temps outside finally dropped too lowe for the stove alone

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Trickyrick

Feeling the Heat
Oct 23, 2009
285
Western MA/ Eastern NY
first day this year where the stove just couldn't keep up... Last night I measured -3* F here in upstate NY and this AM there was a significant drop in temp. The stove just couldn't keep up at the 73* temp the wife wanted inside so I had to turn on some heat too. It's ok The stove needs a weekly cleaning anyway....
 
It happens. When the temperature outside drops near 0° I notice that the stove will cycle more frequently and we go through a bit more pellets than usual. It's all about how well insulated the house is and its ability to keep the cold out. When we purchased our house more than 15 years ago we quickly learned that it was originally built as a summer cottage here on the pond. So over the years we've stripped each exterior wall to the outside sheathing, sistered 2x6's to every stud which allowed us to use R-19 in all our outside walls which has made a world of difference. If you slowly check all of your doors and windows and even outlet covers on all your outside walls you'll be amazed at all the little drafts that you'll find. If you can eliminate as many of those drafts as you can with a little insulation/caulking it really can help. Even some of the best insulated windows can still be drafty and with the addition of plastic on the inside it can make a HUGE difference.

Happy Heating!
 
Two things:

A) We will not hesitate to check the temp in the room where the wood stove is, and turn the furnace on, one degree higher than the room reading, to spit some heat into those rooms that just aren't getting enough, for about 15 minutes. No harm, no foul. The objective is warmth.

B) "Weekly cleaning???????????" What are you burning? A stove that is burning dry, seasoned wood, shouldn't need a "weekly" cleaning. (Or are you referring to ash removal, glass cleaning, etc.?)

-Soupy1957
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
In the wrong forum again soupy?
I think he really wants to dump the wood stove and go with pellets.
 
soupy1957 said:
Two things:

A) We will not hesitate to check the temp in the room where the wood stove is, and turn the furnace on, one degree higher than the room reading, to spit some heat into those rooms that just aren't getting enough, for about 15 minutes. No harm, no foul. The objective is warmth.

B) "Weekly cleaning???????????" What are you burning? A stove that is burning dry, seasoned wood, shouldn't need a "weekly" cleaning. (Or are you referring to ash removal, glass cleaning, etc.?)

-Soupy1957

A) Alectric heat and every room is programmed to come on at a given temp, and my suplimental heat is expensive propane fireplace that can heat the kitchen and living room but not the rest of the house.

b) Cleaning the burn pot, Dumping ash, brushing down the heat exchanger, cleaning glass and cleaning off the ignighter. Weekly cleanings just keep my pellet stove in tom efficiency.
 
Oh, I get it.........you're talkin Pellet Stoves? I go to the "View New Posts" section instead of the catagorical sections....perhaps that's why. Sorry......I guess "my bad"..........ah well.

-Soupy1957
 
Wondering how much of an influence OAK has on pellet burners keeping up with real bitter temps. If it's sub-zero outdoors, you're drawing that sub-zero air into the inside of the burn chamber, so that's gotta be factoring in also. My flexible OAK duct is ice cold as it is, can't imagine how cold it will feel on Sunday night/Monday morning when temps are forecasted to drop below 0°F in WNY...
 
I'm sure having the oak is better than drawing it in through the cracks in your house and burning the warm air and sending it out the exhaust.
 
Last night the 25-PDV just barely kept up. But that was heating 2500 sq ft over two rooms. The upstairs didn't get below 66, with electric heat as a backup set to 64. We did run through nearly a bag overnight though. A couple of more nights like this and I am sure the electric heat will come on.

I love this stove. It will heat the entire house except on the sub zero days.

It looks like we're getting to the heart of the winter.
 
Trickyrick, This is the main reason I always suggest a slightly larger stove. Just to have some room to play with. Good thing you got a back up to assist the pellet burner! :)
 
with between 0 and -3 temps here in NY my pdvc has been running on at least 7-9 full time. sometimes i'll crank it to full bore but then it cooks out the livingroom. i burn through 3 bags a day like this! but im completely off oil so no big deal.

avg house temp is 75 in a 1600 sq foot drafty house with plastic on the windows. with these outside temps the stove has a hard time raising the house temps but it easily holds them. the only time i use oil is the recover the house from the hour long full stove cleanings once a week.

i vacuum the stove out and its vent pipe, wipe the glass and shoot compressed air into the combustion blower with the vac on the other side. comes out as clean as when actually removing the combustion blower, and saves a gasket.

i wish i had the full size pdv or even better that new multi fuel one. i like the idea of the burn pot stirrer.
 
I found my Accentra insert having trouble keeping up in the single numbers above 0. However, last night I found a
solution to that: Blazers. Woke up nice and toasty even though it was -3 outside. I was amazed at the difference in
heat compared to Okies. Got 6 more bags to use sparingly for the rest of the season.
 
5:30 am = 2 degrees out side, 59 degrees inside.... brrrrr. Had to light up my good ol' kerosene heater
 
I have 8' ceilings and the stove is on the NW side of my house, I am blessed because I have yet to see my Harman Accentra insert not be able to heat my house, even with no power and it 5^ outside...
 
at 15 degrees (outside temp), my furnace comes on for about 5 min. The temps upstairs and down even out and we are comfortable for a while longer. Only gets below 70 in a couple of the back rooms. Need to get off my butt and pull the shades. That always helps out a lot. MY first year with OAK. I swear my stove is giving out more heat. Burning MWP with impressive results.
 
