10 degrees and can't keep up....

I feel so much better reading this... I was afraid I was doing something wrong with the 30. 3 full loads of BL a day are keeping the house at 70 with minimal involvement from the heat pump.

One thing you could try if your place is real cold is to boil a big pot of water on your stove/range. Adding humidityseems to help the airs ability to carry the heat ( I am sure there is a technicial term for this, but I don't know it). We have added a humifier to the operation and that helps. The Osburn 2400 Insert we put in thorws tons of heat, even when damped doown hard. When we hit single digits, I did crack open the damper a skosh, but the elderly mother-in-law was visiting and she likes it a bit warmer.

Nate, can you give me a brief description of the construction of your home? ie. 2x6 framing, on a slab, or brick constuction with a poured foundation. My house would simply freeze and implode under those conditions.

In the recent cold snap my dragon did the job, I just had to feed it more wood, down to 60 in the morn. and I have no other heat source,but some elect heaters that, I don't turn on.

I plane on Getting a new more efficient stove , but I am a little worried if don't get one big enough It won't do as good of a job heating as my old stove

Pretty standard construction, nothing special. 2x6 walls, R21 insulation. On a slab which is heated if I run the boiler. Sides of the slab have R10 as well as a 3-4ft apron around the house/garage. Attic is R60

A what?

wow, you guys are cold, I have nothing to complain about at 25 with 60mph winds. This summit is doing just fine. Getting the procedure down pretty good. I,too, need to stops some drafts, need to identify them in the cold wind as I can feel them, cannot find them in the summer winds. Really warm here,now.

Got it thanks. Standard doors and windows as well?

Yeah. Insulated doors and double pane windows.

Really nothing special, it doesn't get cold enough here to go overkill with building... not like up north when it's -40* and it's no big deal.

Dont be modest now your walls are insulated better than parts of my roof!

Not sure what it's called in the trade, I googled it to find a photo to post and I can't find anything. The rigid foam insulation is put on the flat ground at about footer level all around the house. Helps with the slab to ground "barrier" I guess?

It's warm in here. I'm going to pull a late nighter and camp out on the couch at work. Will be 4 degrees tonight. As long as I wake myself once in the night to do a full re-load, the temps won't drop too much overnight. I'll close off the rooms partially that don't need much heat. Wish I had 3 cubic feet during these times, but if you keep the air control slightly ajar and keep loading frequently, no problems staying very toasty. Can't let the stove top cool too much or you are losing the battle. This is with a 2 cubic foot stove in my 1500 square foot office. Like everything, it all depends on stove / construction of the structure it's in. I'm pretty well insulated newer construction, so she holds heat better than alot of others. If I had a bigger stove, I'd be roasting alot of the time, but not on these nights.

Shallow frost proof foundation? I did this on my crawl space (foam down the o/s walls and out horizontal over the footers ). Probably more common in slab foundations where you're on grade - my guess...?

Weighing in here. We put our thermostat at 57 when we go to bed. I might pump it up to 60 in the morning as I get ready to greet the day. I light a fire in the afternoon in our insert and we're comfortable in the evening. It's nice to go to bed in the warmth and sleep as the cold descends. Get up and do it again
Cheers!

Do you have spray foam in the walls? how did you get R21 in a 6" cavity? Maybe you have that foam board under siding on the outside? 6" batt insulation is only r19, so i guess you have the 1.5" rigid foam boards on the outside which i think are aomething like r1.5-2ish?

Some products are higher e.g. Roxul (comfortBatts) are R4 per inch, slightly higher than fiberglass. In a 2x6 studded wall a 5.5" batt / fill x R4 = R22. This is what I have in my walls. More $ than fiberglass but better in many respects...

Same thing here. It is just flat out cold outside. I woke up house was 70 though, as it was 10 degrees outside.

My house is well insulated with icythene(not sure about spelling) foam sprayed into walls, about a foot of fiberglass in attic, new energy efficient windows/doors, etc. Chit cost me neary 10 grand over the years. I still can't get it over 70 on really cold days without help from the oil furnace.
If I had had known at the time what I have learned here, I would have had a blockoff plate and OAK put in. Bet it would have helped.
Incidentally, my house is so well insulated, that I have noticed that my weather glass shows a huge drop in barometric pressure whenever I have use the insert.

R21 fiberglass insulation. Several companies make it, about all you can find here for a 2x6 wall... If I'm not mistaken its min code.