It's too hot!

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begreen

begreen

Mooderator
Staff member
Nov 18, 2005
104,672
South Puget Sound, WA
Weather has changed and we've started burning again. I put 3 large splits on last night at 8pm. It was only 44 outside, but predicted to go down into the 30's by morning. By 11pm, the living room was 80 and I was down to my tshirt. That's too hot! I don't know how folks handle those temps all the time. I had to open a window in our bedroom to get it comfortable enough to sleep. Oh well, there was a nice bed of coals to start a more moderate fire at 7:30 this morning. Spring stove burning is so much fun.
 
BeGreen said:
Weather has changed and we've started burning again. I put 3 large splits on last night at 8pm. It was only 44 outside, but predicted to go down into the 30's by morning. By 11pm, the living room was 80 and I was down to my tshirt. That's too hot! I don't know how folks handle those temps all the time. I had to open a window in our bedroom to get it comfortable enough to sleep. Oh well, there was a nice bed of coals to start a more moderate fire at 7:30 this morning. Spring stove burning is so much fun.
Click to expand...

Yeah. We will be in that boat for weeks to come. Too warm to burn before bedtime but too cold before daybreak not to.
 
Anytime the room gets over 78* I immeditatley fall asleep :p
 
I've gone back to burning some really dry silver/water maple that makes good shoulder season stuff. It takes off like pine (which I am out of at the moment) and throws a quick, hot fire so the kids don't wake up "freezing to death" in the mornings. :roll:

Wood stoves will ruin your wife/kids/dogs/cats. Be warned.
 
Last couple of 4 days it's been close to 40° here so we just throw a stick on at a time...and wear shorts and T shirts in the house.
 
I think this time of year is probably where pellet stoves shine. Turn it. Then turn it off.
 
I have decided to follow BrotherBarts path... it's heat, not a religion.

40's to 50's is the temperature when the heat pump is in it's best zone..

going to let it do it's job, and if it's forecast to get below 40 at night, fire up the stove.

or unless I am told otherwise..lol
 
1 or 2 fires per day now, and rarely overnight. Spring is here--for now. Probably get a big blizzard on the weekend that we move.
 
We've been on the heat pump for a lot of January and most of February with the exception of a few night fires. Our electric bill went up to $109 for February. But a fire is nicer when it's cold and damp. Just got a batch of snow flurries dusting the daffodils. Tossed another couple of logs on the fire, cat sidles over to its basket by the fire and settles in for a nap. Looks like we'll just be running 2-3 log fires.
 
Dakotas Dad said:
I have decided to follow BrotherBarts path... it's heat, not a religion.

40's to 50's is the temperature when the heat pump is in it's best zone..

going to let it do it's job, and if it's forecast to get below 40 at night, fire up the stove.

or unless I am told otherwise..lol
Click to expand...

DD,

I'm in the same predicament as you... overnight temps down in the low 40's. Have not built any fires over the last few days. Noticed the upstairs temps is mid 70's at bedtime but mid 60's in the AM. I too, have a heat pump that heats the upstairs only. At these temps it may be smarter to run the heat pump to get balanced heat all night as compared the "overheating associated with wood heat. Had a fire early last week that raised upstairs temp to 87.

I just have a problem with flicking a switch to get my heat.

How efficient are heat pumps anyway?
 
leftyscott said:
DD,

I'm in the same predicament as you... overnight temps down in the low 40's. Have not built any fires over the last few days. Noticed the upstairs temps is mid 70's at bedtime but mid 60's in the AM. I too, have a heat pump that heats the upstairs only. At these temps it may be smarter to run the heat pump to get balanced heat all night as compared the "overheating associated with wood heat. Had a fire early last week that raised upstairs temp to 87.

I just have a problem with flicking a switch to get my heat.

How efficient are heat pumps anyway?
Click to expand...

Read the meter around dinner time one night, use the heat pump that night, and then take another meter reading before dinner. Multiply by your per KWH rate to see if it is worth it.
 
It's mid-50's here during the day and 20's at night. Have to load the stove just right so the house doesn't get too hot. Usually burn for a couple of hours when we get up and another couple of hours around dinner time.
 
I think a wise old timer on this site stated it perfectly - "Wood burners hell".....I just wish I could remember who.....
 
leftyscott said:
I just have a problem with flicking a switch to get my heat.

How efficient are heat pumps anyway?
Click to expand...

It varies quite a bit. Most older units are not that great below about 45 degrees. Modern high-efficiency units can still squeeze heat out of the air at 25 °F. And I'm told that there are some super high efficiency units that will work another 10-15 degrees colder than that.
 
Warm here too, just need an evening fire to keep the house temps up to comfy level. This is also a good time for firewood stacking, I'm just about done filling the empty side of my shed.
 
We've been in the 50s during the last few days, but 20-25 at night. I make a somewhat 'normal' fire in the evening when the inside temp gets to 67 or so. I threw a few small splits on about 7 this am and the blower is still cycling on the furnace. It's around 75 in here with the front door and a window on the back wide open. Fresh air is kinda nice.
 
