What Is In Your Stove Right Now?

[thewoodlands]

The temp was 46.1 before the first coffee but dropped down to 42, the house is still at 68 & 69 so no fires yet. We did have heavy rains overnight with more this morning, the low tomorrow morning is forecast at 22 so we'll have some fires today.

We'll empty the pellet stove hopper the next two nights, we'll run that a few hours each night. The overnight fires will be hardwood for the next two or three nights before we call it a year................until the next cold snap!

 

[thewoodlands]

It's 29.8 outside tonight, the basement temp started out at 80, the living area temps are both 72 with the sleeper at 70.

The liberty has a load of hardwood in it, beech, ironwood and some maple. Once I had the overnight load in the liberty going, I shut the pellet stove off. During the winter I had some beech at the bottom of the stack that was really wet, they've been in the garage since February until I brought them in about four days ago, the ironwood we had two splits left inside, the second one will get used tomorrow night.

 

[thewoodlands]

We had a low of 21.7 this morning, the basement temp started out at 72, the living area temps were 68 with the sleeper at 68 too. Before I headed out we had a quick shoulder season fire.

 

[bigealta]

61F inside all day. Finally said f it and lit a sassafras load. Fells much better now.
won't get out of the 50's tomorrow so will probably do the same tomorrow.

The oil burner has been off for months so the only heat we get is from the oven when making bread and some minimal solar gain.

 

[NickW]

3/4 loads of hardwood the last 2 nights with lows in the upper 20's, 1/2 load of pine and aspen this morning. Currently 3 ash, 1 hickory and a couple of pine & aspen for a 3/4 load. Low of 33 forecast. Is this my last fire of the season? Last night forecast in the 30's...

 

[Ashful]

Loaded both stoves around midnight, sat down on the couch waiting for them to come up to temp, so I could close the bypass dampers. Then I fell asleep.

Wife woke me an hour later, to scold me about both stoves raging white-hot. Not the first time, and at least in this case it was only half loads of hickory, not stuffed to the gills.

Closed both bypasses, waited five minutes, then turned both down to black box mode and went to bed. Combustor temps were "high", to say the least. Temperature this morning was a perfect 73F throughout the house, so I didn't screw it up that bad.

 

[blades]

Running odds & ends, mostly Honey Locust. Temps bouncing all over but mostly below 40 in morning. My inside stash for winter is all but gone, so i will have to get tractor out and raid the junk bins again when I get home this evening if it isn't raining.

 

[thewoodlands]

Loaded both stoves around midnight, sat down on the couch waiting for them to come up to temp, so I could close the bypass dampers. Then I fell asleep.

Wife woke me an hour later, to scold me about both stoves raging white-hot. Not the first time, and at least in this case it was only half loads of hickory, not stuffed to the gills.

Closed both bypasses, waited five minutes, then turned both down to black box mode and went to bed. Combustor temps were "high", to say the least. Temperature this morning was a perfect 73F throughout the house, so I didn't screw it up that bad.

I'm glad everyone is ok.

 

[thewoodlands]

It was 32.5 last night, the basement temp started out at 79, both living area temps were 72 with the sleeper at 71. I shut the pellet stove off and then made the overnight fire with some maple.

This morning the outside temp was 25.7, the basement was 72 with the rest of the rooms at 69. No fires this morning or afternoon but we'll have something tonight.

 

[Ashful]

I'm glad everyone is ok.

Thanks! But I've honestly done this enough times over the last ~100 cords burned, that it doesn't even phase me anymore. Running two stoves in tandem, it probably happens once or twice each year, on average. This time, it happened on both stoves at the same time, which may be a first, as usually their loading schedules are more staggered. As far as I can tell, it's never caused any harm.

With repeated offenses over future years, I'll bet the first casualty will be the bypass damper or frame warping, although we really don't even see that happening on these newer BK's the way it did on the older models. Mine certainly still seem to work fine, and don't show any signs of distortion. My tall chimney wears a key damper, so it's not very prone to the draft that would promote a high likelihood of chimney fire, and the shorter chimney seems to stay so clean that there's really not anything there to fuel one. This difference may be as much due to the differing amounts of wood I put through each in a year, as their height.

Obviously, it's not something I ever want to do. But that once per year event when I manage to do something like this, I don't even get excited about it anymore. 90% of the battle is just convincing my wife I'm not an idiot, so I can get things dialed down and back to sleep, without too much fuss.