Feeding multiple stoves

[Ashful]

I don't know how BAR does it. Maybe there are others here regularly running three stoves? Ever since I installed the second stove two weeks ago, I feel like I'm running two wheelbarrows of wood per day thru the house! Fun for now, and likely good exercise, but..

 

[begreen]

I don't know how BAR does it. Maybe there are others here regularly running three stoves? Ever since I installed the second stove two weeks ago, I feel like I'm running two wheelbarrows of wood per day thru the house! Fun for now, and likely good exercise, but..

Are you loading more than every 8 hrs.? How's the new stove working out?

 

[BrowningBAR]

I have a large wood rack that holds three+ wheelbarrows of wood.

With temps like what we are experiencing now, I eat through wood. Not as quickly as before. But, the consumption is still high.

 

[BucksCounty]

I run 2 stoves and this is my 2nd year doing it. I learned a couple things last year. This year, I have burned far less wood compared to last year. The Shelbourne is in a room that is an addition but is where we spend most of our time. But, it is not connect to heating system and there is no way to get heat from F600 back there. Last year, I was running the Shelburne when I was at work so when I came home with the kid, the room was fairly warm. But, I found I don't need to do that, because I just make a fire when I get home and it is warm in about an hour.

I made a simple shed close that I can move after the season that I put next to the house. It holds about a half cord. Then in the garage I stack more for the 2nd stove. Last year, I got tired of every couple days getting wood, and realizing it was pretty warm.

Where abouts in Philly?

 

[BucksCounty]

With temps like what we are experiencing now, I eat through wood. Not as quickly as before. But, the consumption is still high.

I agree.

 

[Jack768]

Running two stoves (which I do rarely, but with cold temps as tonight, am doing) is a lot of work. Three must really be a pain.

 

[charly]

I've been running my Esse and my Fireview non stop,,,my second year running two stoves. Last year I was running the Quad 5700 before getting the Fireview... Myself it seems pretty easy,, both stoves are very easy to run,,, even the Esse is a set it and forget it type stove,,, I know where she runs the best,, and never a run away stove...I have a 4ft high by 6 ft long wood rack in my back finished porch , all my wood is brought to the back door with my tractor bucket and loaded into the wood rack..That rack gets me a week plus of wood...so 4 times a month I bring in wood... Esse was fired up in October and the Fireview came on line in November,,,to date between the two stoves I've burned about 2-2.5 cords of wood,,mostly silver maple which isn't the best of wood to burn,, I'm pretty pleased...

 

[flhpi]

I only have one stove to worry about in my house. My parents have two stoves in their house. The VC Defiant upstairs and the Acclaim in the basement. The Defiant is the main one but the Acclaim is more for when dad wants to hang out in the basement and watch a game or something. It does help heat the floors of the kitchen and master bedroom.

My parents head down south for the warmer climate in winter and I watch their house and keep an eye on things. I live next to my parents house, it is maybe 500 yards from my house. During this last cold spell I thought I would run the Defiant at their house to help save some propane while they are gone. On Saturday I got it going and would run to their house every so often and stoked it for overnight burns. Then on Monday the temp was going to be 5 degrees so I started the Acclaim. I had two stoves going from Sat to Mon and three stoves going from Mon to this morning, Wed. Two in my parents house and one in mine.

While I was running back and forth trying to synch the burn times of the stoves I kept thinking of BrowningBAR. I was doing this to save my parents propane and also it is good for people to see the occasional wisp of smoke from the chimney so they think someone is home instead of an unoccupied home of a snowbird. I DO NOT want to do this often. It is a pain in the butt.

Mr. BrowningBAR, you are the man!

 

[Ashful]

Are you loading more than every 8 hrs.? How's the new stove working out?

Loading at 6:30am, 6:00pm, and 9:30pm. The 6pm load is burned hot and fast, the other two almost entirely shut down for max time. I'm stuck burning what I have that's dry, which is a bunch of poplar (or sycamore?), at the moment. Not much BTU's in that crap, so I throw two or three smaller splits of my 25% MC oak on top, to stretch the burn a bit. Not how I'd like to run, but it's working.

