burning too much wood!

[NEWJACK]

help i'm new to this.i have an olympic avalon, my house is 3800 sq. ft.and has vaulted ceilings .we have been heating it solely with the stove,but we are loading it fully and on high burn every 2 hrs.overnight fully loaded on low burn 3 hrs. what am i doing wrong?i have been using about 1/2 cord a week.also when i order a cord of wood the wood guys say thats 600 pieces but stacked it doesn't really add up am i being robbed? (didn't mean to offend with the capitals) thats why i call myself newjack :red:

 

[jklingel]

Hi, Newjack, and welcome. I have no wood info, but thought I'd pass along a gentle note before someone rips you. Very few people here are rude, but I've learned this the hard way on another locale in cyberspace. Some folks have a phobia about capital letters, because "it is iNet speak for shouting". BFD, that is what I say, but others may not love them the way we do. So, use those tiny little letters that only young people can read, if you will. BTW: You posted at the right place. Many folks here have loads of experience and love to help out. Enjoy. j

 

[begreen]

Set up an area where you can stack the wood. A full cord is 4ft x 4ft x 8ft or 128 cu ft. Could these be face cords? That's ok as long as they're being sold as such and at half the rate of a full cord.

As to the stove, how tall is the flue on it? When were the gaskets last checked on it? What temperature is the stove running at?

The Olympic is a good big stove but, well how to put it, the house is big enough to need 2 stoves. The vaulted ceilings dramatically increasing the cubic footage the stove is trying to heat. Are there ceiling fans up in the peak of the vaulted ceiling? They should be blowing upward (in reverse) in winter.

 

[NEWJACK]

the stove is brand new ,the flue is 27ft. tall the temp usually peaks at 600 the mostly runs at 400-450 then drops when reload is needed. we have a ceiling fan in the main vaulted room blowing down.chimney is interior. the upstairs is about 68-70 and the downstairs is 66-68 degrees. when its in the 20s .

 

[ansehnlich1]

If ya have too much draft you'll have faster burn times, I'd get a pro in and check the draft reading and make sure it's what it's supposed to be.

Also, I'd try that ceiling fan the other way, pullin air up, see what that does.

One more thing, you'll for sure burn more wood if you have a strong draft and leave a stove wide open for extended time.

Do this, explain what this chimney is like, inside or outside?, brick or stainless? insulated? etc.

 

[jeff in pa]

Newjack,

Reverse that fan! I have the same set up but in a smaller house. If the fan is blowing down it feels cold! The cathedral ceilings are tough. I have a Jotul Oslo and heat about 2300 SF. I wouldn't want any smaller of a stove!

JD in PA

 

[Mandoo]

Something I learned on here was how to load the stove. I had read a few posts about this so I gave it a try and I'd have to say close to doubled my burn times using half the wood.

After the coals are just about done I rake them around letting the ash drop into my pan, then I pull the hot coals forward and load the stove with as much wood as I can keeping it tight together closing up the air gaps between pieces as much as possible. Opposite of what I was taught about building fires but very effective in the stove. I let it burn all the way down to around 400* with small coals and repeat. I get very long burn times between loads at least 8 to 10+ hours. with half the work of throwing in wood every couple hours. I do add air for the first 30 minutes and then add it again at the end of the burn to use up the coals.

I know this may be a "too simple" type suggestion but it sure helped me out.

 

[Gunner]

You are asking WAY to much of that stove as a sole heat source. 3800sqft in NY sounds like you need a central system or two stoves.

I have the same sized stove and live in a similar climate, BUT my house is only 1800sqft.

 

[adrpga498]

Something I learned on here was how to load the stove. I had read a few posts about this so I gave it a try and I'd have to say close to doubled my burn times using half the wood.

After the coals are just about done I rake them around letting the ash drop into my pan, then I pull the hot coals forward and load the stove with as much wood as I can keeping it tight together closing up the air gaps between pieces as much as possible. Opposite of what I was taught about building fires but very effective in the stove. I let it burn all the way down to around 400* with small coals and repeat. I get very long burn times between loads at least 8 to 10+ hours. with half the work of throwing in wood every couple hours. I do add air for the first 30 minutes and then add it again at the end of the burn to use up the coals.

I know this may be a "too simple" type suggestion but it sure helped me out.

