Strange Question - running the furnace?

[jlow]

I moved my chair closer to the EQ last night and as I was running a high burn I noticed a small orange glow from where the black pipe engages the stove. It turns out that one of the screws was missing. I don't know for how long, but, can that little whole affect the burn in any manner. If so, How?

I also had to run my furnace for twenty minutes to get the temp from 66 to 72 yesterday morning as it was 4 degrees out and my home isn't the tightest. Has anyone else run their furnace during this cold spell?

 

[CarbonNeutral]

Unlikely.

Yes, if only to stop pipes freezing.

 

[basswidow]

The last 2 nights - my heat's kicked on

 

[Hanko]

Yep turned mine on for the first time in two years. I was worried also about freezing piped in the crawl space. Mich Con is going to say WTF, he using gas

 

[webby3650]

I haven't used my furnace yet, I run the circ. fan on the furnace to keep some heat in the floor, have never had a frozen line yet. This also keeps the house a pretty even temperature.

 

[begreen]

Nothing strange about this question. This is a major cold snap hitting from the Rockies to the east. It is no big deal if you run the furnace for an hour in the morning. Most every house is unique, unless you are in LA or a Cincinnati suburb. Experiences are going to vary depending on the basement insulation + tightness and whether there is supplemental heat down there. Running the furnace for a bit to keep pipes from freezing is common sense and a whole lot cheaper than dealing with split pipes later on.

 

[tfdchief]

Some will say I am a little strange but with my weather station (link in my signature) I monitor everything else, so I monitor my crawl space temp. With only wood heat, my crawl space never gets below 51 degrees. My house was built in the 70's and reasonably insulated. As webby3650 said in his post, I to run the fan on my furnace sometimes to even out the heat in the house, but when I do that the crawl space temp goes up about 4 to 6 degrees, which therefore robs heat from the living space. I also run the furnace once in a while when it is really cold and my stove gets a little behind, just to make sure it still works! You never know, you might get sick and not be able to tend the wood stove. :-S

 

[jadm]

No rules here about not running your furnace but I toughed it out for several years when we first began using wood to heat. Therm. is now set at 58* and if temps. drop during a cold snap I don't worry about heat coming on.

Daughter's room is very cold - 55* without heat on. Bought her a portable heater this winter to use to heat her room to a temp. that is to her liking.

On cold mornings I will now turn heat up to 64* for an hour or two in the morning to heat the back of the house a bit. (Our floor plan is not open so back of the house remains pretty cool - 55-65*. A good temp. to sleep in but tough to hang out in during the day if you aren't moving around. My kids are teens now and are semi-slugs for the time being....this too shall pass. ;-) )

I have not been banned from this forum yet due to my heating habits.....Keeping ourselves comfortable warm is the name of the game.

Sounds like you are doing fine.

 

[BrowningBAR]

I've been running mine more than usually as my wife has had the last two weeks off from work. She goes back to work tomorrow and the furnace will go back into hibernation for the majority of the day.

 

[LLigetfa]

One small screw hole won't affect the stove to much. You probably leak several screw holes worth at the joints of the smoke pipe.

My furnace runs at some point every day. In this cold weather I can usually keep the furnace from kicking in while I tend the fire but the wood heat cannot sustain the temps overnight. I refuse to let the house get cold overnight as moisture will condense on cold surfaces.

 

[KarlP]

Our furnace comes on every morning sometime between 3 and 6am and turns off about 45 minutes after I restart the stove. In our house the furnace is to be used but not abused. My wife likes the house at ~72. I pay the gas bill and turn the thermostat down to 67 about every 5 minutes. I initially got a lot of grief about it, but every time we visit her parents she agrees we have a good system. If I empty the ashes and load both the stove and wood rack next to the stove in the morning, she will use the stove to keep the house at 72 during the day so she's happy. I get to play lumberjack and don't get $500+ gas bills so I'm happy. MIL brags about how frugal she is with the heat set for 55 during the day and 50 at night! FIL has radiant electric heaters positioned in his three most frequented spots and I swear one of the reasons he picked up a job after retirement was for the heated office. The wife discovered that her parents oil (heat/hw) bills for the season are about the same as our gas (heat/hw/stove/dryer) bills for the season AND she is comfortable.