The stove works nicely, if I place a fan in the living room door (which I think was your response to my second post ever made here!) to circulate air on that half of the house. The only thing that's weird about the new stove is that I cannot get an ash bed. The ash is so fine, it all falls right thru the grate into the pan. Two weeks in, and the stove only has ash built up in the corners of the firebox floor.

With temps like what we are experiencing now, I eat through wood. Not as quickly as before. But, the consumption is still high.

Yeah... the amount of wood I'm running thru these stoves is very much connected to the sh*t wood I'm burning. If I were burning oak (or even ash), I'd be going thru much less. When I throw one or three small splits of oak in the stove on top of four huge spits of Poplar, I still have some nice glowing chunks of the oak left the next morning, and the poplar is vaporized. Next year will be different.

 

[BrowningBAR]

My loading has been a bit off for the last two days. I've run across a bunch of odd and big splits. This prevents me from packing the stove tight. For the overnight burn I've been loading at 11pm and my morning reload is at 8:30 since the temps have dipped. House has cooled, but the stoves are still over 300 with a lot of coals.

Next winter will be different as this will be the year we start insulating and replacing windows and doors. This summer the attic will be done. It should be interesting to see how that effect the heat loss and upstairs room temps.

 

[Ashful]

9.5 hour reloads would be nice, but unfortunately my schedule doesn't permit it. My daytime stretch is 11.5 hours.

At least my stoves are both in the same house (technically). flhpi has a second job, running three stoves between two houses!

 

[KaptJaq]

I run two stoves but, for extended cold spells, I burn coal in one of them. I am going through more wood in the upstairs stove, full reloads are about every 6 hours (1.5 cf firebox). The downstairs stove gets loaded every 12 hours with about 15-20 pounds of coal (half a 5 gallon bucket). Once in the morning, again before bed.

As I have stated before: wood is cheap, coal is easy...

KaptJaq

 

[charly]

I run two stoves but, for extended cold spells, I burn coal in one of them. I am going through more wood in the upstairs stove, full reloads are about every 6 hours (1.5 cf firebox). The downstairs stove gets loaded every 12 hours with about 15-20 pounds of coal (half a 5 gallon bucket). Once in the morning, again before bed.

As I have stated before: wood is cheap, coal is easy...

KaptJaq

Our Esse cook stove came with coal grates, etc.. never tried the coal.. I just burn wood in the Esse after getting the deep wood box option that replaced the coal grates..

 

[Ashful]

The number I count about four dozen times per day: 37 paces between the two stoves. I guess about 100 feet? Six weeks of running both, three loads per day in each, has taught me that much. The new stove, which is the well-behaved of the two, is located next to my home office. Load, 8 - 13 minutes at WOT, 5 minutes at half throttle, then engage the cat and start lowering the air. It's almost that predictable. Unfortunately, I spend about 3x - 4x more time tending to the one at the far end of the house, long after the new one is set and cruising.

 

[HollowHill]

My loading has been a bit off for the last two days. I've run across a bunch of odd and big splits. This prevents me from packing the stove tight. For the overnight burn I've been loading at 11pm and my morning reload is at 8:30 since the temps have dipped. House has cooled, but the stoves are still over 300 with a lot of coals.

Next winter will be different as this will be the year we start insulating and replacing windows and doors. This summer the attic will be done. It should be interesting to see how that effect the heat loss and upstairs room temps.

BrowningBAR, it looks like we, too, are going to start replacing windows and adding insulation. What type windows are you looking at? Any other old house folks have any suggestions on windows?

 

[Ashful]

I would never replace an original window. Rebuild them if necessary, and add some proper storms. They will outperform, and outlast, any affordable replacement window!

Did you see the thermal images I posted two weeks ago, comparing radiation of old windows (both with and without storms) to some of the best currently sold by Anderson?

 

[BrowningBAR]

Rebuild them if necessary, and add some proper storms. They will outperform, and outlast, any affordable replacement window!