I concur, and not too simple of an explanation. A perfect explanation in my opinion.

 

[yukiginger]

Yes, Gunner has it right. You're asking a lot of that stove. Consider yourself lucky that you've been able to mostly heat your house, even though you've been burning it fast (and hot). It's a question of compromise here - burn slower and less wood, and use your central heating system to keep the house at desired temperature - or continue what you're doing and go through more wood.

If you're bent on heating with wood only you have to consider a second unit or one designed to heat with some distribution (wood furnace, boiler, etc.)

MarkG

 

[Rich L]

Hi New Jack,there's some good info being provided to you,reverse your fan,placement of wood in stove,have draft checked.Indeed your home is huge for the largest woodstoves.I think the largest heating stove would be the new Hearthstone Equinox weighting close to 800lbs and heating an area of 3500 sq ft.,300 sq ft.less than the size of your home so don't be to hard on your stove's heat output.I think you may possibly be able to get longer burn times though with a pipe damper.If you have a strong draft,some of the stoves aren't able to be shut down but so much and as in my case with my Hearthstone Mansfield and 40 feet of chimney I couldn't shut the draft down enough with the stove's air intake valve to get a long burn and stop massive wood consumption until I put in a Stove pipe damper.Now I get overnight burns using far less wood.Try the damper first before you call the professional.This simple task may solve your problem of short burn times and great wood consumption.Keep in mind you'll need one of the monster stoves to heat that space as it should be heated and the only one I know of that would have a chance is the Hearthstone Equinox.

 

[Todd]

help i'm new to this.i have an olympic avalon, my house is 3800 sq. ft.and has vaulted ceilings .we have been heating it solely with the stove,but we are loading it fully and on high burn every 2 hrs.overnight fully loaded on low burn 3 hrs. what am i doing wrong?i have been using about 1/2 cord a week.also when i order a cord of wood the wood guys say thats 600 pieces but stacked it doesn't really add up am i being robbed? (didn't mean to offend with the capitals) thats why i call myself newjack :red:

Burning the stove on high and reloading every 2 hrs is going to send alot of heat up the chimney. You need to slow down your burn and let the secondary flames bring your stove temps up over 600. Try burning the stove at 1/2 throttle and see if your temps come up and your wood consumption goes down.

Yes, your being robbed! There is no way they can claim 600 pieces is 1 cord. A true cord is 4x4x8 stacked.

 

[Henz]

yes, I ahve the same stove, new last year. My house is 1400sqft and it heats in nicely, not very insulated and drafty..The Olympic is only rated to hear 2,500sqft as it is.

 

[gpcollen1]

For starters - you are closing the bypass right? Like Todd said, you will not get the most heat by running it on 'high burn'. The damper/air control knob only has about an inch to go from wide ope to closed. When that stove gets hot, close the air down bit by bit until that nice secondary burn gets going. I can get a solid 4 hour burn easily and get daytime burns of 12 hours.

It seems you may be trying to get this thing to run at a continuous 600 F but it is really meant to run in cycles. You may just have too much house for this to be realistic.

 

[Henz]

ctWOODNPELLETBURNER, nice to hear from another Olympic burner..this is my second winter with it..love it so far..get good burn times. You are right on the cycle part, I will mine up to 500-600 degrees, damper her down and she will be running around 400-450 within a half hour and stay there for a while prior to changing. Question for you, the lower draft control, I used to have some sort of stop there, now its gone..Must be I lost a screw..I used to pull it out until I hit that and then just tap it in..Now I ahve to eyeball..You still have that screw or maybe its a rivot or something>? can you check? Otherwise, How much gap doi you leave?? I tend to stay around 1/4 - 1/2"

 

[NEWJACK]

hi guys! i would love to have gotten a bigger stove but its an insert and that was the biggest one that fit. there really isn't another place in the house for 2nd stove but i'm working on it.i will try that different way of loading again ,it didn't want to catch,i'll try 1/2 throttle again but the house seems to hold temp and stove stays at 400-450 high burns tend to raise the heat.what is a pipe damper?can i do that to a insert?i know i'm asking alot of the stove and of you guys but last year it cost 4500.00 to heat my house and thats insane now i'm saving 350.oo a month and when i start collecting my own wood it will be awesome but i'm a busy mom and i hope i didn't bite off more than i can chew. but you guys seem to have it down to a science. so i will learn.thank you!! :kissractice makes perfect. p.s. if i can find a way to get up to the fan to reverse it i will its in the center of a vaulted ceiling like 24 ft up.

