Last night was -15 , to much for Big E to keep up .

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buildingmaint

buildingmaint

Feeling the Heat
Jan 19, 2007
459
Oil City PA
Last night it got down to -12/-15 , my Big E gave it the old college try
but just toooooo cold for it. Had my kitchen sink pipes freeze , basement
[ WHICH HAD NO HEAT IN IT AT THE TIME , THAT HAS CHANGED ] was down to 15 .

So I had to spin the old gas hog furnace for a couple of hours
while I installed a vent less gas heater in basement, And unthaw
the frozen pipes .

Big E was running on # 3 all night but would only go to about 70, had stat
set at 75. It was nice and warm in front of the stove and 8 feet on either side
but got real chilly any further then that .
 
buildingmaint said:
Last night it got down to -12/-15 , my Big E gave it the old college try
but just toooooo cold for it. Had my kitchen sink pipes freeze , basement
[ WHICH HAD NO HEAT IN IT AT THE TIME , THAT HAS CHANGED ] was down to 15 .

So I had to spin the old gas hog furnace for a couple of hours
while I installed a vent less gas heater in basement, And unthaw
the frozen pipes .

Big E was running on # 3 all night but would only go to about 70, had stat
set at 75. It was nice and warm in front of the stove and 8 feet on either side
but got real chilly any further then that .
Click to expand...

Out of curiousity how many pellets (bags per day) do you burn at that #3 setting? And how much area are you trying to heat?

15 degrees is mighty cold for a cellar to get even with no heat. It sounds like you need to make the cellar more resistant to cold air infiltration.
 
It was -28 here and my Harman P68 had no problem keeping the whole house nice and toasty but my house is new and super insulated.
 
Why didn't you bump the feed rate up to 4 or 5? I know you're only supposed to run it on 5 for 2 hours, but you could have run it on 4 all night long.
 
HINT
When it is that cold out switch to manual and let her run on what you need. It will help a lot. The thermo is a PIA when it is cold out.

Eric
 
old whitfield adv 2 t kept my place a toasty 75 degrees on #3...full basement mostly below grade...upstairs was 72 but have 2 oil filled heaters to keep it warm enough to allow the warm air from stove to go up the stairs...
 
Well , yes I could of bumped it up to 4 , but then I would have nothing to write about lol.
Next time it gets that low I'll run it on manual , thought that putting stat to higher temp
would do the trick , but I was wrong.
 
buildingmaint said:
3 pounds an hour adv , 672 sq ft , if the thermometer was right . 2/3 of basement above ground.
Click to expand...
Lets see now, 3 lbs per hour = 72 lbs a day = almost 2 bags a day. That should have heated 672 sq ft up pretty good.
Sounds like you need to add more insulation to that 672 sq ft of living area and insulate the basement too.
Good luck.
 
Last Monday it went below Zero, and it finally got back above Friday afternoon.

Both Wed and Thurs night it went down to -25.

Keep Big E set on #3, and it kept the main floor and upstairs warm. At setting #3, 80lb per day.

I do use a ventlee LP heater in the basement. Considering changing that out for a smaller stove next summer.
 
travlnusa said:
Last Monday it went below Zero, and it finally got back above Friday afternoon.

Both Wed and Thurs night it went down to -25.

Keep Big E set on #3, and it kept the main floor and upstairs warm. At setting #3, 80lb per day.

I do use a ventlee LP heater in the basement. Considering changing that out for a smaller stove next summer.
Click to expand...


Sounds good and quite realistic too, assuming you are heating approx living space of about 1000-1500sq ft .
I know I`m burning a lot more pellets in my Harman P38 now that we`re in the deep of winter.
 
same here .. burning two full bags per day ... Auto setting not cutting it for some reason .. so just switch to manual high.

My Quadrafire is handling these temps just fine, though I'm not used to all this bag dumping. "Slept in" until 7 am this am and it ran out.
 
We had -24 at my house a few nights ago. My inexpensive us stove co. stove worked to well. I had it set on a feed rate of 5 which made the house temp stay at 70. Because of this my heat for that zone didnt come on and inturn my pipes froze. The freeze was right behind the stove off all places. But i guess when it gets that cold funny thing can happen!

Jason
 
dupjay21 said:
We had -24 at my house a few nights ago. My inexpensive us stove co. stove worked to well. I had it set on a feed rate of 5 which made the house temp stay at 70. Because of this my heat for that zone didnt come on and inturn my pipes froze. The freeze was right behind the stove off all places. But i guess when it gets that cold funny thing can happen!

Jason
Click to expand...
Do you think it could have happened because there was cold air infiltrating (creating a draft neat the pipes) behind the stove to supply combustion air ? Or do you have an OAK already in place?
 
