Newbie Question - How long to heat house

[cpop]

Hi All,

This is my first year burning a Hampton 300 wood insert. Just wondering how long on average I should expect to wait to heat the house? Are you guys getting the house nice and hot after about 4 hours burn time or is this after burning consistently 24/7?

I have a 2000 sq/ ft center hall colonial. The house is very well insulated; built 20 years ago; new energy efficient windows. The insert is located in the family room and at the other end of this room is the stair way to go up and beyond that is a doorway into the living room. We normally start a fire at night after work to take the chill off the room and then will be burning continuosly over weekend from Friday morning to Monday morning. Originally I was thinking I could crank this thing and get house up to 75; but now understand that it is heating by convection and pushing the air around the house may not be able to acheive this kind of temp.

I put a thermometer on the top of the stove where the fan air comes out (you need a flashlight to see it in there, but only place I could think of to get accurate reading). I will wait to get er up to 600 or so, damper down and turn the fan on high. This morning is about 30 -35 outside. House 60 up and down. After about 4 hours the room the insert is in is about 68, the rest of the downstairs is 65. The upstairs is only 61. Is this normal?

I'm fairly certain the install is good. I can damper it down all the way, glass stays clear and can hardly see any smoke coming out of the chimney. My only concern is the installer did not put the block off plate in properly. From reading this forum, I made sure to request this be done, even though the dealer said it was not necessary and to just block it off at the top. I saw the guys bring in a plate, but then got busy with work and did not get to inspect it before they put the insert in. Think it is worth pulling out the insert to have this checked out or are my expectations to high and not a problem at all?

Any input you guys can provide is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Chris

 

[jpl1nh]

I think one of the challenges always with a single source heat unit such a wood, gas, or pellet stove, insert, etc, is distributing the ehat to all the places you'd like it. The advantage a furnace has is that there are heat outlets designe in each room. The biggest obstacle you face therefore is disributing the heat from the room the insert is in to the rest of the house. There are small circulating fans you can buy that mount in the upper corners of your doorway that will help, but there are just plain limits that you'll have in the heat distribution. From all I've read at this forum, a properly installed block off plate can help quite a bit. Also making sure that your wood is truly dry will make a substatial difference. If there is any hissing of the wood at all, then you're expending a fair amount of the woods potential heat energy just in evaporating water and you will have cooler, less effective fires. Not a lot you can do about that this year if that is the case but you can start as soon as possible to get next years' wood drying. While it's possible that your insert may not always completely heat your house even with you addressing these issues, it will reduce your fossil fuel bill by in incredible amount. Good Luck, hope this helps some

 

[DiscoInferno]

Your experience so far is probably reasonable. I'm heating very similar size and layout. I try not to let the temperature fall too much, because it does take a while to bring the whole thermal mass of the house up to temp; it's easier to keep it warm all the time. A wood stove has lower peak heat output vs. say a gas furnace, but makes up for that by putting out heat constantly. So you need to give it time to catch up. It takes time and some experimenting to learn how to best control the temp with a given house/stove combo. You'll find lots of such threads in the archives.

In terms of heat distribution, I find that when the stove is burning hot the temperature disparity between the stove room and upstairs is greatest, but when the stove cools (just coals, say) the heat tends to equalize. I typically have less than 5 degrees difference downstairs and up. Once the downstairs heats up the hot air pours up my stairwell while cold air from upstairs pours down. I think it helps that I have no headers between the stove room and the stairwell but I do have headers along any other path, acting like ductwork to channel the hot air upstairs.

Now, that said I do not have great insulation or windows, and heating the whole house up to an inside/outside temperature differential of say 50 degrees isn't a problem with my Ultima. Past 60 things get iffy. But single-digit weather here is rare.

 

[begreen]

Good advice. It takes a lot of time to heat up the total cu ftg of the house from 60 to 70 when it's cold outside. You might try keeping the house a few degrees warmer at night. The H300i only has a <2 cu ft box, so it will take a little longer. But once the house is up to temperature and stabilized, the Hampton should be able to maintain it, until it gets very cold. Then you might need to run it in conjunction with the furnace.

 

[WarmGuy]

Your experience is reasonable. If I don't turn on the ceiling and wall fans, I'll get a similar disparity. Even with the fans, I've got to get the living room up to 76 or warmer to get the upstairs to 67 or so.