 

[Henz]

I believe that most fans you can have a remote installed. if this is an older fan I would goto any home appliance store and tell them the brand and see if you can have an external remote sensor installed in it..Then you wont have to climb any ladders..If you cant, it might be worth the $ to have a new fan installed with remote.

 

[gpcollen1]

ctWOODNPELLETBURNER, nice to hear from another Olympic burner..this is my second winter with it..love it so far..get good burn times. You are right on the cycle part, I will mine up to 500-600 degrees, damper her down and she will be running around 400-450 within a half hour and stay there for a while prior to changing. Question for you, the lower draft control, I used to have some sort of stop there, now its gone..Must be I lost a screw..I used to pull it out until I hit that and then just tap it in..Now I ahve to eyeball..You still have that screw or maybe its a rivot or something>? can you check? Otherwise, How much gap doi you leave?? I tend to stay around 1/4 - 1/2"

Yeah, mine has a stop but i never looked at it. Mine is an insert with the front fan so it is not so easy toi check it out. I may take the blower off this weekend because one side is making some noise. if I do Ill see what is up. I pull that damper until i feel it get a bit tight and that means i am 1/4" from fully closed. That is where I leave it for overnight burns - 6-8 hours. I pull it fully closed for daytime burns b/c it could be 10-12 hours or more. Last season I made marks on the thing so I was consistent - this year I did not remark them b/c I have a better feel for it. I would say that for a nice and hot burn that last a while, about 1/2" out is about right (somewhere between that 1/4 and 1/2). I usually just pull it out till it looks like it is burning wide open and then throttle it back a bit at a time.

NEWJACK - That stove is a biggie, not like you can go that much bigger. You just can only get so much heat from it.

 

[Rich L]

Hi New Jack.I didn't realize you have a insert.I'm not able to determine if you have enough exposed pipe to put in a pipe damper.Can you supply a picture of your set up?Have you tried the suggestion of closing the stove's air intake valve half way when you start the stove?Do you know where it is located?If so what has the outcome been.A pipe damper is a round plate that fits inside the stove pipe with a handled rod that runs through the plate with the handle on the outside of the stove pipe so the plate can be turned inside of the pipe to slow down the upward draft thus slowing down the burn rate and it also causes the heat of the stove to be more directed to the interior.To see a picture of a damper just go online and type in woodstove pipe dampers.If you haven't manipulated the stove's air intake valve to see if your burn and heat has improve do this first before installing pipe damper.If the stove's air intake valve manipulation is not providing better heat times and heat call your installer and ask if they would install a pipe damper for you,if you or someone you know aren't able to do it.

 

[beagler]

Many are suggesting to reverse the fan direction for more heat flow. What direction should the fan be turning? If you look up at the fan, should it be turning clockwise?

 

[dtabor]

Reverse would be counter clockwise, fan should be blowing air at the ceiling.

 

[begreen]

In most cases, for draft free comfort and good heat circulation, the ceiling fan should be blowing upward in the winter.

 

[Gooserider]

1 As stated, a cord of wood is a tightly stacked pile, 4' wide, 4' high, by 8' long, or any other combination that adds up to 128 cubic feet. This is the legal definition, and what most states "Weights and Measures" departments require wood be sold by. It has NOTHING to do with the number of peices in the load, though I suppose that could be used as a way to estimate it. Some folks will talk about "ricks" or "face cords" - these are NOT legal sale units, as they are not defined properly - a "face cord" is a pile 4' high, and 8' long, the width of the log length - could be 16" (1/3 cord) 12" (1/4 cord) 24" (1/2 cord) or some other length for an odd fraction... Don't feel bad if you get less than this, nearly every wood guy I've ever heard of delivers less than full cords, some of it is the nature of the business (you don't want to give away the stuff) some of it is that since wood will fit together differently every time it's stacked, it will often be less when you stack it than when the wood guy estimated how much was in the bed of his truck - but don't be afraid to complain if it's more than a few cubic feet short.