My Big E keep the house @ around 70 with the t-stat set at 69 and the hi=2/ low =1&4;.
If you have a draft in the basement with no heat it will freeze the pipes. When the stove
was installed they put the "oak" thru the floor into a crawl space. The first time the temp
went to 0 degrees the pipes froze. I had to seal all the leaks and use flex tubbing to get outside
air. This last temp drop no freezing. Hope this helps.
:)
 
Now I don't know why , but it seems that with my stove set on manual , heats better, then on high /low and the stat higher then usual . Manual # 3 , high /low 3-1.
 
Went down to -25 at my house on Friday, my XXV had no problems keeping the room between 70 and 75. I too had pipes freeze up because I was not running the furnace. What a pain in the a**. The 1st time in 23 years that my pipes freeze up. From what I have read in this thread a small portable LP gas heater in the basement is the solution. Wouldn't an electric one be safer ?
 
Gio said:
I know I`m burning a lot more pellets in my Harman P38 now that we`re in the deep of winter.
Click to expand...
I noticed this too. Up until last week I don't think I ever needed to set the stove above "3" other than to raise the temp up after being away. Last week I had to set the stove close to "4" to maintain the temp on the first floor of the house when the temps were hanging around zero. Now that it has warmed up a little, it's back down to about "2.5"... It sure didn't make me happy seeing all those pellets disappear last week! :)
 
Wet1 said:
Gio said:
I know I`m burning a lot more pellets in my Harman P38 now that we`re in the deep of winter.
Click to expand...
I noticed this too. Up until last week I don't think I ever needed to set the stove above "3" other than to raise the temp up after being away. Last week I had to set the stove close to "4" to maintain the temp on the first floor of the house when the temps were hanging around zero. Now that it has warmed up a little, it's back down to about "2.5"... It sure didn't make me happy seeing all those pellets disappear last week! :)
Click to expand...

Yep! Last week was an eye opener for me. It`s a great simple little stove that burns very clean and can put put a lot of heat , but like the rest of em it takes a lot of pellets to produce a lot of heat.
 
Everybody thinks these stoves just heat with 1 bag a day. That may be true when it is near freezing but when it is -20-25 then all bets are off and if you find cold areas then you need to fire up that oil/gas burner fast to avoid freezing the pipes. Simply place your stove into manual mode and allow it to do what is is spossed to do "heat". Even a gas furnace is going to use much more gas when it is below zero to keep the joint warm so don't be stingy with the heat setting, just raise up and run in manual and be surprised how mush they really do heat.
 
Gio said:
dupjay21 said:
We had -24 at my house a few nights ago. My inexpensive us stove co. stove worked to well. I had it set on a feed rate of 5 which made the house temp stay at 70. Because of this my heat for that zone didnt come on and inturn my pipes froze. The freeze was right behind the stove off all places. But i guess when it gets that cold funny thing can happen!

Jason
Click to expand...
Do you think it could have happened because there was cold air infiltrating (creating a draft neat the pipes) behind the stove to supply combustion air ? Or do you have an OAK already in place?
Click to expand...


I have a old house so its probably a infiltration of cold air. Or it could be the thimble leaking air in, not sure. I do not have a intake on my stove so i have no air leaking in there. Stove seems to work fine with out it. I will be putting some heat tape on many of the heating pipes in the basement. Hopefully this will help and prevent it from happening again.
 
PDawg said:
Went down to -25 at my house on Friday, my XXV had no problems keeping the room between 70 and 75. I too had pipes freeze up because I was not running the furnace. What a pain in the a**. The 1st time in 23 years that my pipes freeze up. From what I have read in this thread a small portable LP gas heater in the basement is the solution. Wouldn't an electric one be safer ?
Click to expand...

I would think the portable LP gas heater have to be vented out of the basement? I just don't feel to safe about leaving any portable heater of any type in the basement that i cant keep a watchful eye on.
 
PDawg said:
Went down to -25 at my house on Friday, my XXV had no problems keeping the room between 70 and 75. I too had pipes freeze up because I was not running the furnace. What a pain in the a**. The 1st time in 23 years that my pipes freeze up. From what I have read in this thread a small portable LP gas heater in the basement is the solution. Wouldn't an electric one be safer ?
Click to expand...

Hi PDawg,

Try a ThermGuard. It attaches to the thermostat and runs a small amount of hot water through the pipes periodically. I had the same problem in my house in Montana. Pipes froze and burst....twice. You can program ThermGuard to send 2 minutes of hot water through the pipes every couple of hours or any other configuration and it will so the trick. You can search this forum and find a lot of people who are using it to their satisifaction.

www.bearmountaindesign.com

There is also a 10% discount for hearth.com members.

Cheers,
John
 
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