Burning over night

[Osage]

After heating our house for 40 yrs. with wood I have decided to allow the stove the burn down before we go to bed and relighting early in the morning. My reasoning is there is no one up and saves one stove load of wood a day.
Granted the house is chilly when we get up, usually in the upper 50's to lower 60's. depending on wind and temp. But I can have the house back up to temp in about 1 hr. I do have to run the stove pretty hard on the colder mornings so use a little more wood in that respect.
Any reason this might be counter productive?

 

[Bad LP]

Not me. I want a warm house. Period.

I restart the insert from the coals left behind.
Wood boiler needs relighting from mostly scratch but cardboard works much better than newspaper. Another benefit of Prime. 😂

 

[Ctwoodtick]

If it works for you that’s great. My wife would not be thrilled with a house that chilly in the morning (nor would I). But everyone is different.
Not sure if more frequent re-lighting of stove may be giving you more buildup in the chimney though. Do you get a lot of buildup during your annual sweep?

 

[EmberEnergy]

I've had a similar thought, weighing comfort getting up in AM and an extra load of wood that nobody gets to enjoy vs more dirty starts in a season. What I've done that works for me is I time my evening load such that by the time bedtime rolls around, the load is past it's peak and just entering the coaling stage that will still provide moderate heat output throughout the wee hours. So long as I have a deep ash bed, I'll have strong coals in the AM to easily start the AM load and the house is at least mid-60s so it's not freezing. Seems efficient and clean that way.

Reducing the amount of time I spend squatting and grumbling in front of the stove like a caveman in the early AM is beneficial for everybody's mood.

This is my first season heating with wood and I have a Kuma Cascade LE insert (has a cat and no automated air controls).

 

[Gearhead660]

In cold months, stove going 24/7. Want a warm house. Its a big house and would not warm back up in an hr or 2. Much easier to keep it going.

 

[ohlongarm]

After heating our house for 40 yrs. with wood I have decided to allow the stove the burn down before we go to bed and relighting early in the morning. My reasoning is there is no one up and saves one stove load of wood a day.
Granted the house is chilly when we get up, usually in the upper 50's to lower 60's. depending on wind and temp. But I can have the house back up to temp in about 1 hr. I do have to run the stove pretty hard on the colder mornings so use a little more wood in that respect.
Any reason this might be counter productive?

Personal preference, that's why I run a BK, bedrooms at 60 to 66 max, but I don't want the house to get below 72 when it's 0 to 15 degrees outside temps.

 

[MR. GLO]

After heating our house for 40 yrs. with wood I have decided to allow the stove the burn down before we go to bed and relighting early in the morning. My reasoning is there is no one up and saves one stove load of wood a day.
Granted the house is chilly when we get up, usually in the upper 50's to lower 60's. depending on wind and temp. But I can have the house back up to temp in about 1 hr. I do have to run the stove pretty hard on the colder mornings so use a little more wood in that respect.
Any reason this might be counter productive?

If the stove is in a cold room you could lose draft and get low co levels...it doesn't take many coals to cause co.

Most wouldn't know this because many detectors don't read early enough or slow or some don't read under 10ppm or leave a warning light on after the condition leaves.

10ppm is low but I don't want any co.

 

[mikey]

To get a overnight burn will there be a long tine your stove is in a smolder mode?

 

[stoveliker]

OP, if you burn less than a "night" box when you reheat the stove, flue, and your home, then it makes sense from a wood consumption point of view.

It's a trade off between the possible additional deposits due to cold flues upon start up and less comfort, and less wood consumption.

I would look at your flue a bit more often to see what this mode does. Maybe not much, but you want to remain safe.

 

[MR. GLO]

To get a overnight burn will there be a long tine your stove is in a smolder mode?

not sure what your asking. but i usually run the stove overnight...it does take a while for co to come. An example could be STT is at 200 at 6 am co could show up at noon or 3 pm depending on how cold it is outside and inside. I just burn 24/7 or empty the coals by 11 am if im not burning and home. But you could see only ash from the glass but the coals underneath will put out co. or i just keep adding small amount pine kindlin every 4 hours or so to keep the flue warm until I'm ready to burn at night...

 

[Osage]

If it works for you that’s great. My wife would not be thrilled with a house that chilly in the morning (nor would I). But everyone is different.
Not sure if more frequent re-lighting of stove may be giving you more buildup in the chimney though. Do you get a lot of buildup during your annual sweep?

My stove is an older Lopi M520, but my wood is bone dry. I put a handfull of cedar splits in the stove load the stove and light. It is usually going good before I can get my bowl of raisin bran on the kitchen table.
As far as buildup I actually went 2 seasons before cleaning flue last time and had a half a coffee can of grey powder. I do see where dirty startups is probably a downside, but probably not much worse than starting fresh load on a bed of coals.

