Up all night!

I'm in bed at 11 and up at 5:15. to amber's and stoke it than. I do close the damper almost all the way.

Are you burning softer wood for the shoulder season? Or maybe smaller loads/splits?

We sacked out around 9:30 last night. Maybe a half load in the stove. Slept in this morning. At 8:15 I put a couple pieces of kindling on the coals, added a couple of splits and the stove is giggling happily along. It is still warm in the house.

Normally . . . as in when I'm burning 24/7 in the dead of winter with a full load of my good wood and not a partial load with my punks, chunks and uglies . . . I get up zero times in the night to reload the woodstove.

Final load is at 9:30 p.m. or so . . . watch the fire for a half hour . . . wake up between 5 and 5:30 a.m. to reload the stove . . . since I'm impatient I use kindling on the hot coals, but my infinitely more patient wife (well she did marry me so she has to be more patient) simply puts some small splits on the coals and waits for the wood to ignite.

Never. My Fireview is good for at least 8 hours. I never get to sleep that long.

I don't need to either. Although, I usually don't sleep too well some nights and get up to just sit by the fire.

In the 24/7 season, not just yet, I put in the late load at 11pm turn the air down in 15 minute increments and at 11:30 its off to bed. UP between 6 & 6:30 then its reload time. So unless I'm doing an Ed Norton sleep walking kinda thing I don't get up during the night.

When I am at home and I hear the furnace kick on, it bugs me so much that I just have to get up and reload the stove, so that would not work for me. Does not seem to bug wifey at all for some reason

soupy1957 said:

Someone in this Forum stated that they put the furnace thermostat on 45º so that, if the fire DOES go out, and things get TOO cold, the furnace will kick on and keep the pipes from freezing. I LIKE that idea, so I set mine on 50º. That way, if I feel like sleeping "in" a tad, I'm not gonna freeze everyone and everything out!!

-Soupy1957

Click to expand...

We usually set our heat pump thermostat for 70º, but it seldom gets that cold that it kicks in when we are burning wood. We always seem to end up running the wood stove a little more than I think is really necessary and tend to be too warm rather than too cold. However, this year I am going to try a little harder to conserve wood a bit more and drop the thermostat down as well, see if we can get use to a cooler environment. Maybe we'll be able to slow global warming or something.

Not yet, not cold outside to where I would need a fire 24/7... still in the 30s/40s outside. A fire every other day is enough to hold the house at 70-75*

soupy1957 said:

Someone in this Forum stated that they put the furnace thermostat on 45º so that, if the fire DOES go out, and things get TOO cold, the furnace will kick on and keep the pipes from freezing. I LIKE that idea, so I set mine on 50º. That way, if I feel like sleeping "in" a tad, I'm not gonna freeze everyone and everything out!!

-Soupy1957

Click to expand...

Lol are you serious! 50! If I did that I would be out the door! My furnace is set at 65-68 at night, the wife gets mad if its cold in the house in the morning..... but I found its easier this way when trying to heat large areas. If I let it get cool it takes a long time to bring it back ... its better for me to keep the thermosat close to what I want the temp to conserve wood .. I learned this last year .. house was cold and took forever with the stove... short work for a furnace - heat up with the furnace maintain with the stove... now if someone has an older furnace then it may be a toss up .... but even so I use 100 gallons or less of oil a year.. I also do this when we get real long cold spells as often I am out of the house a good part of the day

With the boiler in the dead of winter coldest days I pack the thing with good stuff at 10:30 / 11:00 and it's good until 6:30 or so.

soupy1957 said:

Someone in this Forum stated that they put the furnace thermostat on 45º so that, if the fire DOES go out, and things get TOO cold, the furnace will kick on and keep the pipes from freezing. I LIKE that idea, so I set mine on 50º. That way, if I feel like sleeping "in" a tad, I'm not gonna freeze everyone and everything out!!

-Soupy1957

Click to expand...

I set my oil boiler to kick on at 60 degrees . . . but unless it's the dead of winter and we're having a bunch of sub-zero days I rarely hear it kick on . . . and on the mornings that it does kick on it's as though it was an alarm clock since I hear it running and wake right up.

Our thermostats are somewhere between 60 and 65, but the house is usually around 70 day and night. The boiler only really has to work to keep the far end of the main floor warm on the coldest days. The upstairs heat almost never comes on.

With my gasification boiler and 2000gal of storage I just fire up when I get up and feel like it. Right now I fire it up once a week but that is mostly for my hot tub, dhw and water bed. Even in the dead of winter I could go a day with out putting in any wood.
leaddog

Well Soupy, I tend to wake up around 3-4 after going to bed at whatever time I happen to get sleepy (not usually before 11), and last winter the house had started to cool enough that I needed a reload at that time.
I only sleep between 6-7 hrs (most nights), and when the dogs start waking me at 6-7, I'm up again for the day. Restart the fire then.
This house needs attic insulation, so if I sleep right through til morning, I wake to the house at 55-60, and have to reheat the whole dang place again. It's easier to get up in the middle of the night to keep the house temp up.

I refuse to get up to tend the fire as such. That was part of why I replaced the first stove I bought - it couldn't burn through the night. Now I just load up the FV before bed (9:30-10p?) then when I get up in the morning (6a) I can kick it off from coals if I am in 24/7 mode.

Once I start burning again I'll start off with a single fire a day I'm sure - not sure if it will be lit in the AM or PM though - pros and cons to both in my house. I still am holding out here... almost lit the stove this morning though....

When I first got the stove, I'd get up around 2AM to reload. It got to be a bit of a PITA since I was getting up around 5:30AM to go skiing.

Now, I load up before we go to bed...around 10-11PM. When I get up around 5:30, there are plenty of coals to start a fire with a little kindling and a few dry splits. I don't load it up to the gills when we go skiing for the day...I'm just not comfortable doing that.

I'm currently burning every other day to take the chill off. In the dead of winter I usually load at around 10:30 pm and get up and reload about 3:30 am to keep the house comfy. The stove will hold coals all night but the
house gets to chilly. On the rare occasion Idont get up to fill it we turn the elec heaters on to take the chill off while the fire gets going. Getting ready to install new boiler and if I calculated correctly should be
able to easily go 12 hr without a refill in the dead of winter with 1000 gal thermal storage.

soupy1957 said:

Skier 76: Wish "I" could go skiing all day, every day!! (lol) Must be a tough life?! (Not)

-Soupy1957

Click to expand...

LOL! Me too! Our stove is at our weekend house....so I only burn and ski on the weekends. And the occational weekday when my wife and I take a long weekend.

0 and no furnace. If the ladies want it warmer in the morning, they turn the thermostat on the stove up. With the old stove, I was up in the middle of every night. When it was cold, I had to come home from work at lunchtime as well. Traded beauty for function and couldn't be happier.