Since the original goal was to buy a pellet stove to supplement the furnace. I keep the stove running, let the furnace make up the rest if needed.
 
We got down to -5*F the other night. And all I had to do was let the stove run all night instead of shutting it down. Still kept 73* in the Dining Room and my upstairs bedroom actually got up to 69*F, which is way too warm for me. Let it run but turned it down last night, muuuuch better.
 
Hoverfly said:
Since the original goal was to buy a pellet stove to supplement the furnace. I keep the stove running, let the furnace make up the rest if needed.

Ditto.

We also got the pellet stove to supplement the oil heater, just wanted to cut down on oil usage.
 
Still laughing at the propane truck driving by and stopping at other homes. Still waiting for them to call to see if I need a delivery. Thursday morning when I left for work was 8 degrees. Still a pleasent 70 degrees on my first level and about 66 degrees in the bedrooms upstairs. What I have noticed is that the colder it is the hotter I make the stove and the less I have to clean it. When it's in the teens I clean it once a week. In the 30's I clean every three days.
 
Still laughing at the propane truck driving by and stopping at other homes. Still waiting for them to call to see if I need a delivery.

My oil guy is a friend of mine and I hadn't even seen him on a personal/social basis in a while. So I stopped by his place for a beer and he was all offended because he thought I changed oil suppliers. I can't say he was much happier that I put in a pellet stove, but he wasn't offended any more.
 
holstein said:
I found my Accentra insert having trouble keeping up in the single numbers above 0. However, last night I found a
solution to that: Blazers. Woke up nice and toasty even though it was -3 outside. I was amazed at the difference in
heat compared to Okies. Got 6 more bags to use sparingly for the rest of the season.


I just bought a ton of oakies first time useing. I have been burning pellet sales brand and the new Andies they had this year. The Andes suck as far as heat no better than there stock pellet except for the premium price they charged me for pellets that are far from heat blasters. My first 2 bags of oakies after cleaning my stove is putting out 20 degrees more than any pellet I have burned in 3 years. I have a Harman accentra insert also. What brand pellet is that ? Are they called Blazers? I live in Northern NJ never heard of them.
 
Trickyrick said:
first day this year where the stove just couldn't keep up... Last night I measured -3* F here in upstate NY and this AM there was a significant drop in temp. The stove just couldn't keep up at the 73* temp the wife wanted inside so I had to turn on some heat too. It's ok The stove needs a weekly cleaning anyway....


I have the same stove . Just womndering do you have an OAK hooked up? I have been fighting with this decision for a while. I know when the stove is on I can feel the cold draft on the floor being drawn to the stove. I think with an OAK this will be eliminated
 
I consider my oil heat a backup to my pellet stove, it's on if problems arise with the pellet stove but I keep the thermostats set a couple of degrees below the pellet stoves thermostat and the setback times are slightly different to allow the pellet stove time to recover from the night and weekday settings. Heating a 2 level 2200 SQ FT 1974 colonial not real open floor plan with just the Quadrafire MT Vernon AE Insert pellet stove. Main level 68 to 72 except the room the stove is in it's at low 80s or high 70s. Second level is 67 to 69 until the stove sets back at night and then drops to 63 or so, I like cooler bedrooms for sleeping. Messing with the stoves settings with the information I have got on Hearth.com it has held these inside temps at below 0 outside temps. When it gets real cold and windy out I switch to the high octane soft wood pellets and can maintain the inside temps easier. I use to run the stove in the manual 3 or 4 setting and now I use the auto setting. it runs longer at a lower output but the house doesn't cool off as much as when it was run in the manual setting. Down side to the auto setting is the stove is running on the low setting for a good amount of time before the thermostat is satisfied and get a slightly dirtier burn. I still can make it through 1 week before a quick vacuum cleaning but this week I am going to try to push it to 2 weeks and see how it does.
The whole key to using a pellet or wood stove to heat a house is not to let the inside temps drop too much or you loose the thermal heat mass of the home and it's contents.
 
investor7952 said:
holstein said:
I found my Accentra insert having trouble keeping up in the single numbers above 0. However, last night I found a
solution to that: Blazers. Woke up nice and toasty even though it was -3 outside. I was amazed at the difference in
heat compared to Okies. Got 6 more bags to use sparingly for the rest of the season.


I just bought a ton of oakies first time useing. I have been burning pellet sales brand and the new Andies they had this year. The Andes suck as far as heat no better than there stock pellet except for the premium price they charged me for pellets that are far from heat blasters. My first 2 bags of oakies after cleaning my stove is putting out 20 degrees more than any pellet I have burned in 3 years. I have a Harman accentra insert also. What brand pellet is that ? Are they called Blazers? I live in Northern NJ never heard of them.

The pellets are called Blazers. Hard to find in the east. I got them in southern MA (Robbins Wood Pellets -
http://www.woodpelletsexperts.com/pricing.html) near the CT border. My wife was in the area and she
bought 8 bags to try.
 
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