13º outside this morning . . . Accentra FS Struggling: UPDATE

[RKS130]

Woke up to a 13º morning with the house on the cool side - about 67º upstairs and 64º downstairs. The stove is on the first floor, but we partition the area where it is (a foyer opposite the stairs and adjacent to the main room) so more heat goes upstairs overnight.

The stove is going full blast but is just keeping up. The house is about 1500 sq. ft., stone and brick, circa 1910, plaster over lathe walls and not insulated. If we have a prolonged spell of temps in the teens, looks like I will have to burn a little oil as a supplement. Oh well.

Jan. 15: This morning I woke up to 14º outside and the house was completely comfortable. The two main changes from the last night we had in the teens - both based on advice gratefully received in response to my original post - are better/hotter pellets and running on stove temp.

In anticipation of the cold weather I had my son bring in bags of Great American's and they are burning much hotter than anything else in my stash. I set the stove on high for blower speed, upped the feed rate to 5 and stove temp to 4½. The partitioned off lower level was at 63° at 7:00 AM, but upstairs was 69°. I opened up the heavy curtains and the temp is rising downstairs at about 2° per hour. I burned through a bag of pellets between 4:00 PM yesterday and 7:00 this morning, BUT we are happily warm.

P.S.: Madame Defarge is stiill pressing to turn on the oil burner for a controlled burn to prevent frozen pipes in the unheated basement, but I am holding out as long as I can.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I don't know how well your house is insulated or how tight it is but it seems to me that a little bit (maybe a lot) of time and a bit of money spent on attending to such would make a huge difference.

Nothing quite like a couple of tons of permanent pellets to keep you warm.

Just ask folks like Don2222, j-takeman, and others.

 

[RKS130]

Thanks Smokey. I know I should have done more caulking and sealing, but at least the windows are good and I have a shrink wrap over the slider to the patio, which helps a lot. One of these days we have to look into real insulation. The attic was, fortunately, done before we bought the house in '93, but I don't know the rating or how good a job it was as they also put a 1/2 inch plywood floor over it.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Even low E windows while better than most are not good from a heat loss perspective especially if there are a lot of them, they are large, and don't really help with solar gain.

You can always do something about that attic. New insulation laid over the plywood for example.

I'd be more concerned about air leakage such as at outlets and switches in exterior walls, recessed can lights (these have been known to be air pumps and require special attention to mitigate), attic access points, chimney races, the sill, door weather striping, the odd unlocked and not quite closed window, heating system floor penetrations, and so forth.

 

[jtakeman]

If you only have one layer on pink pellets in the attic, you definetly want to add more. How often do you use the attic space?

 

[woodsmaster]

If the attick has a floor, there is not enough insulation unless it is foam and I doubt that it is. That is an investment that will
pay for its self pretty quick and you can probably do yourself.

 

[TLHinCanada]

If no one is using the attic, I would wonder about the flooring. Usually the ceiling joists are smaller because there is no live or dead load to carry. Just guessing they are probably 2x6. That would give you with batts an R-20, less with blown less. Three years ago I raise my attic insulation to R-70. Its a fairly easy fix, cheap it cost me less than $1000.00.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

If no one is using the attic, I would wonder about the flooring. Usually the ceiling joists are smaller because there is no live or dead load to carry. Just guessing they are probably 2x6. That would give you with batts an R-20, less with blown less. Three years ago I raise my attic insulation to R-70. Its a fairly easy fix, cheap it cost me less than $1000.00.

Having owned three old houses I never bet on what is in an old house. I've seen rather hefty stuff in the attic and some not so hefty stuff.

 

[kinsmanstoves]

Woke up to a 13º morning with the house on the cool side - about 67º upstairs and 64º downstairs. The stove is on the first floor, but we partition the area where it is (a foyer opposite the stairs and adjacent to the main room) so more heat goes upstairs overnight.

The stove is going full blast but is just keeping up. The house is about 1500 sq. ft., stone and brick, circa 1910, plaster over lathe walls and not insulated. If we have a prolonged spell of temps in the teens, looks like I will have to burn a little oil as a supplement. Oh well.

A couple suggestions.
1.) Insulation
2.) add more insulation

Eric

 

[RKS130]

Thanks guys. By next winter we will be better insulated. They used pink batting in the floor of the attic and there are gable vents. We rarely go up except at Christmas to get decorations up and put them back, and to store fans at the end of the summer and take them down the next year.

I will get to work on things like outlet insulation and sealing any other breaches in the envelope. The windows are double paned Andersons, not top of the line but they are pretty good.

By the way I threw in a bag of my Cubex this morning and didn't really find them any better than the Premiers I have been burning as it got colder out. They also were loaded wityh fines. Next I'll try some Great American.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I can't speak to your Cubex situation, I have two tons still in the garage and if they are like their batch mates they are clean and really burn well.

If your stove is past its ability to maintain temperature is likely also past the difference that Cubex can provide as well.

 

[tony58]

Like everyone is saying-INSULATION-in the attic.I had my attic which had 5" brought up to R-30.So now I have 11"-12".I have gained 3-4 degrees in every room.

 

[Matt715]

My Accentra never has a problem cranking out enough heat for my whole house even when it's -20 or colder. I have a poorly insulated and very drafty 950 sq ft ranch.

What I do notice is that if I use a poor quality pellet my stove really struggles to put out nice heat. For example, this week I tried a couple bags of Eureka brand pellets from my HD as they are cheaper than my normal Softwood Uncle Jed's. They were pretty bad. My stove seemed to struggle fairly hard last night with temps around -10. I got home today and the stove was out of pellets so I filled it back up with some more Jed's and my heat is back tonight.

The other thing is that I notice after two straight weeks of burning is that my heat output starts to fall as the stove gets dirty. Every other weekend I let the stove run out of pellets and then do a through brushing and cleaning paying special attention to the heat exchangers.

Stay warm!

 

[TLHinCanada]

I would like to revise my earlier comment. I think you could become a pellet pig. Two layers of pellet bags in the attic, insulation value ?? But who knows a new trend happening.

 

[St_Earl]

there are foam backing squares for outlets. they just fit right behind the plate and have a little hole for the screw to pass through.
also feel for air coming through the actual prong holes if nothing is plugged in. even after adding the foam inserts.
the child protectors or even scotch tape works great to close off this avenue of cold air infiltration.
there are also inserts made for light switch plates.

 

[RKS130]

All good info, thanks. We have kept the stove clean with weekly vacuuming and biweekly scraping, removal of the plates, etc. I was burning Cubex but wasn't impressed with them. Today I will fill up with some Great Americans and see how that goes. Now that temps are in 20's, the house is warmer, but I can see that a sustained cold snap into the teens might be a problem.

 

[Lousyweather]

well, the Accentra F/S is a 40k btu/hr stove, possibly marginal in your situation when the temps get REALLY low........just for giggles, throw that baby into stove mode, see if it makes a difference.

 

[slls]

I bet your neighbor is warmer.