What is it about wood heat?

[chutes]

So, not even maximizing the insert today, due to being in and out much of the day, but still have a reading in the fire room of high 70Fs. It is in the 20Fs outside, though with the wind it feels much cooler. Anyway, the great room where the family spends most of the time is on the opposite side of house from the fire and thermostat reads 60F. But, I am walking around in shorts and a T-shirt, as are my 3 sons.

Now, experience tells me that if I was not burning wood, and instead set my thermostats to 60F and just used oil/baseboard heat, I would be cold. There would be a distinctive "chill" to the house. But, for some reason the "feeling" of 60F is much more the cool summer day when shorts and T-shirt are fine, vs. last year when 60F on the thermometers would have everyone wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts.

Am I just hopelessly optimistic or is there a distinct different feeling of wood heat vs. baseboard heat? All I know is that, even at 60F I feel VERY comfortable this evening. Enjoying an ice cold Bass Ale as well. I would blame my mind and assume that I'm just so enthusiastic about the stove that I'm tricking myself into feeling this way, but that wouldn't explain why my 8 year old son was walking around without a shirt on (he's in bed now, as it is past 9 here in New England). We can't all be going crazy, can we?

Thoughts on the difference from wood heat vs. oil/baseboard and why 60F would feel more comfortable to me this year vs. last year?

 

[begreen]

Do you have an accurate portable thermometer? What is the ambient temperature in the room (not the thermostat setting)?

Have you tried using a fan on the floor blowing the cold air from the great room to the warmer fireplace room? If not, try it with a table or box fan. The results might surprise and please you.

 

[bfunk13]

Wood heat seems to soak into you.

I work outdoors year round. Our winters are tough up here,
sometimes reaching -40. And the wind! Up to 60 mph.
When i get home at night i want to be warm. It seems to take forever to warm up
using furnace heat. I dont know what it is, but wood heat is so much more comfortable and heats you to the bone.

Brad

 

[chutes]

Do you have an accurate portable thermometer? What is the ambient temperature in the room (not the thermostat setting)?

Have you tried using a fan on the floor blowing the cold air from the great room to the warmer fireplace room? If not, try it with a table or box fan. The results might surprise and please you.

I don't have my thermometer set to any temperature. It reads 60F, but I've dialed it down all the way so that it won't even kick on. Haven't used it once yet this year. Only have turned on the upstairs zones by setting temp to 66F because haven't yet mastered the overnight burn. But that means that my upstairs zones kick in for a few hours per night. I wake up, turn them all off.

I couldn't be happier with my insert, by the way. My point is that even at 60F - which is only the result of my not keeping a good fire going through the day - the house is WAY more comfortable than if that same room had achieved 60F through baseboard heat. There is something different to the "quality" of the heat. I'm no physicist, but I have no complaints.

Yes, I've tried the floor fan. Will continue to experiment with different locations in order to find what works best. Thanks so much.

 

[fattyfat1]

I don't know what it is either, but I can tell you, myself and my two little boys are playing legos in front of our new BK princess, along with Wifey, MIL, dog and cat. You would never see that with baseboards or everyone huddled around a furnace vent :bug:

 

[chutes]

I dont know what it is, but wood heat is so much more comfortable and heats you to the bone.

Brad

Yeah. I'm there with you on that. I'm hoping I still feel that way when it is zero outside, but no complaints at all so far from a first year burner. Everyone loves it here. I have three boys, and it is so great to see them laying down in front of the insert reading books or drawing pictures, when just a couple of months ago you couldn't pry 'em away from sponge bob on tv. They are drawn to the fire, and it kind of makes them sit and do something productive. We even seem to spend more time together, all of us, because the stove has become a place where everyone sort of naturally relaxes together.

 

[chutes]

I don't know what it is either, but I can tell you, myself and my two little boys are playing legos in front of our new BK princess, along with Wifey, MIL, dog and cat. You would never see that with baseboards or everyone huddled around a furnace vent :bug:

HA! Hilarious. I just wrote something similar in my last response. Very true here too. Course, now my boys are sleeping and I'm sitting near the fire with a cold one....

 

[rphurley]

I certainly agree with you guys. I'm a newbie to wood burning this year and I spent a long cold day out in the yard today. As I was draining and refilling the hot-tub, it was also a wet, cold day. After a few minutes in front of my new insert i was warmed right to the core. Of course I had to share space with the cat in order to get a prime seat in front of the stove! Keep burning and keep enjoying!

