I recently bought a englander NC-30 (thanks hearth forums). The installation is in the basement of a cape style house. I spend 95% of my time on the upper 2 floors so I found myself checking on the woodstove once every half an hour when burning even though I am getting 6+ burn times. I determined a easy solution would be to install a security camera aimed directly at the fire. The camera was around 60 dollars and has led powered infrared night vision. So even if there isn't any flames you can still see approx amount of heat being produced through the window. I just installed this today and am thinking it'll save me 100 trips up and down the stairs next winter. The attached pictures show what it looks like in normal vision, night vision, and also what the camera looks like.
Hi-Tech peace of mind
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pyronut
Member
Beauty
Looks great, now you have me thinking about doing this. This is going to make the wife real happy ;-P LOL
Looks great, now you have me thinking about doing this. This is going to make the wife real happy ;-P LOLIt took me 10 minutes to install. The camera needs a power input and outputs the video on a BNC cable. When I bought the camera I bought a BNC to RCA 25 foot cable. So all I had to do was connect the RCA end of the cable to a unused video jack on the TV. No fancy decoder boxes or anything else required. If you run the cable to your bedroom TV you can check the fire at anytime of night without getting out of bed.
To take this even further you could connect the camera to your internet router which will transmit the video of your fire to your smartphone anywhere in the world in real time. I wasn't going to take it to that level. Being able to turn the channel on my TV and see the status of my fire from 25 feet away in the living room is fine for me at the moment.
To take this even further you could connect the camera to your internet router which will transmit the video of your fire to your smartphone anywhere in the world in real time. I wasn't going to take it to that level. Being able to turn the channel on my TV and see the status of my fire from 25 feet away in the living room is fine for me at the moment.
I see a chimney cam in somebody's future here. :lol:
I did the same thing with a USB cam for the 30-NC on the first floor when I had my office in the basement. I could check it on my desktop every once in a while.
I did the same thing with a USB cam for the 30-NC on the first floor when I had my office in the basement. I could check it on my desktop every once in a while.
cmonSTART
Minister of Fire
To take it one step further a adjustable zoom camera zoomed in on the woodstove with a temp gauge in the frame. Would allow additional remote monitoring by seeing approx what temp the stove is operating. Although i must say this preliminary setup is performing exactly as intended. The camera has 600 lines of vertical resolution so it's border line high def, even if my blurry pictures don't do it justice.
certified106
Minister of Fire
Yeah good idea!
Actually been loading stove with kelvar spacesuit (welding gloves) since getting bad burn on left arm from partially open door during first weekend of ownership.
Small price to pay for reasonable priced heat with home heating oil on a warpath. I'm amazed of energy released from these modern efficent stoves. Can't wait for the oil company to start asking questions on why my usage has dropped.
Actually been loading stove with kelvar spacesuit (welding gloves) since getting bad burn on left arm from partially open door during first weekend of ownership.
Small price to pay for reasonable priced heat with home heating oil on a warpath. I'm amazed of energy released from these modern efficent stoves. Can't wait for the oil company to start asking questions on why my usage has dropped.
Got one last idea for ultimate remote monitoring setup
Adding a high capacity weight scale under stove with digital readout. If you zeroed the scale with stove only before loading with wood you would be able to determine how many pounds of wood has not been burned. Viewing this information from TV, internet, or smartphone along with temp gauge and image of firebox would give enough information to approximate when you need to tend to fire.
This would work well for people doing 24 hour burns that are at work for 8+ hours a day.
Adding a high capacity weight scale under stove with digital readout. If you zeroed the scale with stove only before loading with wood you would be able to determine how many pounds of wood has not been burned. Viewing this information from TV, internet, or smartphone along with temp gauge and image of firebox would give enough information to approximate when you need to tend to fire.
This would work well for people doing 24 hour burns that are at work for 8+ hours a day.
Woody Stover
Minister of Fire
Ceramic blanket for the cam in case of a chimney fire, but the footage should be great! :lol:BrotherBart said:
I don't see my boss reacting well when I say "I'll be back in an hour; I have to toss on more wood." :lol:Troy said:
Adabiviak
Feeling the Heat
That's a little creepy... I'm waiting for a future post where you spot some sort of gremlin stealing your firewood or opening your vents up all the way.
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