Rate my setup :)
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Does the dog help to divide the flow of air away/towards the stove?
Hadn't thought of it from that point of view .... all I know is when the PE is going, he's usually parked in front of it
Here's my new setup:
Changes = one fan is now propped up and pointing towards the ceiling vent my dad cut.
The second fan is at the base of the stairs blowing the cool air towards the stove.
I tried putting the black fan up at the top of the stairs, pointing down - but I found that this caused some weird problems and I' not sure how effective it was (the blast of air from the fan was mixing with the rising hot air, causing some weird convection currents).
Also: Bought a fire extinguisher which is now sitting in that room down there.
Tried my best to move flammable tings away from the stove - but I'm not very good at that
http://imgur.com/gallery/4ffSRZF/new
Changes = one fan is now propped up and pointing towards the ceiling vent my dad cut.
The second fan is at the base of the stairs blowing the cool air towards the stove.
I tried putting the black fan up at the top of the stairs, pointing down - but I found that this caused some weird problems and I' not sure how effective it was (the blast of air from the fan was mixing with the rising hot air, causing some weird convection currents).
Also: Bought a fire extinguisher which is now sitting in that room down there.
Tried my best to move flammable tings away from the stove - but I'm not very good at that
http://imgur.com/gallery/4ffSRZF/new
Looks good! I think the fan at the bottom of the stairs will be most effective. The hot air from the stove should naturally rise, and if the vents are right there it should circulate on its own. Moving cold air toward the stove is the best way to get things circulating.
Now we just have to wait for winter to come....
It's going to be 60 degrees here this weekend
My dad decided to burn some wood last night, but I'm trying to be more conservative now that I've been visiting hearth.
So far I think we've burned about 1/2 -2/3 of a chord of wood and like 1/3 a ton of coal.
Question:
How many chords of wood do people here usually go through during an average winter? Is it like 2 chords a month?
Isn't that EXPENSIVE?
We've spent $0 on the wood, and like $950 on 4 tons of anthracite coal.
Around here, people spend like $900 a month in electricity to heat the house, so I think burning carbon sources saves us like $1500-2000 a year (depending on the severity of the winter).
It's going to be 60 degrees here this weekend
My dad decided to burn some wood last night, but I'm trying to be more conservative now that I've been visiting hearth.
So far I think we've burned about 1/2 -2/3 of a chord of wood and like 1/3 a ton of coal.
Question:
How many chords of wood do people here usually go through during an average winter? Is it like 2 chords a month?
Isn't that EXPENSIVE?
We've spent $0 on the wood, and like $950 on 4 tons of anthracite coal.
Around here, people spend like $900 a month in electricity to heat the house, so I think burning carbon sources saves us like $1500-2000 a year (depending on the severity of the winter).
claydogg84
Minister of Fire
Now we just have to wait for winter to come....
It's going to be 60 degrees here this weekend
My dad decided to burn some wood last night, but I'm trying to be more conservative now that I've been visiting hearth.
So far I think we've burned about 1/2 -2/3 of a chord of wood and like 1/3 a ton of coal.
Question:
How many chords of wood do people here usually go through during an average winter? Is it like 2 chords a month?
Isn't that EXPENSIVE?
We've spent $0 on the wood, and like $950 on 4 tons of anthracite coal.
Around here, people spend like $900 a month in electricity to heat the house, so I think burning carbon sources saves us like $1500-2000 a year (depending on the severity of the winter).
I'm sorry but this drives me crazy - It's cord, not chord. I burn around 5 a year and it's my only source of heat in a 2,000 sq ft raised ranch.
maple1
Minister of Fire
Pointing that big fan down the stairs, the air may have been hitting that wall and swirling, disrupting the convection loop. A small fan on low might work better but I don't know how much it would help. I wouldn't think that pointing the one fan up at the vent would be moving much air through it...it should rise on its own almost as well. I like where the fan is positioned at the door. Are you getting a better circulation loop with it on low? You can tape some toilet tissue hanging down in the top of the various doorways to give you a visual indication of how strong the loop is. I would move that wood and tote box so the air can move straight past the stove and maybe pull a little more heat off the sides.
At my MIL's with the Buck 91, I was burning maybe a cord a month, but the layout wasn't good for moving heat, and there was no wall insulation. I supplied her with wood. I only burn about two cords a year here, in our tiny house. I don't have to buy wood so my only outlay has been in hauling and processing equipment. But I guess you're asking about the cost of coal compared to wood if you had to buy both...I don't know about that. It would depend on factors like BTUs per dollar spent, stove efficiency etc.
