what are your average temps in the room were your stove is located?

If we get the stove going on a good load, that means it's running around 500 °F and that will put the room and surrounding area in the low 80's. Right now, using a box fan at opposite end of house to move cold air which works pretty good; gets that end around 70 °F . Thinking about running dedicated duct from stove room to end of house with in line fan. (posted those questions over in the DIY forum). Our area here in MI has been above normal and we have only burned through a face cord of the more junk wood and have stayed very very comfortable. This stove keeps kicking out for hours after the fire is gone. :coolsmile:

usually stove room (kitchen) at the 7 foot level is where the thermometer is says around 90. the bedrooms on the other side of the ranch style house 44 feet away around 69 to 70. middle of the house 73. when we get to the single numbers or below the kitchen will run 105 at 7 feet give or take a few. and far end of the house around 70. the floor area in the kitchen is in the 70's. very good movement of air all on it's own here. no fans.

I have two stoves and they both heat rooms completely differently.

Stove 1:
The Vigilant is in a room called The Summer Kitchen. It's kind of a Den/Family Room. It has about a 15-16' high ceiling. and is about 14'x20' in size. From October thru December I can get the room up to 90* if I have the stove REALLY cranking. I try to keep it at 80* so the heat easily makes it out of the room. During January and February the room will top out at 80*. I just bought a ceiling fan and will be installing it in the next month. I am anxious to see what happens when I have the ceiling fan going as I know I have a lot of heat hanging out at the top of the A-frame.

Stove 2 (first year burning):
Th Intrepid II is located in the Kitchen which is located in the main portion of the house that is mostly stone. So far I can get the kitchen up to 80*, but the heat vents out in a lot of directions (up the pie staircase mostly, which heats the master bedroom, bathroom, and some of the second bedroom). The stove take several hours to heat up all of the stone. I haven't had the chance to burn it 24/7 over a stretch of several days so I don't know the stoves limitations yet or how much the temperatures may increase once the stone walls are holding more heat.

I just loaded up an hour ago for the night. My stove top is cruising at 650 or so, the family room is 80* on the button, our bedroom upstairs is in the low 70's. I let the room get a little warmer then I like but I'll be upstairs soon enough were it's cooler. During the day I typically build small fires with three or four small/medium splits at a time so the lower level of the house doesn't get overheated like it is now at night I fill it up and let it rip since it's bed time.

This time of year it's pretty normal to have the room with the stove in it running in the high 70s and low 80s . . . depends on how often the woodstove is being loaded, what we're burning, etc. Last night it was a bit too warm and my wife had to open the windows at some point . . . normally we'll use the fan to move the heat around to the rest of the house which stays a comfortable 66-74 degrees.

I think my biggest problem is my wood. Dispite it is "kiln dried" or "seasoned" it is wet or not seasoned so .... It smokes and does not get to temperature until I get a piece of wood that has been sitting around for about 3 years that was bought for a campfire and we did not use this wood so it is in my garage, I put one piece of that on and BINGO it is up in flames and gets the other stuff hot enough to burn and get the stove to 450 or so and I put the damper down(closed) and leave the Thermostat open wide for a few more minutes and then close that incrementally till it is a quarter open and have a nice steady 450 fire. The stove is in between two stone walls and stone back wall so not sure we are getting the whole effect of the stove heat since it heats up the walls of stone but that just goes back toward the stove. I am asking my installer to install a blocking plate near the area of the fireplace damper so that I am not heating the whole chimney also. This is not installed in the fireplace but my fireplace had stone walls that one would walk between to get to the fireplace and that is where the stove is. I need to get really dry wood!

sandie said:

I think my biggest problem is my wood. Dispite it is "kiln dried" or "seasoned" it is wet or not seasoned so .... It smokes and does not get to temperature until I get a piece of wood that has been sitting around for about 3 years that was bought for a campfire and we did not use this wood so it is in my garage, I put one piece of that on and BINGO it is up in flames and gets the other stuff hot enough to burn and get the stove to 450 or so and I put the damper down(closed) and leave the Thermostat open wide for a few more minutes and then close that incrementally till it is a quarter open and have a nice steady 450 fire. The stove is in between two stone walls and stone back wall so not sure we are getting the whole effect of the stove heat since it heats up the walls of stone but that just goes back toward the stove. I am asking my installer to install a blocking plate near the area of the fireplace damper so that I am not heating the whole chimney also. This is not installed in the fireplace but my fireplace had stone walls that one would walk between to get to the fireplace and that is where the stove is. I need to get really dry wood!