 

[mellow]

Keep the heat pump set at 68, only time it kicks on downstairs is around 3am when the stove cools down below 300. But with this current cold snap we are in the pump has been kicking on around 1am.

Got a question for you guys, when it gets as cold as it is out (below 25) do you seal off your crawlspace? I get alot of air movement in mine from the vents and thinking about sealing them but I know that area needs to be vented.

 

[LLigetfa]

Depending on how it's constructed, a crawlspace could be conditioned space and not be vented. My crawlspace is in essence a four foot high basement for midgets. It has concrete floor and the walls have insulation and drywall. I have a blower in the crawlspace sucking cold air from the concrete floor and blowing it up into my insert. The warm upstairs air returns to the crawlspace some 40 feet away. This air stratifies in the crawlspace, warm air rising and warming the underside of the floor and the cold settling where it is picked up by the blower.

The crawlspace has only one small 3" vent in the sump pit that goes out via the HRV. The rest of the air is exchanged with the upstairs.

 

[heatwise]

ran the furnace yesterday in the morning for the first time, tonight as well, breifly. as long as someone is here to reload we can heat with the stove , keep warm, pete

 

[jjh3d]

I have a two story colonial with the stove at the end of the house in a family room with a high ceiling. My furnace runs on and off all night because I have to turn up the heat on the second floor zone. Am I correct in assuming that those of you who never/rarely run the furnace have one storey houses? Am I missing something?

 

[logger]

We have a two story log home with the master bedroom being up in the loft. The stove does a great job heating the lower level, but the back bedroom always stays a little cooler. The master bedroom upstairs often needs the windows cracked so we dont melt away. I put the furnace on about every other week to keep the pipes warm for a couple hours.

 

[KarlP]

Am I correct in assuming that those of you who never/rarely run the furnace have one storey houses? Am I missing something?

I have a 4br colonial with a second floor larger than the first (aka garrison). The stove is in the back left corner of the house in the living room that has two doorways into it. One of those doorways is by the front door/up stairs/dining room hallway. The other is by the bathroom/basement stairs/kitchen hallway. A 10" box fan on low speed sitting on top of a 6' tall piece of furniture pushes plenty of hot air from the livingroom ceiling into the front hallway to warm up the upstairs and dining room. Cooler kitchen floor air is then pulled in from the back hallway right past the stove. The kitchen air is replaced with diningroom air and so the circle goes. The only rooms that get cold are the "storage bedroom" that rarely has the door open and the room that connects the kitchen and the garage.

 

[Slow1]

I have a two story colonial with the stove at the end of the house in a family room with a high ceiling. My furnace runs on and off all night because I have to turn up the heat on the second floor zone. Am I correct in assuming that those of you who never/rarely run the furnace have one storey houses? Am I missing something?

My house has two levels that I'm heating with the stove. However it is a very open plan - there is a "loft" area on second floor that overlooks the living room below. Stove actually sits sort of under that loft area. In any case the heat is able to very easily flow upstairs and cold air back down so it circulates well.

I have, however, used my central heat twice now. First was when we had single digits kick in one afternoon and last until into the next morning. I didn't feed the stove during the night and we had guests - I didn't want them going away with the idea that our house was a bad place to visit so I had bumped the set point up and sure enough it kicked in. No big deal really. Second time was yesterday when I just wanted to heat the place up a bit faster so ran the heat for about 30 minutes to help re-establish the temp in the house before the sitter arrived for the day.

Two years ago when we first decided to put in a stove our goal was to offset between 50-75% of our heating oil burn. I think we are doing far more than that so I'm quite pleased.

 

[firefighterjake]

Yup . . . the Oslo does a great job . . . but on those long, overnight burns when I'm just too lazy to get up the boiler typically kicks on . . . especially when the outside temps are below zero. I have no issues or pains of remorse when the boiler kicks on . . . I figure it helps keep the pipes in the crawl space from freezing up and it allows me to sleep in a bit.