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You're right about the convection currents intermixing and creating issues down the stairs. I find that there's like 5X more air coming through the vent with the fan blowing up like that then when there's no fan there at all. I just turn it on low, because otherwise the extra air that doesn't make it through the hole ends up pushing against the ceiling and floating around everywhere.
I wish we had a smaller house - I bet in a 1k square foot house it wouldn't take much fuel to keep it warm in the winter.
Our house is sort of laid out in such a fashion that it takes quite a bit of heat to spread everywhere - I would imagine it would take like 6 chords of wood to make it through a winter - but then again we've never burned anything here before over the winter besides pellets - so I can't say for sure.
At $200 a cord, it's probably something similar between coal and wood - but I just love the ability to burn both wood AND coal in that stove. The only thing I dislike about wood is that it's basically gone after 2-4 hours, and then needs to be reloaded - wheras with coal one could burn a fire for 12+ hours without even touching it.
I wish we had a smaller house - I bet in a 1k square foot house it wouldn't take much fuel to keep it warm in the winter.
Our house is sort of laid out in such a fashion that it takes quite a bit of heat to spread everywhere - I would imagine it would take like 6 chords of wood to make it through a winter - but then again we've never burned anything here before over the winter besides pellets - so I can't say for sure.
At $200 a cord, it's probably something similar between coal and wood - but I just love the ability to burn both wood AND coal in that stove. The only thing I dislike about wood is that it's basically gone after 2-4 hours, and then needs to be reloaded - wheras with coal one could burn a fire for 12+ hours without even touching it.
The current front air hook up you have is probably affecting the firewood.
In my coal burning days, we'd bank down the stoves with the front air shut down for over nights, and to get the most heat out of a load.
IMHO, I doubt you need the duct work feeding the air control.
In my coal burning days, we'd bank down the stoves with the front air shut down for over nights, and to get the most heat out of a load.
IMHO, I doubt you need the duct work feeding the air control.
So how does that compare with the other vent that has the register booster? The second vent is also in the stove room, right? Getting the heat upstairs with those vents might be the best bet since the natural convection loop to upstairs is hampered by the stairs being in another room. The hot air flow is impeded by the door transom. To quote a famous actor, "Tear down that wall!"
If the vents aren't dumping heat where you need it upstairs, you may be SOL. Maybe a stove on the main level, if you spend most of your time there, would give you a better chance.The Buck is a cat stove. I was loading it on a 12-hr. schedule. Stove temp was usually down under 250 at that point, though. Sounds like you need the stove to be cranking pretty good all the time to get very much heat upstairs. Mixed results are reported here, when trying to heat from downstairs.
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Yeah, if that air tube is "wobbling," it doesn't sound like the stove is banked down.
To much air feeding coal is not a good thing.
Exactly. It's gonna get hot, hot, hot.
You will burn through a manure load of coal with that much air. Coal needs air to ignite, and burn off the gasses, then bank it down in increments (like a wood stove), and bank it off for longer burn times & max heat out put.
So there's a dial behind that tube, so we can adjust it to whatever setting we desire - it's not just open constantly.
We installed the termometer 12'' above the stop of the stove, but it rarely RARELY gets above 350 F, and usually sits right around here:
http://imgur.com/ok2JXkc
We have the air port open all the way, so there's not much we can do to increase the temperature.
Is this a double walled tube or are our pieces of firewood too big to get the heat up very high?
We haven't tried coal recently because it's been like 40 degrees at night! So we just keep the chill off and don't burn more than a big bundle of wood each day.
We installed the termometer 12'' above the stop of the stove, but it rarely RARELY gets above 350 F, and usually sits right around here:
http://imgur.com/ok2JXkc
We have the air port open all the way, so there's not much we can do to increase the temperature.
Is this a double walled tube or are our pieces of firewood too big to get the heat up very high?
We haven't tried coal recently because it's been like 40 degrees at night! So we just keep the chill off and don't burn more than a big bundle of wood each day.
Do you know if it's double-walled tube? Were you observing when the stovepipe was put in?
Measure the circumference of the tube with a measuring tape, post it here... should be able to do the math and see.
Dividing that by Pi, we get 6.087 inches ... that's probably single-walled stovepipe.19 and 1/8 inches
I just used a string and wrapped it around and then measured the circle point and put it to a ruler, so there's probably some error in there.
In that case, such temps are a bit on the low side for sure. Try smaller splits or kindling pieces and open the air a bit more to get it nice and hot.
claydogg84
Minister of Fire
Thanks, I'll try some smaller pieces - I notice it gets cool once I put in giant logs
The air is open as much as it can get so I can't adjust that variable.
Sounds like your splits are a bit too big. I had a similar problem myself a year ago.
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