The best way I've found to do wood is to get it delivered as a load of "log length" and process it yourself - this can often be done for around $300 or so for a truck load of logs that will work out to 5-7 cords of splits - however it takes a significant amount of money for equipment, and is a lot of HARD work - you mentioned being a woman, what kind of shape are you in, how's your physical size and strength (or do you have a macho man around)? I don't want to sound sexist, but many women simply don't have the physical ability to deal with processing wood... Scrounging for your own wood costs less for the wood, but takes all the equipment that processing your own does, PLUS the extra cost of a suitable "scrounging vehicle" and it's gas, insurance, upkeep and so forth - running the numbers I decided it was better to have the wood guy bring it to me, rather than trying to go get it.

2. Ceiling fans - Like yours, I have a house with an essentially unreachable ceiling fan (26.5' from floor to the fan box, with the fan on a 4' downrod) - when our old fan died, I had to rent and build a scaffolding tower in the living room to reach it. As stated, It is BEST if the fan can blow UP during the heating season, and DOWN in the summer cooling season, however most fans can ONLY be reversed by physically flipping a switch on the fan motor - many fans do have remotes, but they only allow changing speeds... When shopping for a replacement for our fan, I did some serious research into this, and the only fans I could find that were able to be reversed by the remote were certain models of Casablanca fans - they are very expensive but IMHO worth it... (We spent almost $200 for our Casablanca, we could have done a top of the line fan in any other model for about $70, or a cheapy for $40 - but with the Casablanca we got a lifetime lube motor that does NOT require cleaning, plus the remote control reverse - I don't ever want to do the scaffolding adventure again)

3. As others have said, you have more house than your stove is really intended to handle - I would consider heading over to the "Boiler Room" forum, and talk to some of the guys there about your options in adding wood to your central heating system.

Gooserider

 

[downeast]

The best way I've found to do wood is to get it delivered as a load of "log length" and process it yourself - this can often be done for around $300 or so for a truck load of logs that will work out to 5-7 cords of splits - however it takes a significant amount of money for equipment, and is a lot of HARD work - you mentioned being a woman, what kind of shape are you in, how's your physical size and strength (or do you have a macho man around)? I don't want to sound sexist, but many women simply don't have the physical ability to deal with processing wood... Scrounging for your own wood costs less for the wood, but takes all the equipment that processing your own does, PLUS the extra cost of a suitable "scrounging vehicle" and it's gas, insurance, upkeep and so forth - running the numbers I decided it was better to have the wood guy bring it to me, rather than trying to go get it.
Gooserider

Whoa there Mr. Goose. Here you go getting the macho mixed up with the "hard work" with some serious misconceptions.
This is not some pol correctness here, but you're way off in la la land with those concepts.

Start with the logs: with those dropped by your side you are at the very end of the process. Kind of like: "I'm a farmer since I buy lettuce at the supermarket." The harvesting of those "hard work" lengths are the real work. Get into the woodlot, fell the tree, get the log length out to a yard, load it onto a carrier, then deliver it to a waiting Goose. :bug:

What kind of shape are you in ? %-P We know many athletes of both sexes, of a variety of ages, in excellent "shape".

Do you have a "macho man" around to assist you ? You some kind of Lazy ?

And, how many women do you know who do or do not have your "physical ability" to "process" ? Take names.

OK I'm being some facetious here. But c'mon now, since when is getting out a saw, bucking up a stack of logs so much work ?
We have neighbors, man and wife, who fell, buck, tractor, split, stack, heat with wood, cook with wood, and oh yes, harvest an easy 20 cords of pulp to pay their taxes. And listen to this: "the wife" (sic) and man work the woods together. And Goose: they are 83 and 82 respectively. The "man" ( no macho here) just had a hip replaced and had to give up his "heavy" Rancher for a "lighter" Husky 353.

True disclosure: we harvest all our 4-6 cords of firewood plus pulp, and woodlot improvement ( T.S.I.) from our place. Ain't no machos here. So when we're incapacitated or feel sorry for ourselves, or too old, then maybe, maybe we'll think about those log lengths delivered. You're correct about one thing: it is the least expensive way to buy wood.

What a rant. :coolsmirk:

 

[crazy_dan]

3800 sq ft wow that is more than my summit is rated for it is rated at 3,000.
not asking much out that insert are we (insert sarcasm)
I have to agree either add a wood stove at the other end of the house or a central system.