The trick is to let the house cool so that the one or two fires a day don't overheat the place. I am certainly going through more kindling than normal. We run the house up to 80 regularly but since it is a rambler, the bedrooms are only into the low 70s. Works out good. We never really got a winter in the NW this year so burning continuously hasn't been necessary.
 
Still burnin 24/7, just low and slow. First thing in the morning we turn the tstat up and blowers on the stove for 20 mins. Other than that, load it once a day and burn low and slow.
 
I've been switching to lower BTU wood (sycamore, poplar and soon what I think is Alder) the past couple weeks and past weeks, hitting the high fourties/low fifties during the day, I'm only starting the fire right before bed. I get up and stoke it up, throw on a few small splits just to warm things up a bit and that's it for the day. I let the fire go out sometime mid morning and the house cools till close to bedtime. If it starts to get a little cool around 8 or 9pm I do things the old fashioned way... put on a sweatshirt and slippers. Maybe even a throw blanket if I'm sitting on the couch watching the idiot box or reading. 1/2 hour before bed, earlier if it is really cooling off, I start the fire again.

This is also the time of year to get rid of all my junk wood. I have a 3 x 4 pallet stacked 4 feet high with all the shorts, end cuts, wedges, punky garbage and crotches, so I use the small pieces and make smaller fires. If I know the temp is really going to drop, I use a trick made possible by the Vermont Castings secondary burn design. In secondary the wood only burns at the bottom of the firebox and everything above it is like an upsidedown rifle magazine, so I use a couple/few low BTU shorts (8 or 10 inches long) on the bottom and put bigger, higher BTU stuff on top of it. The higher BTU, larger pieces don't start hitting the fire till late into the night.

It took several years to work through my thick head, if you don't want it so hot, make smaller fires... Instead of 16 inch splits choked waaaayy down, I use 8 or 10 inch splits. You can still pile them high and burn em full throttle but their only putting out half the BTU's.
 
What a difference a day makes. Temps have been dropping since morning. We're getting some heavy wet snow showers, but nothing sticking yet. Just hope it doesn't ice up overnight. The beast has a bellyful of alder and is running happy with a 550 stovetop.
 
BeGreen said:
What a difference a day makes. Temps have been dropping since morning. We're getting some heavy wet snow showers, but nothing sticking yet. Just hope it doesn't ice up overnight. The beast has a bellyful of alder and is running happy with a 550 stovetop.
Click to expand...

Let the wood burning season begin! :lol:
 
I think I am done burning for this year. I have about 3 or 4 cords ready for next year, and will be able to start process again finally next week. Se the Doc tomorrow and am looking for the ok to get to the heavy stuff again.
I am going to go tonight without a fire and see what it is like in the morning. I am guessing in the 65 to 66 area, which is fine for me.
I do have about a weeks worth left in the manger, I do NOT feel like loading it again.
Its time put the Summit to rest.
 
Have I mentioned how I marvel at wood heating? To think, that this is my first year and all the years before we were cold in the winter...Letting anything heat my house, but free wood would be sacrilege. Yesterday reached almost 60 during the day, we had no fire all day. It was still 69 in here when I went to bed...still no fire. I woke up at 5am, the furnace had been on trying to keep a 65 temp inside the house. This would probably make a grand total of ~16 hours of oil heating for the year! The first thing I did after I hit bathroom was go downstairs and start a fire. Half hour later damper down and the cat quickly approached light off. By the time I left at 6am, for my first day back on the job, it was 67 and climbing in here. will not go another night without a fire again unless it's time to turn off the thermostat for good (which, by the way, I just did!!!!) :coolsmile:


I'm still enjoying the fire everyday. Learning how to burn a new stove since two weeks ago has been fun. I've really learned how to burn three stoves this heating season. Now, learning how to heat with a near thirty degree difference from high to low temp is tricky!
Today's high was 58 and the overnight low will hit 29. Teaching your wife, how to operate the new stove, while you return to work for the first time since a lay off in November, PRICELESS! :p

She did OK, maybe a dirty cat and some dirty glass! Signs of a smoldering fire all day long, but I tried again to show her all I've learned over the past two weeks of "obsessing" over my new stove. Tomorrow, I'll be gone for 9 hours and I think she'll do a little better than today. :)

I guess, one advantage of NOT having your main heater in a living room, is not heating your self into Hades, in the shoulder season!!
 
Hogwildz said:
I think I am done burning for this year. I have about 3 or 4 cords ready for next year, and will be able to start process again finally next week. Se the Doc tomorrow and am looking for the ok to get to the heavy stuff again.
I am going to go tonight without a fire and see what it is like in the morning. I am guessing in the 65 to 66 area, which is fine for me.
I do have about a weeks worth left in the manger, I do NOT feel like loading it again.
Its time put the Summit to rest.
Click to expand...

Take a break Hog. It has been a hell of an eventful season for ya.
 
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