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those stone walls will act to your advantage once they get warmed up. kind of like a soapstone stove. they may not burn your hand when you put your hand on them but because of the volume of stone they soak in the heat then release after the fire goes out

We have a very open concept ranch 1500 sq feet. The stove is in the middle of the living room,dining room, and kitchen area. We keep it 72 - 77. The stove is pretty easy to keep in this range.

Usually low 80's here in the stove room.

-SF

About the same as others, I have a 1200 sq ft 2 story house with a 1.8cu ft insert downstairs, I run about 78-80 downstairs and around 71-72 upstairs with the fans on. That is with a temp of around 450-500 on top of the insert.

Our hearth-mounted stove is located in our dining room, which has 1 1/2 foot archways into the foyer and into the kitchen. There is also a badly-insulated sunroom adjoining. When running the Phoenix flat-out at outside temps in the 30s, I can keep the dining room in the low 70s and the rest of the house in the mid 60s. We also supplement some heat from the oil boiler/hot water radiator system. The bedrooms get pretty cold once the stove burns down in the middle of the night, so we also run portable electric, oil-filled radiators on low in those rooms to warm them to taste (warmer in the my daughter's room, a little colder in our room).

So far we've managed to only burn about 4-5 gallons of oil, including the yearly tune-up burn, to keep the temperatures above.

This is my first full year burning to I'm anxious to see how the whole winter plays out. We had the Hearthstone installed late winter last year.

I can't believe folks having temps in their house in the 80s during winter. Wow.

The stove, our little Intrepid, will heat dramatically more if the "afterburner" is on, which we use only when the weather turns really cold, like now in Eastern PA.

Den is where our stove is, measures about 15X20', Usually in the low to mid 80's. But that also depends how high you take the measurement, because it's easily 90* or more at the ceiling. That's why the Vornado doorway fan is a must.

There is a sliding door that effectively controls airflow into the room, and can take the temp down pretty quick of needed. Heavy curtains in front of it must be drawn, or the heat has to fight cold glass. I do like it hot, and can wear shorts and tank top all year round in 1st floor of my house.

Kitchen is adjacent, good size, L shaped, close to 20X20' fed by a small Vornado fan mounted high on the wall by the doorway, pointing down and across the threshold. Kitchen stays about 75* (Where are all the smily's. degree signs, etc?? I don't see 'em.)

Dining Rm is farthest away, about 21' thru the kitchen. Stays about 72* That's where the thermostat is. I can keep my wife from fighting about the thermostat - I set it at 70* and she's happy. Still doesn't kick on. };-p

sandie said:

I think my biggest problem is my wood. Dispite it is "kiln dried" or "seasoned" it is wet or not seasoned so .... It smokes and does not get to temperature until I get a piece of wood that has been sitting around for about 3 years that was bought for a campfire and we did not use this wood so it is in my garage, I put one piece of that on and BINGO it is up in flames and gets the other stuff hot enough to burn and get the stove to 450 or so and I put the damper down(closed) and leave the Thermostat open wide for a few more minutes and then close that incrementally till it is a quarter open and have a nice steady 450 fire. The stove is in between two stone walls and stone back wall so not sure we are getting the whole effect of the stove heat since it heats up the walls of stone but that just goes back toward the stove. I am asking my installer to install a blocking plate near the area of the fireplace damper so that I am not heating the whole chimney also. This is not installed in the fireplace but my fireplace had stone walls that one would walk between to get to the fireplace and that is where the stove is. I need to get really dry wood!

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Hey Sandie,
Try leaving the doors on the stove open for about the 1st 45mins of your burn. I always end up splitting last minute, and use wood that's still got a significant moisture content. To prevent creosote, and to have an easier time overall, I let the fire build up a bed of coals during the first load with both doors wide open. Sure, I might be able to build up heat in the room a little quicker if I closed 'em sooner, but that's a lot of cool, moist smoke, meandering up my flue, and I just swept the bugger! Doors open means more airflow, hotter temps both in your firebox and at the top of your stack.

I just started a fire 20 mins ago and I can hear the log hissing in there. It's not time to close it up yet.
Once you have those coals, good size coals from your fist load, not kindling coals, you will be able to use your wood normally. Load and shut the door, even if it's not perfectly seasoned. (Unless it's really wet, of course.)

Just make sure you have a good method to start the fire. (Read: plenty of dry kindling. I use paper, some cardboard, and dry twigs/branches I collect all year, lying around outside.)

