What Is In Your Stove Right Now?

[zmender]

48F outside, living room 67F before reload. Temps will start dropping steadily in a few hours down to overnight low of 21.

Full reload with locust to make sure I stay ahead of the cold. I can maintain 66F-69F easily but heating the house is another matter especially when cold/windy outside.

 

[thewoodlands]

NOAA is calling for a low tonight of 9, Monday night 8 and Tuesday night 6, we saved three bags of pellets we had at the house for some single digit temps at night so that's what we'll go with.

We're at 19 already with the wood stove getting a load of ash and ironwood, the basement is 77 heading higher, the living room is 72 and the bedroom is 70.

 

[stoveliker]

38 F now and decreasing to 25. Started the stove at 6 pm with some scraps from a project, reloaded now with red oak for overnight.

76 at the ceiling and 72 at 3 ft (both 20 ft away from the stove).

Edit: and 69 upstairs.

 

[thewoodlands]

It's 13.5 tonight, the wood stove fan is off and burning down coals. The pellet stove is on, the basement temp was 77 before I turn the P.S. on, it's 71 in the living room and 70 in the bedroom.

Our temperature reading is 12 -14 feet from the wood stove and maybe two feet off the cellar floor.

Tomorrow morning we'll start burning the wood stove again for the day, the first load will be ash and some ironwood.

 

[zmender]

32F outside and dropping. Indoors is nice and toasty with living room at 70F (about 5 ft and shielded from radiant heat of stove). full reload with locust now. Tomorrow morning at 8am there will be thick coals and living room at 66F.

 

[zmender]

21F with flurries, stove behaving exactly as predicted... 65F living w/ very thick bed of coals, still good heat coming out of blowers. Full reload to heat up home, probably partial reload w/ shorties and uglies late afternoon to hold living room at >68 until evening reload after supper.

 

[DonTee]

11 degrees outside. Inside it’s 73 degrees downstairs and 75 degrees upstairs. I’ve been burning just ash for the last week.

I think our high today is 19. All our snow was gone until 2 days ago. Now we have 4” or so on the ground.

 

[thewoodlands]

We had 6.6 for a low this morning, we started out with the basement at 77 and the living room and bedroom at 69.

We shut the pellet stove off and started a fire in the wood stove with some ash. We received four inches of snow with a good wind, so far our high today is 12.9.

 

[zmender]

I got a problem... both good and bad.

Good - Recently wife developed interest in keeping fire. Awesome that the lady is proactively taking care of the fire.

Bad - She treats the stove as a fireplace - as in loves to running the thing with door open, and pretty much tosses a split in whenever instead of following a reload schedule.

Soooooo.... it's 9pm, I've got a stove that's criss-crossed about 80% full of coal and splits that are still outgassing. Best I can hope for is burning down those splits before bedtime at midnight and get overnight reload, with enough density to have bed of coal tomorrow morning.

Edit - won't be so bad if the house is warm. living room dropped down to 65F from 70F while going through at least 2, 3 full reload worth of locust splits.

 

[thewoodlands]

We have a temp of 11.1 tonight with NOAA calling for a low of 8, the basement is 75 with the bedroom and living room at 67.

I shut the fan off on the wood stove and have the pellet stove going.

 

[Cluttermagnet]

Tonight I'm burning mostly Red Oak and Cherry, with a little Maple
or Southern White Pine at times. Local temp tonight is around 28F,
probably low 20's overnight with a wind chill. If it gets cold enough,
I just shift to all Oak in the stove. Later this week, back up to around
70F. Weird weather. I'm going to call this a lower than average BTU
winter here so far.

We have such a variety of wood in this area. Occasionally I can get
some Locust. There is always plenty or Oak. Also burn Black Gum,
Apple, and Tulip Poplar fairly often.

 

[stoveliker]

After last night's load was done around 3 pm, I added 2 too long splits and 2 too short ones. Now it was time to reload. Oak again. Two splits showed dark wet spots on the cut end after they got hot :-(
Only one stack (about 1.25 face cord of 18" long) left under a tarp. Apparently this last wood from my second to last tarped stack was leaked on by the tarp... That's why I built the shed. One more stack to go next year and no more tarps after that.

Was 32 max today, 25 forecast for a low.
Basement was 75 at reload time, 78 at the ceiling. Living room was 68.

 

[burning VC]

Red oak heart, red oak split....some old dead White Pine (gooey stuff)
up from to kick it off....

Grandpa Fisher dont give a split!...

