Got a pretty basic question about starting stove in morning

[Yarzy]

So I have what I think is a basic question about starting the stove in the morning. Do most/all of you just pack it up the night before and do an overnight burn just to keep it warm and make it easy to start back up in the morning? Our stove is on the bottom floor and how our house is laid out, we don't really feel the heat overnight upstairs. Am I crazy for not doing an overnight burn and starting from scratch each morning or am I missing something here? It seems like I could have some coals, but it would be a "waste" of a full stove for that pleasure. Just trying to get an idea on how the pro's here do it.

Thanks!

 

[bholler]

I burn 24/7 in an old 2 story Victorian and really don't get to much heat upstairs either but over night i am heating the first floor and sending some heat upstairs as well. Even if you are not down stairs you still need to heat it at least some. And it takes allot of btus to get that house up to temp again so it is not a waste

 

[Nick Mystic]

I take it you must be running some other heat source during the night if you aren't burning your stove. If maintaining your wood supply for burning while you are awake is a priority for you then using your alternative heat overnight might make sense. If, on the other hand, you have access to enough wood to burn all the time then loading up the stove at night is going to do the same thing overnight as it does during the daytime: heat your house. You might not feel that much direct heat upstairs, but the heat from a fully loaded F500 has to be going someplace! Your house represents a lot of thermal mass and it is sucking up those btus to release later. Some of the heat has to be making it upstairs even though it's not being felt as intensely as you feel it downstairs when you are near your stove.

 

[FionaD]

i let my stove burn out. I don't have any form of heating on overnight. Of course I'm in a much more temperate climate than many folks over your way!

This may sound weird, but i actually enjoy feeling just a little chilly when I get out of bed and lighting my stove anew every day. My morning ritual involves a mug of coffee whilst I watch the flames take and feel the room get warmer.

During my first winter I became a little obsessive about trying to burn in such a way that I had a few glowing coals to wake up to (not easy in an F3). Then I noticed that I was spending longer trying to coax those few coals into life rather than starting from scratch - after a while the novelty wore off....

I'll let the stove die down towards the end of the evening, my fairly well-insulated cottage only loses around 5 over night... Also the stone wall behind the stove holds huge amounts of heat that help keep the room temps up... So all In all, to my mind, it's a waste of wood loading up the stove to the gunwales in my particular circumstances.

I would say if you're finding that you're comfortable enough when you get up in the morning, why waste wood heating an empty living room whilst you're under your blankets and dreaming away in a room that the stove heat doesn't reach that much? If you start to feel cold you can soon change your mind. But as Nick says, if you're deciding between one form of overnight heating vs. another, it's a different kind of decision.

 

[CentralVAWoodHeat]

We have a small ranch house and that overnight burn functions as a way to build up good heat for the first half of the night and give coals for the next morning. It is important to stay ahead of the heating curve. Rather than the house starting to cool at say midnight, it won't start to cool until four am. That way your waking temp is higher and restarting the fire is easier.

 

[vixster]

We load her up if the living room is not above 68-70. The heat goes to the 2nd floor, however, we like it cool in the bedroom..We have plaster walls and they hold the heat real nice. As someone else mentioned above and I agree, my morning ritual is get the coffee, start a fire, then space out. hummmmm so good.

 

[jophysx]

I'm an overnight burner primarily. I heat with a heat pump. I let the heat pump run during the day when the temp is usually in the 40's or 50's and it is better than 100% efficient. Then I run the insert at night when temps are below 40 and the heat pump efficiency drops. This fits in better with my work schedule too. On the weekends I'll usually burn round the clock.

 

[bholler]

it is better than 100% efficient.

how can it be better than 100% efficient?

 

[Old School]

I burn 24/7 in my stove in the living room. Also do overnight burns in basement stove when temps are extra cold. I don't mind cutting more wood, but hate writing checks to power company.

 

[Warm_in_NH]

how can it be better than 100% efficient?

Perpetual motion must have been discovered.

 

[klxrelic]

for me, its a case by case scenario. If it isn't really cold out at night, and the house is really toasty, I'll let the fire go out and restart in the morning.

