Freaking COLD!!!!

[MrEd]

It cold here in the hills of western massachusetts to. Gotta say I am really, really happy with my tarm and most of the decisions I made about the install (went live this past October).

We've had several below zero days already, and even over night I finally have a routine down that lets me keep the house at 68-70 thru the night - and then bump it up a bit during the day time to 72-73.

I hope that feeling of pride knowing I am no longer dependent on oil never wears off (OK, I used 50 gallons because we went away for a week). For the last 5 years before the install I used 2000 gallons of oil each year year - just to keep the house at 65.

When I first started running I was sure I would still end up using 300-500 gallons of oil just to smooth out the heating curve, but you really do get better with the operational details as the weeks go by. Now I look forward to the extreme cold days.

 

[SnowTraveler]

Put 100 miles on my new polaris Wednesday at -10 Deg F. Looped from Island Pond to St. Johnsbury and back. The wife kept the Econoburn going and the house toasty warm at 75 Deg F back in Berne NY where it was quite balmy in comparison.

 

[AndrewChurchill]

They've got some great snowmobiling up there. I remember one time I met my cousin for a ride in Elmore, VT. It was -30F when we left from Elmore to go to Island Pond and the warmest it got that day was -10F. The trails were great and there weren't many people on them because of the weather!

I hope you have fun up there.

 

[shoeboxlen]

Put 100 miles on my new polaris Wednesday at -10 Deg F. Looped from Island Pond to St. Johnsbury and back. The wife kept the Econoburn going and the house toasty warm at 75 Deg F back in Berne NY where it was quite balmy in comparison.

Berne thats right around the corner from me well about 1/2 an hour anyway which is right around the corner for around here.

 

[Birdman]

-4 for me last night here in central NH. Filled up the Tarm 40 with oak and some round maple last night . Woke up this AM to 66 degrees( had it set for 70). That is good for my house...a log cabin which we built with our own trees.. and plenty of caulking. This is the time I can really find those " whoops... we did a poor job of building" spots in the house. Like when i put my hands up on a spot on the wall to feel cold air leaking in. Guess that was the part of the house that was built AFTER the keg was done. All in all... the Tarm is doing a great job. Will be nice to finally seal up the house and see how much warmer it gets and how much less wood i use.Oh and supposed to be -10 tonight.

 

[stee6043]

I used 700,000 BTU in the last 24 hours. With only 30 feet of baseboard on my main floor, I have to bump the basement temperature up a bit to keep the main floor at temperature. Since the basement is less well insulated, that drives up my heat loss considerably. Temps like these require 10 or 11 hours of burn time per day. I didn't start my fire last night until 6:00, so I didn't quite get enough burn hours to carry me through until tonight. I actually restarted the boiler from the remaining coals this morning - something I almost never do.

I'm running about the same as far as burn times. Two full loads isn't "quite enough" for me this week. To save myself the work of restarting my boiler in the morning I've been setting my alarm to 1AM each night this week to refill the firebox. I'm down to a solid 7 minutes required to go downstairs, reload, and get back upstairs and back in bed. Life is good...except I don't like getting up at 1AM....

 

[shoeboxlen]

I used 700,000 BTU in the last 24 hours. With only 30 feet of baseboard on my main floor, I have to bump the basement temperature up a bit to keep the main floor at temperature. Since the basement is less well insulated, that drives up my heat loss considerably. Temps like these require 10 or 11 hours of burn time per day. I didn't start my fire last night until 6:00, so I didn't quite get enough burn hours to carry me through until tonight. I actually restarted the boiler from the remaining coals this morning - something I almost never do.

I'm running about the same as far as burn times. Two full loads isn't "quite enough" for me this week. To save myself the work of restarting my boiler in the morning I've been setting my alarm to 1AM each night this week to refill the firebox. I'm down to a solid 7 minutes required to go downstairs, reload, and get back upstairs and back in bed. Life is good...except I don't like getting up at 1AM....

I fill my eko 25 before bed 10:00-10:30 and try to get up around 3:30 am -4:30 am to refill it but there is usually some wood left in there. we run no storage and the wife likes to keep things toasty in the house70-73 degrees at all times in 2700SQFT+ house. So the little eko 25 holds up pretty well considering its load. getting up in the middle of the night is no fun but I am used to it as I used to do the same thing with the plain old wood stove.

 

[Jim Post]

Our optimistic thermometer said 15 below at 5 bells this am.

This is the weather that makes my tarm w/o storage really work. Much less idling, I'm still getting good time between loadings.

Last night, got home at 7:15 to boiler temp around 160 and a few coals in the firebox...started some kindling from coals and put in about 1/2 a firebox of smaller splits.

At 10 pm, loaded the tarm full for overnight with some good size splits....still a good bed of coals at 5am (7hrs)...a good nights sleep.

 

[Tree farmer]

Last night I still got 9 hrs out of a load with a large bed of coals at 6am it was -3, kept house at 68 crank it to 72 when I get up. It's now -12 at 9:30 loaded her up at 9 will be interesting to see if she (an me) are still toasty warm in the morning. The circulators are sure getting their exercise running full bore.

 

[NHFarmer]

I just loaded for the night,I have a balmy 2* out and 72*in. This should be a real test for my system,I did my calcs based on outside temps of 0*,we will see what tomorrow morning brings

 

[AOTO]

Excellent....it's 70.5F in the house and -7.2F outside. I had to add another half load into the system this morning and I topped it off at 7:10 PM. I'm debating on going out and adding a few more chunks but, the body says; "No" - but the beer says "Yes". I better turn on the ole' electric blanket tonight. Hope my EMS pager doesn't beep me out of bed tonight...no need for all of us to be miserable.

 

[lawandorder]

-18 now. Trying to stay awake until 11 so i can top the wood off. Last night got to-15 still had 140 in storage with coals in the Tarm and house at 70 this monring. Pretty happy with that.

 

[AndrewChurchill]

It's -40F at my house right now and the PB is chugging along and the house is a nice 72F.

 

[Bad Wolf]

Wow -40? That makes me feel down right warm at -9.

 

[AndrewChurchill]

I'm just glad the wind isn't blowing!

 

[bigbobs]

Its's only-18.5 here, house at 68. Oil came on once, refilled boiler at 3:30 AM, no coals left! No storage, running a 1979 Tasso, 168,000 BTU/HR, 2000 sq ft.

 

[stee6043]

I think weather like this almost makes it smarter to be running without storage. I've got a bypass on my system to allow me to run without the tanks and I think I may try it tonight. I can only manage 4 hour burn times with these temps and the tanks empty almost as fast as I can fill them. I'd be 100% better off if I could get 6 or 7 hour burn times (or longer) and not charge the tanks at all...I think...

 

[henfruit]

-26 here in nh just soth of conway nh. time to go to barn and see how my animals are doing.

 

[Jim Post]

I think weather like this almost makes it smarter to be running without storage.

I have wondered about this ever since I heard about large volume storage....

In frigid weather doesn't storage add to your wood consumption....it's like having an additional zone to satisfy beyond the heatloss of your house. Unless your boiler is oversized? Which means your consumption during non-frigid times is greater than a just right sized boiler would be. I not bashing storage, I understand the desirability of being able to fire your boiler on your own schedule but this has always perplexed me.

In the cold weather being able to bypass storage would seem like a good idea to me. As long as your storage tank will stay above freezing. :bug:

Stay Warm!

jp

 

[stee6043]

I think weather like this almost makes it smarter to be running without storage.

I have wondered about this ever since I heard about large volume storage....

In frigid weather doesn't storage add to your wood consumption....it's like having an additional zone to satisfy beyond the heatloss of your house. Unless your boiler is oversized? Which means your consumption during non-frigid times is greater than a just right sized boiler would be. I not bashing storage, I understand the desirability of being able to fire your boiler on your own schedule but this has always perplexed me.

In the cold weather being able to bypass storage would seem like a good idea to me. As long as your storage tank will stay above freezing. :bug:

Stay Warm!

jp

I don't think storage adds to my wood consumption since my zone gets the heat first. The problem is that my heat zone is cycling so much right now that very little hot water get's to storage. Without idling my burn times max out at about 4 hours. In that four hours I currently cannot add enough heat to storage to get me through the night or through the day at work. With temps in the the teens and twenties I'm good to go and 100% happy with 1000 gallons of storage. In the single digits and below zero, I'm struggling.

The biggest advantage for me to go to "bypass" mode is that I should get longer burn times. I'll turn the boiler temp down to 160 or so and see how long she can go on a load. My tanks are indoors so there is no risk of them freezing...

 

[barnartist]

Well, now for my 2cents...

This is the first year out of 4 since I got my eko 60 that I have 1000 gal of storage. We got down to -11 last night (still is at 9:30), and I am still at 12 hour burn cycles. No way would I go back to running without the storage. I loaded last night at 8:30p, set my "kill the fans" timer at 6 hours, and at 8:00 this morning I still had the tanks at160, and 6 inches of coals glowing for the next fire. My boiler is outside in a lean-to of my garage, and my tanks are in the garage. Man it's cold too. We are blessed here to not have hardly any wind. Those of you with an EKo Orlan, refer to the "fine tuning the eko" thread. Night and day my friends. This new setup has worked for me beautifly, but everyones system is different. Last season I would have needed 4 loads in this weather. Finally I am 100% smiling about my system.

Looks like the worst will be over after tonight. Hang in there fellas.

 

[barnartist]

Probably should point out that my 60 probably is oversized, a 40 would have been great with 1000 gal storage.

 

[pybyr]

my initial install of my Econoburn is finally in and running; it's not the final configuration of my system, in terms of either controls or storage (storage is underway but not hooked up, and at the moment, my controls are rudimentary)

but WOW.

Coldest weather of the season (26 below out) and I woke up this morning in a sweat, instead of shivering; 68 degrees in the house and I did not need all the blankets I'd been used to lately.

If this all gets better with storage, tuning, and controls, and I expect that it does, I can't wait. It is already an immense improvement in comfort over either my prior wood/ air furnace or even the oil burner. Plus I won't go broke on oil (my old wood furnace would not hold a fire without frequent tending, which meant that the oil would inevitably kick on overnight or while I was off at work)

 

[shoeboxlen]

unfortunatly for me my daughter slept through the night last night (6 month old alarm clock) which means so did I. so when i got up this morning the boiler was out and the temp was down to 143 I have my fuel oil boiler set to kick in at 140 so things do not get too cold but since the fire was out and there were not many coals left I took advantage of the chance to clean out the fire box on my eko 25 ( I find I can build more heat up quicker if there is not alot of ash in the fire box) so I cleaned it out quck threw in some kindling and to speed lighting I use a propane torch so now we are cooking again unfortunatly it made me a little late for work but oh well as long as the wife and baby are warm at home! and the oil man stays away!

 

[barnartist]

Pybyr, If you just started, things will get even better. Lots of fun ahead for you.