So you wait for your kindling and small logs go to all coals before you shut your front doors? And then you load the splits etc.?
It is true that once I get some really good coals I can get her up to about 450 degrees consistantly. I have a heck of a time to get it all going though, I might not be using enough kindling. How about using pine cones as fire starters, do they load up stack with creosote? They burn like the devil. A guy at work just dropped off 3 boxes of broken up pallets and other small pieces of wood for kindling so will use more wood for kindling, one small log, let it burn to coals and then load the other bigger splits and let it come back up in temp? I know to let the damper and thermostat be wide open while trying to get it up to temp of 400 or so. I am axious to get this down pat so when real winter is here I will be working on getting a fire to stay over night so I will be having hot coals in AM and throw in some wood to keep 'er going 24/7 if possible.
Good point about the stones giving off heat after stove has died down BUT normally you get heat off all surfaces of the stove with air of the room circulating around the stove and heating the air but in my case the only heat going out to the room is the front and top and even that some of it is going up the chimney since there was not a plate placed where the fireplace damper was once. I think once that is done it will be better but still not heating cirulating air as it would if in middle of room or even out from in betw stone walls. I cannot for the life of me get this room past 68 and that is telling me something I think when the stove is 450 for a few hours. Also there aer some big windows in the room so we will shut the blinds and see if that will help retain the heat, it should help.
Thanks for the suggestions!

We have an open log cabin with a cathedral ceiling and total square footage around 1200, and we have a centrally located Jotul F3 and our normal stove temp is 300-400 degrees, the room with the stove (living room/kitchen) stays about 69-71 degrees and the back bedrooms are in the mid 60’s which is perfect for us, the loft needs to have ceiling fan installed but it runs hot as you would expect.

No problems with the place staying warm and we have been down to 20degrees at night outside.

70-75 throughout the house. This time of year we burn mostly sweetgum and poplar, once it get's colder we burn oak and locust. Over the past few years we've gotten pretty good at regulating the temperature inside when it's not quite so cold outside, but when we first got the unit it was always around 80 or so until it got down in the 30s outside.

if i run mine wide open after a fresh charge of beech or oak my furnace room has reached 106 degrees according to my thermometer ,most of the time its in the 80's when dampered down though

Heating 2900 sq. ft. My EQ keeps us at 80-82 in the family room (EQ location) and the rest of the first floor 74-76. Upstairs is 72.

Are you burning 24/7? IF not after how long are you in the 80s or the 70s or whatever you are claiming average temps? I have a hard time getting up to sixty eight but still not great wood but do have a huge load of pallet wood so that will be for kindling so that will help.

sandie with the stove you have 450 might be a little to cool to begin with. i'm not sure if you have a cat combuster or secondary air burn if not 450 might creosote up your chimney. you should bring it up to 550. with pallet wood for kindling you have no problem starting it up.

So last night it was about 40*F when I lit the stove and here are my temps with times:

1125 lit fire, stove room (SR) was 67* and Hallway A/C thermostat near rear of home read 65*.
1136 fire going well shut the door.
1154 fan kicked on Catalytic combuster (Cat)at temp at 550*
1158 Cat engaged with Cat temp at 600* SR temp 69* hallway (HW) 65*
1210 Cat temp up to 900* shotgun air control closed, primary air control "airwash" closed half way SR temp 72* HW temp 66*
1255 Cat temp at 1100* SR at 79* HW 69*
On ave the stove room will usually run around 80-82* and the hallway and farthest room from the stove will be around 71*.

I have my Jotul in the basement for the purpose of heating JUST that room. I can get that little sucker to bring up my cold basement temp around 20 degrees. Last night the room temp was sitting at 60 degrees. Made a fire, and brought the basement up to 80 degrees. In the dead of winter, my basement gets as cold as 55 degrees or so, and I can bring it up to the mid 70's. The little stove does the trick for my old, drafty, stone foundation basement, that's for sure. Sure beats the hell out of my Empire propane wall heater that i used to use

NO catalyst here. So I am going to start the fire tonight with the pallet wood, get it to ? degrees before throwing in bigger wood? OR am I doing the fire all set up with the paper and fire starter, then pallet wood, then smaller rounds and then a couple of small splits? That should get to 550 fast as in a half hour or so? I guess everyone has their own way of building a fire but is the starting fire the one that gets it to the 550 degrees? Do people use a real lot of kindling to get the fire up to temp? Something I am doing is not working.