If its a cold windy night and it is just on the low end of being comfy....I will do an overnight burn.

Whether I have enough wood or not, I will conserve wood where possible. No point in burning wood, only to have to open windows to be comfortable.

As for restarting in the morning, sometimes I find it simpler to restart fresh with no coals, rather than trying to get the fire started on a few coals.

I love the top down start....

 

[TheRambler]

how can it be better than 100% efficient?

Heat pumps can FAR exceed 100% efficiency.
Heat pumps arnt creating heat, they are moving it.

You pass 100% once they are putting out more heat than the electricity it takes to run them.

The science if you really feel like reading: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/06/heat-pumps-work-miracles/

 

[begreen]

how can it be better than 100% efficient?

It delivers more heat than the electricity it uses by scavenging heat from the air. This is compared to a resistance heater that would be 100% efficient. It is moving heat from outside to inside.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/06/heat-pumps-work-miracles/

 

[pyroboy]

how can it be better than 100% efficient?

You would really be blown away by the efficiency of a vertical well geothermal heat pump then!!

 

[nola mike]

If you don't have a problem getting your temps up in the am, then let the fire go out.

 

[mass_burner]

I restart every morning, burn till about 11-12am. Now with oil so low, I tuned the nest to help me 1/2 hour before I wake up.

We have a long, wide, low ranch and heat doesn't travel well horizontally through thresholds.

 

[firefighterjake]

When I am burning 24/7 I pretty much load the stove up as I always do (although I might select a few of the larger splits or rounds for the overnight), get the stove set and burning and then go to bed . . . to wake up 6-8 hours later to small coals and a house that is typically starting to cool down. I reload and get the fire going again before heading to work.

While the bedrooms upstairs and the master bedroom on the first floor are a bit cooler typically anyways and I will not truly relish all of that heat (vs. being in the room with the stove), it keeps the oil boiler from turning on which saves me money and I find it easier (time wise) to get the fire going again with a reload than building it up from a cold start.

 

[droppinloads]

When I am burning 24/7 I pretty much load the stove up as I always do (although I might select a few of the larger splits or rounds for the overnight), get the stove set and burning and then go to bed . . . to wake up 6-8 hours later to small coals and a house that is typically starting to cool down. I reload and get the fire going again before heading to work.

While the bedrooms upstairs and the master bedroom on the first floor are a bit cooler typically anyways and I will not truly relish all of that heat (vs. being in the room with the stove), it keeps the oil boiler from turning on which saves me money and I find it easier (time wise) to get the fire going again with a reload than building it up from a cold start.

^exactly my routine. I burn overnight so the oil burner doesn't kick on for the downstairs when i don't really need it. It may kick on for my upstairs zone, but we like to sleep with it pretty chilly, so between the warm stove air drifting upstairs & the low thermostat setting, the oil doesn't get used up too much. It's a much bigger deal when oil was $4/gal.

 

[hamslam42]

We like it on the colder side to sleep, so I don't feel the need to keep the house as warm at night as we keep it during the day. We also have gas furnace so even if it does kick in it isn't a big deal. When we have the fireplace insert running, I set the thermostat to 60 so it doesn't kick in unless the stove really dies down...and it has to be pretty cold outside for that to happen. When calling it a night, I have two primary goals: 1) try to make it until morning so the furnace doesn't kick on and 2) have enough of a coal bed so I can get easily get things started in the morning. If the stove fan is still on in the morning that is a plus...but not a requirement. I might have to add a little bit of wood before going to bed, but often I just let it ride and I'm still good in the morning...thermostat temp may be in the low 60s (thermostat is not in the living room where the insert is...it is probably in the coldest room in the house), living room temp may be 62 - 66, but I reload and and add some kindling and usually it takes off pretty quick.

 

[fatjay]

I burn 24/7 when it's cool enough, as my stove is my primary heat source. The thermostat for the oil burner is set at 62. The stove keeps burning to prevent the furnace from kicking on, but if something happens, the furnace is there for back-up. The extra wood for the over-night burn is considerably cheaper than the oil required to heat the house overnight. Also makes those bitter cold mornings more tolerable once I make my way down to the kitchen in the morning.

