With these cold temps folks are running humidifiers and furnaces along with their stoves.How would folks cope if the power goes down?Would the stove be enough to keep you warm ?
I'm curious
- Thread starter Rich L
- Start date
-
Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.
We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.
We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil. -
Super Cedar firestarters 30% discount Use code Hearth2024 Click here
There is no one answer. It depends entirely on the setup. People have all sorts of different sizes of stoves in all sorts of locations and many different house styles. The stove is primarily an area heater so some just stay in the area where the stove is located. Others have houses that are well insulated and a centrally located stove that does a pretty good job of keeping the living area warm.
sprawlnstall
Burning Hunk
We have only cycled our central heat twice this season. Both times because we let the stove burn down. It is located in the basement and has no blower. It heats the whole house by convection, no power needed.
Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk
jetsam
Minister of Fire
albrown60
New Member
I am in a area were the power goes off often, most of the people have a generator for lights and essential appliances . When the power goes off, it could be for several days and we all experienced long period of outage. Yes , the stove will be enough to keep us warm. Always have a large supply of wood, in case.
mark cline
Minister of Fire
Now that's what I'm talking about.Surviving well when the power is out. What type of stove are you using ?
kennyp2339
Minister of Fire
Today is one of those very few and far between days were the temps dipped close to double digit below zero, -9 here this morning. The stove ran with the blower on high, inside upstairs was 64deg f, warmer in the kitchen and living room because they are closer to the stairs were the heat comes up, in any event when i woke up a circulated my base boards for about 15min and will do it again before bed tonight.
If the power goes off I would just sleep in the living room or possibly the basement (but that might be to warm) I do have a decent convective loop without the assistance of a blower.
If the power goes off I would just sleep in the living room or possibly the basement (but that might be to warm) I do have a decent convective loop without the assistance of a blower.
In some house setups with an open floor plan and a centrally located stove, the core of the house stays heated well by convection, even without the blower running. We only use the blower on our stove for quicker warmup and when it's very cold out. The blower is helpful for distributing the heat, but it is not necessary in some installations. The opposite case would be in a house with closed off rooms. In that case the stove is going to heat just the area it's in.
sprawlnstall
Burning Hunk
This old thing, I can't find anything on the Internet about it. I know it holds a lot of wood and the firebrick in the bottom holds coals for days.
![[Hearth.com] I'm curious](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/239/239786-ceb93a0c04298232ffb7c578c8af846d.jpg?hash=ezNcEGuMd0 "[Hearth.com] I'm curious")
![[Hearth.com] I'm curious](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/239/239787-02bb98011154bccd1ec08c897c23a895.jpg?hash=2rLXFU_6yC "[Hearth.com] I'm curious")
Last edited by a moderator:
albrown60
New Member
I am running a Regency insert model I2400M. I get 8 hours of heat with a full load, after that time, fan shuts off and I rake the ashes and start another fire. I keep the first floor 1200 s.f at 72 F and bedrooms upstairs, heat going up through the staircase, at probably 68 to 70, I never checked. It is a good set up.
jetsam
Minister of Fire
With a freestanding stove, who cares, really. You'll get pretty good results unless it's in an uninsulated masonry alcove or something goofy like that. If your house is a difficult layout and you rely on a floor fan to get cold air out of the far end, that could be an issue.
With an insert... the PI keeps my house at 70+ down to about 25 degrees with just a TEGfan (no external power required). Lower than that and the blower is really nice. The Princess Insert is not flush- the stove sticks out about 8"- so it does much better than I had expected without a fan.
Obviously there are a lot of things that would make any stove seem better or worse in the same weather.... house size, house layout, insulation levels, leak plugging, number and quality of windows and doors, ceiling height, etc etc.
Last edited:
Sawset
Minister of Fire
Our house is situated at an angle to true north, with windows on the south-south-west wall. In the winter time there is a lot of solar insolation coming in. We use the house here as a kind of heat sink, and use the stove to top it off. After lighting the stove, the house at night warms a bit, then starts a long slow steady decline into the 60s till morning. It's right in the middle of our most used areas, kitchen, sunroom, living room, so that cool temps are turned around quickly. We don't need warm temps at night, otherwise the down comforters start getting kicked off and we're looking for ways to cool off. So if the power went out for any length of time, heat would not be an issue. We generally don't use the LP furnace unless there are people over. Usually we are cooking then with the oven on, and combined with the sun coming in, things can start to get out of control. If the power were out then, the normal family gathering things would change to that of being around the stove and figuring out how to cook in other ways. We have relatives living in Watertown NY. A generator is a must have there, because of the lake effect ice storms that they get. Here in the midwest, 3 days is all I've ever seen for power outages. The stove would easily keep up with the heat demand. Size - a very rough rule of thumb for sizing a wood stove could be 1cuft for every 1000sqft floor space. We are at 2cuft and 2000sqft. It works well in temps from 50f to -40f with no supplemental heat needed. The stove is a simple stand alone tube type. No fans or other things that would need power. Humidity would come from a kettle on the stove instead of the house humidifier if need be, but there again we haven't run into enough of a need to do that.
In the past, my stove alone, was able to heat the cabin at -15. I haven't found it's limit. All depends on your insulation and windows. I'm not there now, and temps at around -20. My concern is can the small amount of electric heat keep the place at 45. It has in the past but not this cold.
Could I survive? Yeah.... unfortunately for me Id have some frozen pipes since my stove is on the mid floor of a modified split level of a 3600 sqft house. I screwed up yesterday and forgot to turn the electric on in some bedrooms we dont use often and I had a pipe freeze up on me and cause a little water damage on my one ceiling. It was -6 last night. The whole reason I got a stove was because I cant afford the electric and last year we lost power in the winter and it was 25 degrees in our house. It was hard to sleep and we had to bring our pets to my parents house
We’ve had -50 already and with just the stove the house was warm so no worries there. I did have a wireless thermostat to kick on the blowers at night when needed but if we didn’t have power I would just turn up the thermostat on the stove. Most of the time we don’t use the blowers anyway.
It looks like you'd be just fine if the power is out for a while.I don't know if Miami can match your house temps at this time of year.
Similar threads
