First real shot of cold weather

[saichele]

So it's 3F degrees outside (know what the F stands for here), but it's 75 in the kitchen/living room with the WWL kicking along at a good clip. Probably won;t have enough fire box to get through the night, but it's been in the single digits all day and so far no furnace.

Steve

 

[wallis54806]

It is -7 deg. F here with a nice breeze and I am letting the fire die down because it is too warm inside.

 

[jpl1nh]

Will be cold in the northeast tomorow and Monday, again later in the week, but it actually was colder in December here. Anyway, its the weather that makes us all glad we have stoves :coolsmile:

 

[jeffman3]

The Tribute is flexing out quite nicely! Going strong on a full load of elm, running all secondaries, and damped all the way down! Stove top cruising at 400- 450 F. I supposed to see a high of 7 F. Monday that will be a real test! So far the furnace hasn't kicked on once sense the Tribute was installed! :coolsmile:

 

[North of 60]

Im glad all you guys are feeling my enjoyable pain. -13f now which is a normal temp for this time of year. Relying on that useless pine everyone
talks about. Stay warm and enjoy! :coolsmile:

 

[derwood]

Woke up this morning and the temp in Knoxville was 13. After spending some quality time on the couch to reload the insert at 12:30 last night, the house was a comfortable 70 degrees.

Repacked the box and went outside to check chimney output and heard the peaceful drone of heatpumps in the neighborhood trying to extract the last bit of BTUs from the frigid air.

And to think that was me last year before the new insert.

Life is good with wood!

 

[northwinds]

-11 F, and it sure would be nice if my Isle Royale was already installed. Furnace seemed to
run all night. A beautiful sunny day for the Packer game.

 

[eernest4]

29 *f in Ct at 10:30 am with a 18mph wind. was 24 last nite. I got the pellet stove on keep warm (low) & its 79 * in parts of the house, cooler in other parts.

After breakfast, I will shut down the pellet stove & lay a fire in the wood stove & keep it going until i go 2 bed, & for some time thereafter. overnite burns can be from 6 to 9 hrs, depending on what wood i grab & how much I can pack in.

I find that its nice to run the oil burner , 1 cycle each day ,to even out the heat in the house
because some rooms go down to 50* when I heat only with wood or pellets for 2 or 3 days in a row ,with no oil heat.

When you get right down to it, I love both my wood & pellet stoves ,& they save me tons of $,
but in the end, they are only space heaters, not central heating.

I know 4 sure, I am getting sensitive to cold in my old age, because the first thing I do ,many mornings, is lay fresh wood on the red embers & run that sucker up to 700* for 20 minutes while I stand 14 inches from the flue & keep turning around until I am well done on all sides.

It bakes the chill,cold & soreness out of my old bones & gets me in a condition for easy body movement 4 the rest of the day.

%-P

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Happy to report we made it through the night in good shape. So far the Fireview has kept up nicely and we are happy with it.

 

[argus66]

sweet 25 here now just wish wed get a huge snowstorm

 

[swestall]

Is 70 in the house OK? WE only got down to 12 last night so I'm not sure we count.
Got a 10 hour burn last night,stove still putting out heat (300 stovetop) with splits still in tact but coaled, that has to count for something.
Its still in the teens and I have to go out and get some wood. I'll fill those two wood hoops (see Avatar) and that will last me until next week at this time.
Life is finally good again!
Things I've done recently that worked out:
WE: got some of those bootwarmers off the Woodstock Stove site and use them as a trivet to put the kettle on top of the stove: they work great.
got one of those Eco fans (150CFM) to push some heat off the stove, it works fine and makes no noise at all.
got some sleep because the Hearthstone is working so well, I don't worry about it anymore.

 

[Willhound]

Summit working hard today. -45 C or -49F with the wind projected for overnight. Cars all plugged in. Football game on. Venison chili in the pot. Not going outside for anything.

 

[BrotherBart]

20F at the moment headed for 7F. Around here that is known as serious cold. 80 on the first floor and 75 upstairs. Hard to keep coals in that bad boy without overheating the joint.

 

[derbygreg]

Here on the outskirts of Columbus, OH it was nearly Zero this AM.

Loaded the stove at 12:15pm and went to bed, woke up at 6:30 to hearing the furnace kick on - what a horrible sound. I set it at 65 so it gets cold, but not too cold that I can't recover the temp. Upstairs its still 70 degrees.

My wife said "I did not turn the furnace on" Music to my ears, because I assumed she got up and instead of puttting wood in the stove that she just turned up the thermostat.

It's hard to keep it warm in the low single digits. Basically 10 and above is no problem. These 17 foot ceilings require a lot of heat to keep the lower parts warm.

I told my friends that I failed with the stove last night!

My house is around 1900 square feet (floor) for what that is worth. How do you count it when the ceilings are so high? Most ceilings are perhaps 10 feet high.