Again, I have storm windows on every window. Still drafty. It still sucks. Bringing someone in to refurbish the old windows is a lot more expensive than putting in good replacement windows.

 

[Ashful]

True on the cost. Having just moved and busy with other projects, I had to hire someone to rebuild four of mine last summer, and the cost was roughly $1000 per window. New sills and stiles, reusing the original header, casings, and sashes. I then spent an additional $1000 for four traditional glazed wood storms (after crating and shipping, which was a surprisingly significant portion of the cost!), and it would probably cost another $200 per window to have the storms milled and fitted (unusual casings on my windows), if I were not doing that myself.

I had the window sills and stiles made from Spanish cedar, and the storms made from mahogany. All flashing was done in copper. Doing all the work myself, the cost would have been only $200 - $250 per window, much cheaper than any "quality" replacement window! Draft can still be an issue, but can be addressed easily enough with weather stripping (metal or neoprene), if you want things to be tight. I'm debating on this myself, as I do believe I want to keep the house a bit "looser" than a modern house.

It's an old house, and those old wavy glass windows with mortise and tennon sashes are part of the soul and charm of an old house. Don't make every furture owner of that house hate you! Once you replace original windows with modern replacements, you'll be signed up for replacing them every 20 - 30 years, the typical life-span of today's replacement windows. My original windows are 240 years old, and I believe they have only been rebuilt once in their past. This is the second time, and I hope they'll last another 100 years before the next guy has to do it. Having many houses in the area which have been in my family for 200 - 300 years (in one case, 303 years!), I figure there's always a good chance my grandson might be cursing me for cutting corners today.

 

[Swedishchef]

I don't think I would have the patience to run 2 stoves...especially 3! I think I would just install a furnace instead. Working full time would mean that I would be tending to the stoves non-stop when I would be home (by the time you reload, let them start to cruise and settle down for 6-8 hours).

Not to mention I wouldn't have enough wood...

I admire those of you who are running more than 1 stove! GO big or go home!

Andrew

 

[BrowningBAR]

t's an old house, and those old wavy glass windows with mortise and tennon sashes are part of the soul and charm of an old house. Don't make every furture owner of that house hate you!

Refurbishing would mean about $20 grand just for the 17 old windows.

I could do it for half that cost with modern windows + storms.

Then there is the $10-20 grand in over-sized windows that need to be replaced in the gallery.

Then the $4-10 grand in exterior french doors.

Then the $6-15 grand in entree doors.

If I go with refurbishing the old windows, I'm looking at about $65,000 in doors and windows. If I can save $10-12 thousand on replacement windows and storms and still get the same efficiency, I'm doing it.

 

[Ashful]

You make a good argument! It's your money, so I'm in no place to tell you how to spend it. I can give you a hard time for doing it, though.

1st rub: "Hey, I have some period furniture to go with your new windows!"

 

[BrowningBAR]

You make a good argument! It's your money, so I'm in no place to tell you how to spend it. I can give you a hard time for doing it, though.

1st rub: "Hey, I have some period furniture to go with your new windows!"

View attachment 93660

Except, you know, I priced out windows that match the period of the home. You are aware modern windows can match any design period, right?

Six panel dividers that will look identical to the original windows.

 

[HollowHill]

My problem is that my windows are not of the period of my home. The Victorians replaced the originals. So, I'm trying to, sort of, get back to what it would have looked like. So, what brands do you look at if you HAVE to replace the windows, ones that will look acceptable on an old house?

 

[Jags]

My home had many of the original single pane, wood on wood slides and fitted with storms ('bout 100 years old). They SUCKED. Replaced those an had an immediate HUNDREDS of gallons of propane reduction. They didn't have any more "Character" than the cement sidewalk. Actually the sidewalk has more character, cuz I can show you the two sections that are crushed from when steam engines drove over them.

If you want to look through wavy glass, simply walk out to my wash house.

 

[corey21]

coal is easy...

I have to agree with that.