The snows gone, it's headed for close to 60 today, how do you fire?

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

For those of you with water heat storage, this is probably a piece of wedding cake. If you have no storage, like myself, how do you compensate for this crazy weather?

I find the worst wood I have, but that makes for more steam and tends to make the ash build up in the GW. I simply CANNOT bring myself to burn oak or hard maple on these kinda days

 

[Nofossil]

For those of you with water heat storage, this is probably a piece of wedding cake. If you have no storage, like myself, how do you compensate for this crazy weather?

I find the worst wood I have, but that makes for more steam and tends to make the ash build up in the GW. I simply CANNOT bring myself to burn oak or hard maple on these kinda days

Back in the days when I didn't have storage, I would wait as long as I could, then fire up the boiler. I still ran it wide open, but I wouldn't fill it as full. Generally it worked out to a small fire most days, with a few cold mornings. My boiler does not like to run any way but full speed ahead, though it can and does enter an 'idle' mode when there's no demand. Not as efficient, and it goes right back to full throttle as soon as there is a demand.

The indoor temperature fluctuations were what generated grassroots support for the tank concept. I'm not saying that I took advantage of this in any way....

 

[Corey]

I don't run a boiler, but I suppose the fire part is the same. For warmer days, I just use smaller splits of wood. It still makes a hot, clean fire, but I know it will be burning out fairly fast. Of course it is also a good time to get rid of the lower BTU wood. But I have found that the size of the splits controls the heat output as much or more so than the species of wood.

 

[Eric Johnson]

This morning I blocked off one of the nozzles and shut off its air supply. Then I fired it up with about a half a load of wood. It's pretty warm around here today, but damp and foggy. I'm expecting a big bed of coals and a very warm house when I get home tonight around 6:30.