Currently -4 with -16 wind-chill here in the Northwoods. Going down to -19 with -27 wind-chill. Stratford II is loaded with 2 big old chunks of beech and some white ash from home (SE WI) and some cherry and black ash from up here. She's really ripping!
What Is In Your Stove Right Now?
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Over a foot. Inch of ice, then 2-4" of melted hardpack snow, then 8-12" of snow on top. Got the truck stuck when I got here Monday. Nothing like digging a vehicle out with the temp at 1 and wind-chill at -20... Slid off the side of the driveway backing the trailer up. Was watching the trailer and not the front end. Once it started going it just kept wanting to keep going in further. Lots of shoveling and 4L in reverse to get out (had disconnected and moved the trailer by hand 🙄).
I can't like that, the wood stove heat must've felt good when you came in or once you got the fire going.
Yeah, it was a once I got it going thing. I turn the thermostat down to 55 inside when I'm gone, but even 55 felt good. Fired it up and sat right in front of it. Took forever to warm the place up. I refuse to just turn the thermostat up to get to temp. As the fire warms things up I slowly increase the thermostat to help maintain.
Caw
Minister of Fire
Letting it rip all day on a steady diet of red maple. Trying to get ahead of the game for the cold snap tonight and maple is the perfect fuel. Low coals, hot fire. Plenty of bark saved up to burn down the coals. I'll switch back to red oak for the overnight fire.
Just loaded up some more ash, beech, and cherry. Feels like is -30 outside. It’s windy.
Same insert. I love mine too. Seems like a lot of heat for just a split or two every few hours.
Load of black cherry for the frigid windy night 15 outside and 75 inside.
Caw
Minister of Fire
Not enough. -10 outside and 64 inside even with the stove ripping hot. The back up heat will be on around 3 or 4 am. My stove isn't big enough to carry the load below 0. Thankfully that's rare weather for us only 5 to 10 days a year.
Some footage of the great secondary burn from last nights load
Stove Cricket
Member
Pushing 60*F the next three days (outside). Raven, my stove, has gone radio silent. Company leader to Raven, come in Raven.
Nice coals left this morning from last night's load of ash, cherry and beech. Have aspen and pine in now. Supposed to get up to 25 today. Going back down into the swamp today after more black ash. Just couldn't bring myself to do it yesterday with a high of 2...
A nice change temperature wise tonight, we have an outside temp of 12.7. The basement temp is starting out at 79, the sleeper is 66 and the rest is between 68 to 70.
I have the pellet stove going in one corner and the wood stove with eight splits of beech going in the other corner.
I have the pellet stove going in one corner and the wood stove with eight splits of beech going in the other corner.
Wow past few days were cold! Since I was home all the time, I adopted a "continuous feeding" fire after noticing it's always the front of stove that's completely burnt down while back of stove was coaling. I do this to prevent excess coaling and shift my burn to biobricks more.
Starts with a full load each morning mostly oak and locust. By early afternoon (1~2pish) most of log at front are burnt up and back logs are still coaling... STT drops off to the mid-300s. So at this point I toss in 4, 5 biobricks without stirring up the coal. Bricks are super dry and lights up in an instant, and this flame helps light off the wood gas from coals behind as well (overall hotter fire) and gets my STT back to mid-400s. Throttle stays around 35%~50% range the whole time. I repeat the same steps early evening (5~6pish).
By 9, 10pm, the 2nd reload of bricks are mostly completely burn up, and most of the logs in the back of stove is also burnt up. I have a good thickness of coals left for full reload of splits to carry me to next morning.
When it was really cold in NE past few days, I had 2 full reloads per day + 2 small loads of bricks... ended up burning about a bag of bricks a day. At this rate I'll be out of biobricks by early/mid March - perfectly on schedule.
Starts with a full load each morning mostly oak and locust. By early afternoon (1~2pish) most of log at front are burnt up and back logs are still coaling... STT drops off to the mid-300s. So at this point I toss in 4, 5 biobricks without stirring up the coal. Bricks are super dry and lights up in an instant, and this flame helps light off the wood gas from coals behind as well (overall hotter fire) and gets my STT back to mid-400s. Throttle stays around 35%~50% range the whole time. I repeat the same steps early evening (5~6pish).
By 9, 10pm, the 2nd reload of bricks are mostly completely burn up, and most of the logs in the back of stove is also burnt up. I have a good thickness of coals left for full reload of splits to carry me to next morning.
When it was really cold in NE past few days, I had 2 full reloads per day + 2 small loads of bricks... ended up burning about a bag of bricks a day. At this rate I'll be out of biobricks by early/mid March - perfectly on schedule.
ArtBaldoni
Member
20f this morning. 70 in the house (that's what the thermostat is set at). 175f boiler water temp. Supposed to be 40f today so just a load of some deadfall I cut up yesterday and a couple of pieces of elm off the stack. No coal today.
I actually have the stove version not the insert. Got the leg option on mine. I agree does not need a lot of fuel to heat up the house nicely. I’m surprised that I’m not going through the wood I thought I’d be.
We had -12 Friday night and the Vista had no problem heating my 1,900 sq ft cape. Mix of oak cherry ash and maple. Let the stove go out since was concerned about my forced hot water pipes so ran the main heat which is natural gas. Many pipes are wrapped per code but stilled concerned since wind chill was extreme. Better be safe than really sorry.
We had 25.3 this morning, the basement temp was 82, the sleeper was 69 and the other rooms I keep track of were 71 & 72.
I shut the P.S. off, took the ashes out of the wood stove and started a fire off of some nice coals.
I shut the P.S. off, took the ashes out of the wood stove and started a fire off of some nice coals.
Just got out of the swamp and starting a mid size load of aspen & pine so I can load for the overnight with hardwood later.
