** EDIT** EXTREME COLD!! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? NOW THATS ITS GONE HOW DID YOU DO?? WHAT WOULD YO

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iceman

iceman

Minister of Fire
Nov 18, 2006
2,403
Springfield Ma (western mass)
with just about the entire US about to get hit with extreme cold temps what is everyones plan?
run stove with furnace?
try to survive with just stove?
please keep this thread going please
tell how you are gonna prepare,
what your gonna use
and please post your outside/inside temps
post if you have broken any temp records in your area

i have summit insert
going out back to bring more wood up
going to put about 5 days worth of wood in the house
highs the next 2 days are 15, 16 but with wind friday high temp 8
believe i can make it prolly keeping 2000+ sq at about 70-72 with far rooms in the sixties.. i will probably run elec heat in those rooms to be safe.... contemplating just running the furnace for a day to save wood since i will be at work if the main temp drops to 66-68 downstairs it will take awhile to bring the whole house up to temp since it will be so cold out...
 
iceman said:
with just about the entire US about to get hit with extreme cold temps what is everyones plan?
run stove with furnace?
try to survive with just stove?
please keep this thread going please
tell how you are gonna prepare,
what your gonna use
and please post your outside/inside temps
post if you have broken any temp records in your area
Click to expand...

Switch from burning cherry to red oak, keep it porkin' and wake up for nightly feedings >:-(

The wind that comes with it, depending on direction, is going to be the tough part.
 
We will be on the edge of the cold. It will be around 20 for the high on Friday but it will warm back to the forties by next week so it won't be so bad for us. I plan to use the "good" wood (oak seasoned for 2 years) and the gas stove in the fireplace and see if I can make it with that. If need be I have a gas boiler I can run but it is expen$ive. Man I feel for you guys up north taking the brunt of this thing...Good luck and stay warm.
 
Pellet Pig here, Fargo ND...this morning temp is -24 below. I'm running a Mt Vernon AE pellet stove. Heating the upstairs just fine at 72 degrees. I could run it warmer but it's comfortable. Hot water baseboard in the basement, temp set at 60 degrees and I know it's kicking in periodically. This cold snap is here at least for a couple more days so the pellets will be dwindling fast. Stay Warm everyone!
 
Everyone in this forum needs to go get their mail wearing just shorts and a tee shirt, taking there time about it so all the nonburners get a good view of it.
 
Put on some pants. Load up the stove. Let the oil come on a bit to keep the pipes thawed.

Folks in AK had -45F this past week and they're fine. We get a little sub-zero every year, and it's no big deal to me.
 
I'm gonna crank the Classic up big time when I get home from work and keep it stoked up for the next two days. It's supposed to be 0 degrees F or close to 0 from tonight until Friday - with overnight temps in the double digits below zero. I just want to see what the Classic is gonna do with these really cold temps and some wind to boot in my house.
 
Probably do some middle of the night feedings. If I sleep through the feedings though, we are lucky because the previous owners installed a gas fireplace which really blasts heat. This allows us on the real cold mornings to bring the first floor back to the upper 60's with the fireplace and then let the stove take over.
 
Adios Pantalones said:
Put on some pants. Load up the stove. Let the oil come on a bit to keep the pipes thawed.

Folks in AK had -45F this past week and they're fine. We get a little sub-zero every year, and it's no big deal to me.
Click to expand...

yes we do... maybe a day over here ... usually just the 15-25 for a sustained time is what they consider bad over here
they used to count how many consecutive days below 32 now they are going for below 20... personally i love it....cold temps don't bother me at all..... but put in some wind and watch out 15-20 degrees with a steady wind is worse than the cold we are gonna get
 
Suppose to stay below zero til Saturday. I can burn the stove and keep the house above 70 all day and then I'll have one good firing of the fireplace before bed to help out the overnight temps. -14 outside right now and 73 inside. I'm still waiting for my globull warming!
 
7 this morning outside, 70 when I got up inside, on it's way up to 74 now. I change from whatever I am burning to hedge at least for the overnight burn, and I set the alarm for 2 am - I go from 7 1/2 hour burns to 4 hour burns. If the propane kicks in the house is down to 60 (my wife says colder than that is bad for the piano, which I tell her would burn nicely!), so far it has only kicked in when the family all left for a week.
 
I'm trying to make a go of only using the little Harman pellet stove, but I'm thinking I'll have to turn on the boilers every so often so I don't have to worry about the pipes freezing. What I'm starting to get most concerned about is the basement. Since I'm not generating any heat down there, temps are now almost down to 40° F around where the pipes are. I might have to leave some lights on down there and see if that's enough to keep things from freezing. :(
 
It's only getting down in the single digits here, but still colder than it's been. Temp will take a dive today, so I'm burning down the coals from last night to clean out all of the ashes. I'll need to burn the stove hotter than usual and not let the coals burn down so low.
Oh yeah and Osage for overnight burns.
 
I slept too hard last night and didn't wake up to feed the stove. The outside temp was -31 this morning, 49 in the house. It's going to take most of the day to get it back to 70. The high is supposed to be -7.

But on a happy note they are predicting 30 degrees next Monday!
 
I think if it was 49 in my house, I'd let the propane furnace work a little to get it back to livable temps. BURRRRR.
 
