Mostly just to say thanks for everyone posting on here. I've learned a lot from you all.
In November, when the first real cold of the season hit, every 4 hours I was loading the furnace up. Wake up, load it up (and I mean to the gills). 4 hours later, load it up. Kept the house at 74 (the temp of choice by the fam) but produced tons of ash, creosote, back aches, crabbiness from lack of sleep, ...
Now it is 12 outside, I have 3 fairly small pieces of wood burning on a couple inches bed of coals, and the house is 74. The old habit of adding too much wood wants to kick in, I walk out to the furnace, see the air supply fan is not even running, the stove pipe is 300, the furnace is 550 or so, and keep having to remind myself, don't put more wood in, it's working fine.
I went through over 4 cords this winter, good thing I have some left, but I bet I burned at least twice as much as I needed to in October, November and maybe December. More is not alway better. It gets stuffed to the gills once a day now, at 10 or 10:30, I blacken the wood, turn the thermostat down to 70, and then when I get up at 5:30, it will have 3 or 4 inches of coals left.
Also, I had a lot of trash wood, stuff that has been seasoning or laying around dead on the property for years. It is great wood for October, and I guess is will be great for late Feb and March, but I should of been using the good stuff, hedge, oak, locust, a few other hardwoods every time it got under freezing, what was I waitiing for?
How many of us new burners write - "going through too much wood", or "not enough heat" or "too much creosote" or "not long enough burn times"? Thank you all for your help and insight when we ask.
Now I can go load it up to the gills and go to bed. :cheese:
In November, when the first real cold of the season hit, every 4 hours I was loading the furnace up. Wake up, load it up (and I mean to the gills). 4 hours later, load it up. Kept the house at 74 (the temp of choice by the fam) but produced tons of ash, creosote, back aches, crabbiness from lack of sleep, ...
Now it is 12 outside, I have 3 fairly small pieces of wood burning on a couple inches bed of coals, and the house is 74. The old habit of adding too much wood wants to kick in, I walk out to the furnace, see the air supply fan is not even running, the stove pipe is 300, the furnace is 550 or so, and keep having to remind myself, don't put more wood in, it's working fine.
I went through over 4 cords this winter, good thing I have some left, but I bet I burned at least twice as much as I needed to in October, November and maybe December. More is not alway better. It gets stuffed to the gills once a day now, at 10 or 10:30, I blacken the wood, turn the thermostat down to 70, and then when I get up at 5:30, it will have 3 or 4 inches of coals left.
Also, I had a lot of trash wood, stuff that has been seasoning or laying around dead on the property for years. It is great wood for October, and I guess is will be great for late Feb and March, but I should of been using the good stuff, hedge, oak, locust, a few other hardwoods every time it got under freezing, what was I waitiing for?
How many of us new burners write - "going through too much wood", or "not enough heat" or "too much creosote" or "not long enough burn times"? Thank you all for your help and insight when we ask.
Now I can go load it up to the gills and go to bed. :cheese: