which I glued to the wall. I tuck taped all the seams. I spray foamed at top, bottom and corners. I did the same in between the rafters at the top of the walls.. Then I built my 2x4 walls and added pink insulation between, then the sheetrock panels. I added pink insulation on top of the foam insulation between the rafters. It makes all the difference. All they had before was 1 inch white foam on the walls (which doesn't do much to keep the cold out and heat in).
I swear you can't feel a draft at all (except when the stove is running, then you feel the cold air coming down the stairs and the heat going up).
If I could., I would have insulated the cement floor as well, but I don't have much head room. So I'll have to settle for ceramic tiles and throw rugs.

We're expecting some -40C weather for the next couple of days....thank god for that stove!

Laurent Cyr said:

All they had before was 1 inch white foam on the walls (which doesn't do much to keep the cold out and heat in).

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That just caught my eye since I'm trying to insulate my upstairs which is mostly uninsulated, and about the only thing I can do without tearing the ceiling out is to add 1" foam board to the ceiling and drywall over top of it. I know its not much but was hoping that might make a noticeable difference since I think I'm loosing a ton of heat through the uninsulated upstairs walls and ceiling.

Last week was pretty rough here... even sleeping in the stove room almost arms reach to the side of my pellet stove on max and it was a cold breeze over the couch that I had to pull up a thick comforter over my head even. The walls in the stove room were hitting down into the 50's and 40's. I was running both the pellet stove on max and my Jotul c550 cruising along with loads of a couple medium/large ash splits and 20-30 lbs of eco bricks.

You need to start insulating .do you have all three heaters running? From what I've read those are supposed to be good heaters


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Are you referring to my post Brad? I have the Jotul 550 and the Englander PAH running full tilt during the cold snap. The Englander pellet stove has replaced the Hearthstone temporarily for this winter. Yeah I am planning on insulating but one can only do so much given the house, like the pathetic 1" I am contemplating putting in the upstairs ceiling. I'd be far better off to move than sink a bunch in this house though.