Wet1 said:
I'm trying to make a go of only using the little Harman pellet stove, but I'm thinking I'll have to turn on the boilers every so often so I don't have to worry about the pipes freezing. What I'm starting to get most concerned about is the basement. Since I'm not generating any heat down there, temps are now almost down to 40° F around where the pipes are. I might have to leave some lights on down there and see if that's enough to keep things from freezing. :(
Click to expand...

No problem letting the boiler run a bit. It's good for it to get a little exercise now and then. FWIW, if I were facing this situation, for peace of mind, I'd invest in a remote digital thermometer with an alarm.

http://www.ambientweather.com/teal.html
 
It does look like this will be our cold snap for the year. Thur, Fri with lows in the single digits and in the 20's during the day. But typical for Maryland, we'll be back up in the mid to upper 30's by Sunday. So, I'll move extra wood up onto the porch so my wife doesn't have to go get it during the day. We'll keep it cranking during the day. In the evening, I'll run the house temps up to 80 or so before bedtime, then load up the woodstove for an overnite burn. That should hold things in the 70s til I get up around 5. We have a space heater we turn on in the kitchen if we'll be away from the house for a long time during the day. That usually covers everything. As long as there is no wind, we do well enough in the bitter cold. It's the wind that causes us problems.
 
BeGreen said:
Wet1 said:
I'm trying to make a go of only using the little Harman pellet stove, but I'm thinking I'll have to turn on the boilers every so often so I don't have to worry about the pipes freezing. What I'm starting to get most concerned about is the basement. Since I'm not generating any heat down there, temps are now almost down to 40° F around where the pipes are. I might have to leave some lights on down there and see if that's enough to keep things from freezing. :(
Click to expand...
No problem letting the boiler run a bit. It's good for it to get a little exercise now and then. FWIW, if I were facing this situation, for peace of mind, I'd invest in a remote digital thermometer with an alarm.
Click to expand...
I hate the idea of paying the gas company since they changed their rates and structure two months after I changed over (of the worse). So out of principle I haven't been using the boilers... LOL.

Not a bad ideaon the remote/alarm, except the cat (mommies little baby) sleeps down there at night and if mom ever knew it was in the 30's/low 40's down there (she just knows it's chilly down there), I'd be told to heat the basement. I don't want the damn cat waking me up throughout the night, and I certainly don't want to pay to heat the basement, so I'm thinking I'm going to keep a close eye on what's going on down there with my IR. ;)
 
mike1234 said:
I think if it was 49 in my house, I'd let the propane furnace work a little to get it back to livable temps. BURRRRR.
Click to expand...

Right now the Englander is the only thing that's hooked up, otherwise I would, believe me.
 
Last night I hooked up a backflow damper between my Englander 28 3500 and my oil furnace. Haven't needed
it up to this point, but I want it hooked in just in case. Bring on the cold! I have been waiting for a cold snap to
give the new furnace a good test. Course, cold snap here is 1 to 10 high, 0 to -10 low. Have no desire to experience
a Michigan or Minn. winter!
 
Here we're supposed to see low's of 5 degrees F. overnight. That ain't too bad. I'm gone all day so the house cools without feeding the stove, I think I'll set the oil furnace and the heat pump at 65 degrees so the house don't cool too much.

Look, I got no problem burnin' some oil when it gets cold.....no problem at all :)

Oh, I'm gonna be stuffin' the Oslo with big fat splits of ASH and HICKORY too!
 
Currently -4F, and every room in the house is above 70.

I'm going to stay up a little later this week--until 11 or 12 pm--so that the house won't cool off
as much overnight. Last night the stove performed better than usual. I topped it off at 10:30 p.m.
with two huge gnarly elm splits on top of a thick hot coal bed raked forward. The house only dropped from
74 to 68 by 6a.m. Usually, it will drop to 65 unless I stay up later. Had a thin but adequate coalbed
to restart this morning.

Later in the week, it's going to get exceptionally cold for south central Wisconsin--about twenty
below not including the wind chill. I may run an electric space heater in the unfinished basement
and open the upstairs faucet slightly for overnight. I'm not planning on running the furnace unless the
unfinished basement gets colder than I expect.
 
Almost 20 below with a - 35 wind chill in minneapolis MN.
My little 1.3 CF insert is burning up wood fast. Took a long time for the insert to heat up this morning. I am gonna buy some red oak splits from the tree cutter down the street. Thank god I got a furnace.
Jim
 
We are looking at -20 lows and 0 highs the next few days. I'll be loading up for the night at about 10pm, then getting up around 2am and reloading then reloading before work at 5:30am. Im sure we are going to go through alot more wood, but it's expected. Ive got a few pallets that I am going to suppliment in as well.
 
Everything is done...
Plenty of wood from the main stacks is under a carport, the garage racks are full, and my family room rack is full as well.
Generator is serviced and ready and we have extra gas.

I can make it to right about 5ºF without my furnace kicking on set at 60ºF, and that is fine for the back bedrooms with mattress warmers. I kind of wish the furnace would kick on once or twice- I paid for a check up this fall and by jiggedy I want it to count for something.

We'll be fine unless we have a really extended power outage.
 
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