 

[Jearley35purdue]

I'm an overnight burner primarily. I heat with a heat pump. I let the heat pump run during the day when the temp is usually in the 40's or 50's and it is better than 100% efficient. Then I run the insert at night when temps are below 40 and the heat pump efficiency drops. This fits in better with my work schedule too. On the weekends I'll usually burn round the clock.

Same schedule here. Last year I tried burning 24/7 even during the week and realized what a pain it was. I like this set up, especially if you are ok with just supplementing your heat pump and not trying to go 100% wood heat.

 

[CentralVAWoodHeat]

We like it on the colder side to sleep, so I don't feel the need to keep the house as warm at night as we keep it during the day. We also have gas furnace so even if it does kick in it isn't a big deal. When we have the fireplace insert running, I set the thermostat to 60 so it doesn't kick in unless the stove really dies down...and it has to be pretty cold outside for that to happen. When calling it a night, I have two primary goals: 1) try to make it until morning so the furnace doesn't kick on and 2) have enough of a coal bed so I can get easily get things started in the morning. If the stove fan is still on in the morning that is a plus...but not a requirement. I might have to add a little bit of wood before going to bed, but often I just let it ride and I'm still good in the morning...thermostat temp may be in the low 60s (thermostat is not in the living room where the insert is...it is probably in the coldest room in the house), living room temp may be 62 - 66, but I reload and and add some kindling and usually it takes off pretty quick.

This is my routine exactly. We have a gas heating system powered by a 500 gallon propane tank buried out back. My goal each year is to use less than half of that as supplementary morning or 'lazy' heat as I call it.

 

[Cburke]

I burn 24/7 I find my wood burns/ starts much easier with a warm stove in the am than a cold start. Just my two cents

 

[Smoked]

Takes the stone a while to warm up so might as well keep it hot as long as the weather is cool enough. I have a very old boiler so nearly free wood is better than paying the gas company any more than I need to. Even with a great heat pump, I would burn as long as I can scrounge enough free firewood. Labor is not free but why pay for a gym membership when you an CSS for your exercise

 

[Ashful]

So I have what I think is a basic question about starting the stove in the morning. Do most/all of you just pack it up the night before and do an overnight burn just to keep it warm and make it easy to start back up in the morning? Our stove is on the bottom floor and how our house is laid out, we don't really feel the heat overnight upstairs. Am I crazy for not doing an overnight burn and starting from scratch each morning or am I missing something here? It seems like I could have some coals, but it would be a "waste" of a full stove for that pleasure. Just trying to get an idea on how the pro's here do it.

Thanks!

I didn't read all of the replies, but will put down a few generalities that may have already been hit:

1. Most of us are trying to heat all or much of our house with a space heater. This typically only works when you keep it going 24/7. Like most here, I was amazed at how well this space heater can keep far-removed rooms warm enough, when it's running 24/7. When we let it go out, and the space begins to cool, the stove does not have the horsepower to heat up even the immediately adjacent rooms. Additionally, it seems the airflow / currents that kept heat moving to more removed rooms stalls out when the stove goes cold, and can take a while (like half a day) to really re-establish.

2. How much do you really need to pack in your stove to achieve an overnight burn? If you can't get at least 12 hours from a full firebox, you may want to consider a different stove. We're running two stoves, one on 12-hour cycles (high heat demand) and another on 24-hour cycles (lower heat demand). We could easily get 36 hour burn times out of both, if run on their lowest settings, but we just choose a setting and loading schedule that fits our work/home schedule.

3. Everyone's schedule is different, but I don't have time for a cold start in the morning. If for some reason I let the stove go cold overnight, I just leave it for the following evening. It's nice to come down to a warm stove full of coals, and be able to just load a few fresh splits, and get it dialed back before heading to work.

4. You're not wasting wood by loading it before bed, as running that stove overnight will ensure you're burning less oil in the AM to get the house back up to temperature.