What is the benefit of burning 24/7

[Vic99]

I'm pro 24/7.

Cons: a potential for more chimney clean outs, although with an EPA stove, I suspect you'll still do once a year anyway.

More arm burns (although some of us strangely like that).

 

[woodconvert]

24/7 burning usually means less fluctuation in temperature and you only have to light the stove once . This will be hard to do this in a small stove, so don't be discouraged if it doesn't happen. Just have lots of kindling and start new fires. We did this for years.

Yeah...and if you've got a masonry chimney, without those fluctuations you keep your chimney toasty warm all the time thus use less wood in getting it warm (a lot less). Also, starting a bunch of fires probably isn't a big deal with an insulated chimney (metal bestos, etc), if you've got a masonry chimney it can mean more creosote buildup.

 

[woodconvert]

Here is a question coming from the other side. What are the cons of burning 24/7? Other than using wood.
Will it wear your stove out faster or are they made for 24/7 burns? I'm not sure if we will be burning 24/7.
At first that was my plan but I'm not sure if the wife will tend the fire while I'm gone. 2 I don't know if
I have enough wood to last all winter doing a 24/4 burn.

The pros outweigh the cons. You will use A LOT of wood but you could be using A LOT of propane/fuel oil/nat gas.

 

[North of 60]

The benifit of burning 24/7 is that my house will not freeze up. If I didnt load my stove every morning before work the furnace would come on shortly durring the normal cold of our winter even to maintain 15c. Even at 15c it would take most of the evening to gain that temp back not including being uncomfortable during that time and wasting wood on a higher burn, along with the extra oil consumed that day. My main purpose is not to burn oil. Our temps are out of the ordinary for most people. -23c would be our average winter temp. Lots of -30c in the evenings and colder. Somtimes those are the daily highs in January. I like to keep the house at 21-22c for the family.

 

[branchburner]

Something to consider when letting your house cool way down is how much thermal mass you got (not you, personally, but your living space). You'll see folks talk about how a soapstone stove takes longer to throw heat but once it has heat, it holds it longer. Same for your "stuff" - if your house is filled with big potted plants and granite counters and interior brick walls, all that stuff will hold and radiate heat when it's sufficiently warmed over time. But if you let it all get icy it takes awhile to bring back up to temp. Heating 24/7 makes sense.
On the other hand, if you have no possessions and are sitting around by yourself in a bare wooden room eating a block of cheese in your boxers like George Costanza, you might want to crank the heat only when you need it.

 

[BJ64]

How would condensation in the house play with large temp swings in the OP's area?

 

[Adios Pantalones]

BJ- in Eastern MA for most of the heating season, the RH in the house will feel like the tropics if it gets into the 25% range. Dry dry dry for most of the winter.

 

[BurningIsLove]

No kidding.....with 2 large ceramic kettles on the stove, on a good day I'm reaching 25% RH. It's great for the clothes drying rack...saves a lot of electricity that would normally have been spent by the dryer. Doubt the wet clothes add any appreciable humidity, at least not for very long given how fast the water evaporates.

 

[gyrfalcon]

When heating with oil/lp/electricity, conventional wisdom is to allow the house to be slightly cooler when away from home because it saves on energy. For example, you may have the temp at 68, then allow it to go down to 60 when not home. I have never been terribly convinced that this is overly effective, but again, it is the popular belief.

I would think that there is point of diminishing returns to this theory though. At some point, if you allow your house to get too cold when no one is home, it is going to take more fuel to bring it back to a comfortable temp that it likely would have taken to maintain a more comfortable temp. This is of course, just my theory.

That's what my expert plumbing/heating guy told me back when I was still using oil heat. He said turning it down some at night or when you're away is OK, but putting it way down, especially in very cold weather, makes the boiler/furnace work extra hard to bring the temp up again, and sometimes it won't even be able to, depending on how your system is constructed.

Not sure the same dynamics apply to wood burning, though. I think the main problem with not burning 24/7, or close to it, is the length of time it takes a stove to warm up a cold house, especially with soapstone.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

It may be hard on the appliance to make up the difference all at once- it will need less heat total, but all in one shot. It's not the same sort of "stress" on most woodstoves I don't think- they don't mind being run hot if not overfired.

 

[gyrfalcon]

My plan is to fill one 6 gallon about 3/4 with ash, then move on to the second one. By the time the second is near full, I will feel safe that the first can has cooled sufficiently for disposal - at least a few weeks should have passed by then.

What kind of wood supply do you have? If it's nice and dry and well-seasoned, you won't have many live coals in a small stove by morning and not a huge quantity of ash. I spent about 30 bucks on a handsome black covered ash can so I can leave it on the hearth to cool without looking like an ugly mess. Even with the lousy wood I had last year and the resultant load of stlil hot charcoal bits in the ash, I had no problems. If there's a couple inches or more snow on the ground, just set the can in it and it cools off fast. I'm a little leery of setting it directly on the ground even in winter, but the gravel drive or walk is fine. If you have a nice-looking inside can for the hearth and then an outside can you can dump it into to cool completely, that's all you need.

What you do with the ashes after they're cooled off isn't so clear! If you have a lawn and don't mind big ugly black smears on it all winter, you can spread it there. Don't put it on the flowerbeds, though, if you have any. NE soil is just about perfect Ph for most growing things, and dumping a lot of ash on it will change that. Lilacs would like the ash, but that's about all I can think of that does.