 

[begreen]

After heating our house for 40 yrs. with wood I have decided to allow the stove the burn down before we go to bed and relighting early in the morning. My reasoning is there is no one up and saves one stove load of wood a day.
Granted the house is chilly when we get up, usually in the upper 50's to lower 60's. depending on wind and temp. But I can have the house back up to temp in about 1 hr. I do have to run the stove pretty hard on the colder mornings so use a little more wood in that respect.
Any reason this might be counter productive?

Sounds fine to me. I like it cooler for sleeping. Our daytime temps are creeping up to the low 50's so I am not burning overnight now either.

 

[fvhowler]

All depends on your recovery time from a cold stove/house. My stove is a bit small for the house so it takes time to build the heat. When its cold, I burn 24/7 in effort to keep house temps up. I've paid the price with a longer warm up period when I skipped a burn session.

 

[Osage]

Sounds fine to me. I like it cooler for sleeping. Our daytime temps are creeping up to the low 50's so I am not burning overnight now either.

We normally keep our bedroom door closed in the winter and don't heat it anyway. That said I remember Feb. of 2021 when we had -18 with wind. The bedroom was 42° in the morning when we got up.🤤

 

[begreen]

Well that will put a shiver in your timbers.

 

[Osage]

OP, if you burn less than a "night" box when you reheat the stove, flue, and your home, then it makes sense from a wood consumption point of view.

It's a trade off between the possible additional deposits due to cold flues upon start up and less comfort, and less wood consumption.

I would look at your flue a bit more often to see what this mode does. Maybe not much, but you want to remain safe.

This is the first time that I have tried this. When I went 2 seasons without cleaning I checked my flue with a flashlight several times and had just grey residue. I have been burning deadfall mulberry for the past several years some of it is reading around 10% on room temp fresh split. I can go a month without cleaning the glass and startup to full flame of 7 or 8 large splits takes less than 10 min. Dry wood is fun to burn.

 

[peakbagger]

The was my preference pre boiler, crank things up at night and relight in the AM. My VC Defiant really did not like to be filled up with wood and turned down.

 

[shoot-straight]

One of my favorite things in the am is a warm house.

 

[bigealta]

After heating our house for 40 yrs. with wood I have decided to allow the stove the burn down before we go to bed and relighting early in the morning. My reasoning is there is no one up and saves one stove load of wood a day.
Granted the house is chilly when we get up, usually in the upper 50's to lower 60's. depending on wind and temp. But I can have the house back up to temp in about 1 hr. I do have to run the stove pretty hard on the colder mornings so use a little more wood in that respect.
Any reason this might be counter productive?

I usually do cold starts in the morning. The jotul f400 just doesn't burn that long and i prefer to do a cold Top down Start vs a few coals start that creates more smoke by far than the Top Down for my set up. I also like starting top down fires and like that the house is colder in the morning, It will be 80F in the woodstove room soon enough.

 

[BillBurns]

I try to stay up a little later than I should to keep it warm, but Im afraid to burn it real high at night. Thats just me. I usually use oil 1 time to warm up the house while im lighting the fire. Trust me, mornings are NOT fun sometimes. If Im lucky, the flue will still be semi warm at least for an easier start up. I have seen wind chills WAY below zero too. My brother lives in New Orleans a few years back, and his friends didnt believe it could below zero. Thy thought zero was the coldest it can get. Plus, they have water lines run outside of the house...wouldnt float the boat here in PA.

 

[savageactor7]

Hey. It's your preference Osage. I can't see any faults, you probably sleep better if it's cooler too.

 

[Newbie78]

Met some southern Californians one time; they thought if water froze you died. I think they were serious.

 

[BillBurns]

Thats funny. I bet your used to cold and wind chills too. I think the lowest I ever seen and felt was -60 with the wind, -19 without. Kinda cold...lol

 

[Split]

We don't load overnight. I load in the late evening for the football/hockey game. I don't load when I go to bed. The house is chilly in the morning but with dry wood it just starts right up on a cold start anyways. Generally my box still has a few coals and is warm inside. But you're right. It saves on one load of wood a day.

 

[Max W]

With a forty or so year old stove, not tight and with a small, taller firebox I don’t fill it up before bed. but try to have some good coaling and put on a couple of splits. Later the heat pump can pick up the slack. In the real cold weather getting up with night time callings gives me a chance to add more or just leave it and warm the house up in the AM.

We recently purchased another much newer and tighter Waterford Stanley cook stove. When we truck it home and get it set up I probably will run it over night in pretty much the same way, setting to avoid smoldering. Still it should do better at controlling the fire and keeping coals.