 

[RedOak]

Hey Swestall!! Kindly enlighten me on how you are getting stove top temps of 300 after 10 hours.
While I am still trying to dial mine in, you have managed to reach the promised land right off the
bat! The main reason I am asking is I have an 8" SS stack that may still be pulling half my heat out
the chimney and am considering dropping it down to a 6" SS. What are you running for stack temps?
Flue diameter?

With the help of the soapstone crew here (especially Struggle) I have got 80% of this concept down and
have a nice toasty house. Any additional tips / comments / would as always be greatly appreciated!

 

[marky_mark896]

It's about 10F here in BG, Ohio. Going down to 5F tonight. So far, with my limited knowledge of burning we've barely run the furnace. I've not slept too much though. I definitely don't understand how to get a prolonged burn to stay lit. Everytime I shut the air down to slow the burn, it winds up going out. Any suggestions? Here's a pic of our new Lopi installed 2 days ago:

 

[ansehnlich1]

2 big splits of white oak waiting to go in the Jotul, 81F in the living room, 67F back around the corner in the bedroom, 15F or so outside with a stiff NW breeze, going down to 6F tonight, stack of splits next to stove will be packed in around 2am cuz I ain't playin' when it comes to heatin' with wood. My bud Owen just spent $500 on fuel oil, uh, that was about 150 gallon I guess, sucks to be him, but he's been cuttin' and splittin' cuz next year he says he ain't puttin' up with that shiatt no more.

8+ cord split, stacked, and covered out back at my house

 

[derbygreg]

It's about 10F here in BG, Ohio. Going down to 5F tonight. So far, with my limited knowledge of burning we've barely run the furnace. I've not slept too much though. I definitely don't understand how to get a prolonged burn to stay lit. Everytime I shut the air down to slow the burn, it winds up going out. Any suggestions? Here's a pic of our new Lopi installed 2 days ago:

You will get the hang of it. Just takes time. I have been burning mine since Jan 10th when the temps started dropping. Many on here have me blown away, but I don't burn if it is above 45.

I load it full then let it burn down to ash/coals - pull the coals forward and reload the stove. Repeat

North South burns are a lot hotter than East West burns.

At night I run the East West burns almost exclusively - burns longer and keeps coals better.

North South - put the logs in with the rounds and ends showing.
East West - put the logs in long ways - can see long/entire side of log.

 

[derbygreg]

Welcome to the Forum Mark - surf around you will learn a lot.

 

[begreen]

greg, what is the longest split you can load north-south?

 

[marky_mark896]

Welcome to the Forum Mark - surf around you will learn a lot.

Hi and thanks. Thanks also for the tips in the post before. I am going to try the east-west and let it burn down to ashes. I just watched a video someone posted that pretty much said the same thing. I just pulled my ashes forward, loaded east - west around 6pm. So far, so good. I shut the air down to about 1/4 open. We'll see what happens.

Thanks again,
Mark

 

[swestall]

Hey Swestall!! Kindly enlighten me on how you are getting stove top temps of 300 after 10 hours.
While I am still trying to dial mine in, you have managed to reach the promised land right off the
bat! The main reason I am asking is I have an 8" SS stack that may still be pulling half my heat out
the chimney and am considering dropping it down to a 6" SS. What are you running for stack temps?
Flue diameter?

With the help of the soapstone crew here (especially Struggle) I have got 80% of this concept down and
have a nice toasty house. Any additional tips / comments / would as always be greatly appreciated!

The stack is a 6" liner, the top 9 feet are insulated and the masonary flue it is in is blocked off on both ends. I end up with a 16 foot stack top to bottom which is exactly what Hearthstone recommends. (got there by accident not plan) The bottom portion of the stack is all inside a masonary flue inside a brick chimney (look at the avatar). As far as getting 10 hours, I just burn the coals off in the eve, fill the sucker up, get it charred and hot (400+) and then close it down. Some days I'm down to 275 or so, but always have lots of large coals left.

Durning the day, I'm burning one new split against a half burned one when I'm home. They seem to last a long time that way and keep the stovetop between 375 and 500. I must say the heat from the Soapstone is different. These temps would be low on a Cast Iron or Steel stove; but they are just fine on the Soapstone.

In fact, don't you agree, the Soapstone is just fine; wonderful in fact!

 

[marky_mark896]

I have a question for you guys. What temps should i look for on my Lopi Freedom Bay, and where should I check for them? What thermometer should I use to check?

Thanks guys,
Mark

 

[laynes69]

It was close to zero this morning. Loaded the wood furnace at 9:00 pm went to bed, it was 74 in the whole house. Woke up this morning at 5:30 to reload the wood furnace and it was 69 in the house w/o the gas kicking in. The gas furnace is set for 65, the forced draft for 68. No propane, life is good. Right now the house is 75 degrees, and its 9 out. Thank god for locust! I have been burning my 8 to 10" diameter locust logs.

 

[derbygreg]

greg, what is the longest split you can load north-south?

North South I usually max out at around 15-16 inches.