WELL????????

Yup, I had my first fire in my Lopi Declaration. The stink wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. This unit sure does throw a lot of heat, even with a small fire! As stated infinite times on this form, the blower is a must. My concerns about my wood being sufficiently seasoned have also been laid to rest. My only concern is that the bypass damper control was kind of balky. Any other Declaration owners have this issue (or non issue)?

Nope. My house maintains warmth very well in these conditions. Saving the wood for now.

Second fire in two nights...well, I had hot glowing pieces of small wood in the stove...hardly a proper "fire" though.

Temps this AM hit a low in the house - 65 - getting close. A few more nights in the 50s and highs barely reaching 70 and the Electric might have to be turned on. Fireplace will probably get lit this weekend. In shoulder months the fireplace does heat the downstairs a bit - and i can cook dinner on it.

Not yet. Had 39F outside this morning, and 63F inside but I still have the furnace shut right off. Really jonesin' to light a small one tonight, but its not suppose to be as cold.

We'll see.

No way. Same conditions at our area but our house is still way too hot inside. I had all the windows open with the whole house fan on. I want to see a frost to kill all the mosquitos that are still out in force.

Tossed a match in this morning to take the chill out of the house and keep the wife from lighting the boiler. Got a few deress out of it and a goodly amount of smoke. Couldn't understand why I didn't get more out of it until I remembered that I have yet to climb up ont he roof and cut off the nearly totally plugged mesh convering on my cap. The rest of the chimney is clear...just no exit for most of the smoke so it smothered the fire.

Guess what I'm doing Saturday morning?

Had the windows open last night in Maryland. Not cold enough yet. Time to put down some grass seed though..

Just a couple small take the chill off fires so far, nothing too hot yet. Another month from now and I'll be burning 24/7. I know you newbie guys are just itchin to get burning, but it will come fast enough. Save your wood, I've seen too many people start burning early and run out of wood when they really need it.

Todd hit the nail on the head. If you want to buurn early then have a crap wood pile, all the odds and ends and undesireable stuff, fill a wheel barrow and that can be your early season stuff. Save the good stuff for when you really need the heat.

^^^^Spot on!^^^^^

This time of year (the coming weeks/month) is when I burn up my crappy pine. I get it for free from a guy that hates the stuff and won't burn it period. His loss, my gain.

For those of you on the cusp of burning season, this would be a good weekend to go around the house and caulk around windows, install pre-cut foam insulation sheets behind switch and outlet covers, expanding foam around any area where the envelope of the house in breached by pipe, duct, wire, etc.

No indoor fire yet. Will be using the fire pit for the junk wood with increased frequency though.

Pro,

I too have a Lopi Declaration and love the heat output but am curious as to what you mean by the bypass control being bulky.

I find that just a push of the bypass lever and it slides right into place to force the heat into the bypass path.

Erik

I think my wife has been turning the central air down to 32' after i leave for work...she sure likes to burn my wood...ZZZim

I have not started the first fire of the season yet but I cant waite!

I'll probably have a dozen or so fires in the free standing fireplace but won't light the furnace till around Nov.1.

Had my chimney cleaned & he said do a small hot fire & throw in a creoaway log.
Probably do that tonight.
I have company staying over Sunday night so I may do a fire to keep company cozy.
Then again they are from Vermont & used to the cold.
It is cool here not cold. I hold burning as long as I can.
All my chunk pieces are in a bin ready to go anyway.

My chimney looked really good, thin layer, he said not bad at all.
A lot of my wood got soaked so I stopped burning early to avoid build up issues.
Anyway guys thanks for your tips last year!

Well........here's my $50, I'm no longer "master of my domain" (Seinfeld reference).

Was 66F in the house at around 6pm last night and about 56F outside. Lit up the stove with a nice small kindling fire. Brought the stove top up to just shy of 400F and slowly died down from there. Perfect first fire. Brought the inside temp up to 72F.

Ahhhhhh......it was nice!

We've been down to 38 but no fire yet. Not because of not enough wood in the pile, but just don't need it yet.

Oh, believe me need had nothing to do with it. ;-)

I couldn't resist.... I had a small break in fire last night (windows open). I'm just making sure everthing still works.