Someone will undoubtedly say........there's already a thread about this, and I'm sure they'd probably be right. But I'll risk that, in order to take a fresh look at the subject of operating temperatures in wood stoves used for heating.
I'm a 52 year old grampa who spent many years in the woods, lighting campfires. In my backyard, on a river waterway, at campgrounds.......I consider myself to be a master at starting and maintaining OUTDOOR fires.
Over the years I've known many folks who had wood stoves in their homes, but didn't really get into any discussions about temperature unless someone was saying it was too hot, or were complaining about cold spots around the house.
This week, as a prelude to a major re-construction of our home, there will be the installation of an Avalon Rainier 90 in our living room, so I've been reading up, and watching lots of YouTube videos on the subject.
One thing I'm going to implement in particular, is the use of a magnetic temperature gauge, (which I presume gets mounted on the flue, at about eye level), because I happened to stumble on a video that mentioned the use of one, but didn't go into too much detail.
Before talking about the how and why of temperature monitoring, perhaps a bit about our intended use of the wood stove is in order, as that might have an affect on the responses I receive.
We had bought a new oil-burning, forced hot air furnace to replace our old one, about two years ago. It has been our only source of heat up til now. It works great and we keep it maintained.
Our desire for a wood stove was more about the snap, crackle, pop of the wood; the smell of the wood burning; the visually hypnotic effect. It was not our intention to turn the furnace off and make the wood stove the sole source of heat for our 1200 sq. ft. home.
That being said, the wood stove is being installed in our living room, on the main floor. It will no doubt feed the living room (kicking off the furnace thermostat which is located in there), the kitchen, the bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. We don't expect it to heat the family room nor the laundry room which are both located on a lower level, so we thought we might supplement the heat down there with space heaters.
I don't see us trying to maintain a fire in the wood stove "constantly," but we are not adverse to doing that, either. I think we have a "wait and see" attitude about it for now.
Considering our "part time" usage of a wood stove as described, does that have an affect on what temps we try to achieve in our burning times? What is the best range to operate a wood stove at, and why? How do you regulate the temperature? Are there time limits on how long you should or should not allow certain temperatures to be sustained?
We will be using only properly seasoned and dry hardwoods for our burns. Newspaper and Fatwood and smaller wood pieces are our kindling of choice for cranking up the fire.
Any specific advice is welcome ..........
Regards,
-Soupy1957
I'm a 52 year old grampa who spent many years in the woods, lighting campfires. In my backyard, on a river waterway, at campgrounds.......I consider myself to be a master at starting and maintaining OUTDOOR fires.
Over the years I've known many folks who had wood stoves in their homes, but didn't really get into any discussions about temperature unless someone was saying it was too hot, or were complaining about cold spots around the house.
This week, as a prelude to a major re-construction of our home, there will be the installation of an Avalon Rainier 90 in our living room, so I've been reading up, and watching lots of YouTube videos on the subject.
One thing I'm going to implement in particular, is the use of a magnetic temperature gauge, (which I presume gets mounted on the flue, at about eye level), because I happened to stumble on a video that mentioned the use of one, but didn't go into too much detail.
Before talking about the how and why of temperature monitoring, perhaps a bit about our intended use of the wood stove is in order, as that might have an affect on the responses I receive.
We had bought a new oil-burning, forced hot air furnace to replace our old one, about two years ago. It has been our only source of heat up til now. It works great and we keep it maintained.
Our desire for a wood stove was more about the snap, crackle, pop of the wood; the smell of the wood burning; the visually hypnotic effect. It was not our intention to turn the furnace off and make the wood stove the sole source of heat for our 1200 sq. ft. home.
That being said, the wood stove is being installed in our living room, on the main floor. It will no doubt feed the living room (kicking off the furnace thermostat which is located in there), the kitchen, the bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. We don't expect it to heat the family room nor the laundry room which are both located on a lower level, so we thought we might supplement the heat down there with space heaters.
I don't see us trying to maintain a fire in the wood stove "constantly," but we are not adverse to doing that, either. I think we have a "wait and see" attitude about it for now.
Considering our "part time" usage of a wood stove as described, does that have an affect on what temps we try to achieve in our burning times? What is the best range to operate a wood stove at, and why? How do you regulate the temperature? Are there time limits on how long you should or should not allow certain temperatures to be sustained?
We will be using only properly seasoned and dry hardwoods for our burns. Newspaper and Fatwood and smaller wood pieces are our kindling of choice for cranking up the fire.
Any specific advice is welcome ..........
Regards,
-Soupy1957
(excitedly runs upstairs to investigate)