 

[zmender]

Since last post we burnt lot's of poplar shorties and uglies. Good for flames + ambiance and managed to burn down coals somewhat. 11:40pm and bedtime, living room is 66F about 2~3 degrees lower than plan. I managed to stuff 4 locust splits and 2 biobricks into the stove. 60% throttle and secondaries are firing like crazy. I sure hope there's enough coals tomorrow morning 8 hours from now.

 

[zmender]

7AM - stove was about 40% full of coals, good heat but only maintained 63F in living room with windy 19F outside. Stuffed back of stove with 4 biobricks and front with 2 medium splits. About 1in of room on top of stove between fuel and secondary tubes. This morning will try to burn down coals.

 

[moresnow]

65/30. Super windy. Again! Dropped a single split on the coals a couple hours ago, wide open throttle to melt them away as it's to windy to dispose of ash's this AM. At least the sun is gaining horsepower by the day this time of year. Stay toasty everyone.

 

[NickW]

Back in the northwoods. Was nice being home with the NC30 for a few days. Load of box elder on last night's coals in the Strattford II. 21 degrees with ice coming tonight, then a little snow tomorrow, then a few hours of nothing, then 4-8" Wednesday night through Thursday night, then more ice on Saturday (if you believe the weather guessers...).

 

[thewoodlands]

I ended up shutting the pellet stove off about 1:45 this morning, the wood stove didn't have anything in it either and the furnace was off.

Our outside temp this morning was 10.2, the basement was 68 this morning with the temps up here at 63, I put some ash and some ironwood in the wood stove, that's off at the moment and the pellet stove is back on.

 

[zmender]

I ended up shutting the pellet stove off about 1:45 this morning, the wood stove didn't have anything in it either and the furnace was off.

Our outside temp this morning was 10.2, the basement was 68 this morning with the temps up here at 63, I put some ash and some ironwood in the wood stove, that's off at the moment and the pellet stove is back on.

Is the stove in basement and pellet stove main floor? Which is the main / supplement heater?

 

[thewoodlands]

Is the stove in basement and pellet stove main floor? Which is the main / supplement heater?

Both are in the basement. Before we we were offered the land I cut on we had a pellet stove installed in the basement, years later when we bought the other land and the cost of pellets were six bucks a bag, we bought a Lopi Liberty that's in the opposite corner from the P.S.

We really don't have a spot up here for either, when we had the house built in 2003, I wanted a wood stove up here and the wife wanted a propane fireplace insert with a fan, I lost that little battle but we do like the propane fireplace. We haven't used it much this year but that's okay.

 

[thewoodlands]

@zmender , in January we had 18-20 days below zero so heating from the basement with those temps can be a challenge but running the pellet stove at night for the constant heat really helps out.

 

[stoveliker]

bleh; after last nights load was done around 2 pm, I added 2 punky oak splits to tide me over to now. I reloaded a 60 pct load of oak. That's the last of that rack. One tarped rack left with some oak and some cedar. Was 39 today, will be 29 tonight. tomorrow 44/39, than 60/52. This is my last fire for the season. Going to miss it (which is a good thing; better this way than being completely done with it...).

On the coals tomorrow morning I'll add 5 pine splits and 2 maple splits that I'll run wide open to burn off/crisp up all the creosote in the box from the shoulder season low burning. THen I'll scoop the ashes, brush the crispy stuff from the walls of the firebox, get the telescoping section of my pipe off and cap both ends (so no cold standing air comes out thru my air intake, stinking up the basement). Plug the intake as good as I can and add a damprid in the firebox.

I'll have the chimney swept by a professional. Not that I need it (used the sooteater twice this winter), but to have a receipt for my insurance, and to have some eyes 27 ft up where I'm not going given that there is only 14 " to walk next to the solar panels on the gable edge of the roof 2 stories up...

 

[buc74]

32f and burning red oak and ash. Looks like we'll still be burning into April.

 

[zmender]

@zmender , in January we had 18-20 days below zero so heating from the basement with those temps can be a challenge but running the pellet stove at night for the constant heat really helps out.

During those super cold periods, was the temperature differential between main and basement? Basically the pellet stove was the "base heat" and the stove was the "peak heat" if I understand correctly

 

[zmender]

Wife has being burning one-off splits afternoon. By 9pm stove was about 60% full, 30% ash / coal and 30% almost-coal like splits. Stuffed the stove about 85% full of locust splits.
Tomorrow morning around 8am, I will have thick bed of coal and living room be around 65F. I'll reload with 4~6 biobricks and 4 splits. Planning to let fire burn out tomorrow afternoon / evening for a quick road trip down to DC to see the cherry blossoms.