Room not warming up

[grimrot]

Is that wall behind the stove just stone veneer or solid stone? In any case, it will probably eat quite some heat. The dealer may overstate it a little bit but I would also say that with only 5 hours of burning you may just get the place warmed up enough that the oil burner turns off but you don't feel much difference. When you say 5 hours, is that just one quick fire or do you hold the stove above 500 F the entire time? Is there a reload involved? How much wood are you putting in?

Hi Grisu - Its a solid stone wall. It was above 500 the whole time. One reload. Probably about 6-8 logs total.

 

[grimrot]

My experience has been that the "house heats up" after about 8 hours or so, 'course, I don't have high ceiling or a wall of glass to deal with, That would be if I was going from something like 68* to maybe 72-73* Taking days to come up to temp sounds excessive to me, unless you have an old stone house or a solid brick home, that'd suck some heat up!
My question is, if your furnace is keeping the place at 69, what temp would be your comfy goal to shoot for with the wood stove?
I'm betting that reversing and firing up the ceiling fans is gonna help a lot!

I think I would be happy having the ability to get the room up to 72-74 on a really cold night.

 

[Sprinter]

So how is it going tonight? Anything new or improved?

 

[grimrot]

It's milder out tonight so it's much easier to heat up the room. Running at about 650 with 8 logs in there. I just got a new load of wood that is looking good and I think the blower is going to be installed tomorrow. Also working on getting the ceiling fans pulling the heat up.

Thinking about sealing the chimney flue further and getting the insulated drapes. Big $$ though.

 

[Sprinter]

getting the insulated drapes. Big $$ though

I'll bet. When I suggested trying to temporarily drape them with blankets and such yesterday, I had no idea what you were dealing with there!

 

[Grisu]

Hi Grisu - Its a solid stone wall. It was above 500 the whole time. One reload. Probably about 6-8 logs total.

Large uninsulated stone wall, huge window front, cathedral ceiling; yep, that will make your stove struggle. How much oil did you use during a winter before you had the stove?

I think your only chance to get that place warm is to have the stove running all the time. That will give you some time to beef up insulation. Is there anything on the outside of that stone wall? If not that would be the first place I would look at adding insulation.

 

[rideau]

First, I think there is just no way you are going to keep that room really warm at night without adding huge amounts of energy hourly, and even then you will have drafts. Those windows will start losing heat rapidly as soon as the sun starts to set. I have a home in S Ontario, and there is a huge difference in comfort in the house if I close even uninsulated curtains as soon as the sun starts to set. Inexpensive alternative you could try for this year would be to make cardboard cutouts the size of the windows you can reach, mount large bubble -bubblewrap on the cardboard, and slip the cutouts in the window frame at dusk (glue a small handle on). Pull them out in the mornings, if you are going to be home. If you want them to look decent, then cover the cardboard with an inexpensive sheet or tablecloth. With a little effort, you could make them look quite decent, at little expense. If you go that route, you could make cutouts to match for the upper windows and install them permanently for the winter, just removing during the day the ones that hinder your view. (Could use foam, solid insulation etc instead of bubble wrap. Any are effective and a lot cheaper than curtains. And you could see what difference covering made)

Second, if you have a separate thermostat for that room, I'd be setting it for 55 and burning 24/7 to see if the stove could heat the room without the furnace. 24 hours should be plenty of time for the stove to warm the room, for you to see if you can heat the room with the stove alone.

 

[btuser]

You're not losing "that much" heat through those windows. Not 74k btu/hr. If you're only batch heating then you should see swings and dips but more than 2 degrees. My guess is you need air movement. Before window curtains do a heat loss calculation on the room, maybe the whole house. I'd be surprised if that stove couldn't heat the room with the windows open. 74k btu/hr is a lot. The blower will fix it.

P.S.- What self-respecting wood burner sets a thermostat above 60F? Sacrilege! (Obviously you haven't caught the sickness yet)

 

[Sprinter]

You're not losing "that much" heat through those windows. Not 74k btu/hr. If you're only batch heating then you should see swings and dips but more than 2 degrees. My guess is you need air movement. Before window curtains do a heat loss calculation on the room, maybe the whole house.

I agree that an energy audit will tell you whether it will be cost effective or necessary to cover the windows. And find any other problems. That should really be your next step, IMO.

 

[PLAYS WITH FIRE]

Beautiful room of windows, seriously, love it. To determine your heat loss there is a simple formula to calculate the loss in BTU:

BTU/HR=U x A x (delta)T

U = 1/Rvalue of material the best windows i seen were 3.13 or something U=1/3.13=.319(unitless)

A = Area in square ft 3 x 8 window has 24 sqft

(delta) T = change in temperature. Normally 70F indoors and maybe 20 outdoors. 70-20=50F

So, Btu/Hr=((.319)(24sqft)(50F))=382Btu/Hr heat loss.

What you can do with this is calculate each window, wall, or what have you and add this all up and determine your heat loss. From the picture, I bet the spaces between the windows are not insulated that well either. So, it may act as one giant window or a large hole your house.....

 

[logger]

I've been following this thread...have the same sort of issue. Do I understand this right...if the insert is just sitting in a fireplace, no liner, venting into an open chimney right up to sky...about 12" x 12" , and no plate or block off device....insert heats up to around 500....a lot of heat is being lost up the chimney?

Dang, I hope thats not your case. Thats a waste of an insert and more like a fireplace. That things got to be lined and insulated, blocked off, and have a blower to do some damage against the old furnace.

 

[rideau]

150 sq feet windows. Best scenario: .3 x 150 x 50 = 7500 x .3 = 2250 BTU through windows per hour. (I'm sure I lose a heck of a lot more than that through my Pella windows when I don't have curtains. I feel the difference immediately the sun starts to set. ) Plus heat he is losing through the wall...

 

[tsquini]

Hi Grisu - Its a solid stone wall. It was above 500 the whole time. One reload. Probably about 6-8 logs total.

the stone wall is a heat regulator. I bet you could turn all your heat off for hours and the room would still be 70*. If you could get the stone up to 74* you would all set for the rest of winter.