But we like our bedroom cold, so that's fine with us.

We don't burn continuously. In the morning, it may be 61 degrees in the living room, but I start up the fire, and sit next to it with the laptop until the room is warm.

 

[iceman]

Good advice. It takes a lot of time to heat up the total cu ftg of the house from 60 to 70 when it's cold outside. You might try keeping the house a few degrees warmer at night. The H300i only has a <2 cu ft box, so it will take a little longer. But once the house is up to temperature and stabilized, the Hampton should be able to maintain it, until it gets very cold. Then you might need to run it in conjunction with the furnace.

so if he had a bigger stove it would take a lot less time
my stove dealer is trying to talk me out of the summit insert and into a pacific
because he says that my 2000 sq ft doesn't need a 3000 sq ft stove
i thought for the same reasons mentioned by the op i would go bigger not ft for ft

 

[cpop]

Thanks for all the input so far. I left out that I have been experimenting with cord wood that is 2 year seasoned and also have a ton of BioBricks. I've been getting similar results with both sources; so I think the wood is dry enough.

 

[iceman]

Thanks for all the input so far. I left out that I have been experimenting with cord wood that is 2 year seasoned and also have a ton of BioBricks. I've been getting similar results with both sources; so I think the wood is dry enough.

how do you burn the biobricks?
do you burn them with wood or by themselves
i have some of those presto logs and think they would be great for an overnight burn with a couple of splits

 

[shaggymatt]

I'm a newbie as well. I'd say it takes a couple of hours to raise the temperature a few degrees for me. I have a split level, with the wood stove insert in the basement which is half above and half below grade. There is another basement all the way below grade, so you can think of my house as being two levels just not right on top of each other. The nice thing for me is that my bedrooms are right above the room where the wood stove is. The floors are hardwood which get nice and warm which just radiates up into the rooms above.

I have my setback thermostat for my electric heat pump set to 67º in the morning, 65º in the day, and 69º in the evening into night. I usually have the house being heated entirely by wood to 72º by around 6:30pm, I get home from work around 4 and get the stove rolling again. It drops to 68º in the mornings, which is why I cut the temperature back on the heat pump. I haven't had the heat pump run for the last three days now. Lows have been in the 20's at night, with highs in the low 40's.

 

[cpop]

Iceman, I have tried burining the bio's a few different ways. I prefer to mix with the cord wood. If I pack my stove with Bio's I go through them way to quickly and they are expensive. I start my fire using bark and small kindling, then put a load of small splits in. Once I have a nice coal bed I will put in 2-3 Bio's and cord wood on top - leave damper open for about 10-15 minutes then close it so it is 1/4 open.

 

[treeman08]

This is the reason that I got a new insert and started burning 24/7.
With my old Fisher smoke dragon, it would be cold in the morning, and the far end of the house (were the wife spends her day) was always coldest. It would take all day burning to get that area warm. Then the next morning, we would start the battle all over again.
With the new Blaze King, the stove is usually still over 300 degrees in the morning, with room temps around 78 to 80. The living room on the far end of the house is still around 72 to 75, which keeps the wife happy.

 

[begreen]

Good advice. It takes a lot of time to heat up the total cu ftg of the house from 60 to 70 when it's cold outside. You might try keeping the house a few degrees warmer at night. The H300i only has a <2 cu ft box, so it will take a little longer. But once the house is up to temperature and stabilized, the Hampton should be able to maintain it, until it gets very cold. Then you might need to run it in conjunction with the furnace.

so if he had a bigger stove it would take a lot less time
my stove dealer is trying to talk me out of the summit insert and into a pacific
because he says that my 2000 sq ft doesn't need a 3000 sq ft stove
i thought for the same reasons mentioned by the op i would go bigger not ft for ft

Yes, a lot bigger box would heat up the space faster, though the problem remains the same as far as raising the house 10 degrees when it's really cold out. It takes time to heat up all the walls, furniture and air. In your case, if you are going for a 24/7 operation then the Summit makes more sense to me. This is what I would opt for as well. Not for the ability to bring the house up rapidly 10 degrees, but for the longer burn and reserves for the really cold weather.