 

[branchburner]

Part of it is that furnace heat kicks on to heat the air to a certain temp, then shuts off. As soon as the air starts cooling, your body feels the effects of its own heat loss - at 98.6, you are radiating heat to your surroundings: doors, windows walls, furniture. The colder it is outside the more you and everything in your house (and the house itself) lose heat to the outside, as heat always flows from warm to cold. In addition, the inside air is always stratified, with warmest air above your head out of useful reach, but coldest air chilling your ankles (very sensitive to temps).
With wood heat, you get not only the convective heat of warming the air, but the direct radiant heat from the stove. Those infrared rays are the same as those from the sun, so you will feel warmer even with cooler air temps. As your stove keeps cranking, it will warm any surrounding masonry (and other thermal mass in your house interior) and once that is warm enough then it will radiate heat as well.
My fire went out around 11 am today. It was around 35 F outside so I was going to keep it burning, but my huge brick hearth kept pumping out the stored heat all afternoon. Even as the air temp inside fell to 65 F, it felt so toasty I didn't re-build the fire until 6pm. Your indoor air temp only tells half the story!

 

[billb3]

Yeah, your body can be quite sensitive to the small (3-5) degree temperature swings of the baseboard heat cycles.

 

[begreen]

Do you have an accurate portable thermometer? What is the ambient temperature in the room (not the thermostat setting)?

Have you tried using a fan on the floor blowing the cold air from the great room to the warmer fireplace room? If not, try it with a table or box fan. The results might surprise and please you.

I don't have my thermometer set to any temperature. It reads 60F, but I've dialed it down all the way so that it won't even kick on. Haven't used it once yet this year. Only have turned on the upstairs zones by setting temp to 66F because haven't yet mastered the overnight burn. But that means that my upstairs zones kick in for a few hours per night. I wake up, turn them all off.

I couldn't be happier with my insert, by the way. My point is that even at 60F - which is only the result of my not keeping a good fire going through the day - the house is WAY more comfortable than if that same room had achieved 60F through baseboard heat. There is something different to the "quality" of the heat. I'm no physicist, but I have no complaints.

Yes, I've tried the floor fan. Will continue to experiment with different locations in order to find what works best. Thanks so much.

Thermometer, not thermostat. What is the temperature in the great room? Ah, never mind. Good that you are happy.

 

[chutes]

Thermometer, not thermostat. What is the temperature in the great room? Ah, never mind. Good that you are happy.

I'm sorry. I'm still learning my way around all these measurements. I have a round, thermostat. On the bottom, there is a range of numbers that measure F degrees. There is a little red line that shows the current temp in that room. Is that not a thermometer built into the thermostat? I've always read it that way (as if it measures ambient temp of room). If I've been mistaken all these many years, I would not be surprised.

On the top of the thermostat is another set of numbers. I can adjust the little red line. I put this on what I want the temp to be. Though, I've dialed this all the way down cause not using oil (yet) in the downstairs zones.

 

[begreen]

No problem, sounds like a standard Honeywell thermostat. If the temp says 60 and you're in shorts, you are hardier folk than us.

 

[chutes]

No problem, sounds like a standard Honeywell thermostat. If the temp says 60 and you're in shorts, you are hardier folk than us.

HAHAHA

I've read this forum pretty heavily. I'm NOT hardier than most guys here. I'm sort of a city guy who has a new insert and is in love with it. My outdoor experience is limited to my Lyme disease that I caught mowing the lawn! But, it did occur to me, that I'm spending lots of time in the 76F fire room and walking out to the 60F room (now 61F), so, I think i'm carrying that nice 76F around with me.

 

[Redox]

It's the RADIANT heat! There's nothing like the infrared energy given off by a 500 degree hunk of furniture in the same room as YOU.

Human physiological reaction to temperature, humidity and airflow all vary with age, sex and emotion. Old women get cold much faster than young men and children. I'm not trying to be sexist here; just trying to justify the kids standing at the bus stop in shorts when it's 25 degrees out while my wife is begging me to go start her car for her!

Humidity is even wierder. As soon as the humidity starts to climb in the spring, everybody is cranking on the AC, even though it's in the 70s. By the end of the summer, 80 feels good.

Just a humble observation.
Chris

 

[Bigg_Redd]

So, not even maximizing the insert today, due to being in and out much of the day, but still have a reading in the fire room of high 70Fs. It is in the 20Fs outside, though with the wind it feels much cooler. Anyway, the great room where the family spends most of the time is on the opposite side of house from the fire and thermostat reads 60F. But, I am walking around in shorts and a T-shirt, as are my 3 sons.

Now, experience tells me that if I was not burning wood, and instead set my thermostats to 60F and just used oil/baseboard heat, I would be cold. There would be a distinctive "chill" to the house. But, for some reason the "feeling" of 60F is much more the cool summer day when shorts and T-shirt are fine, vs. last year when 60F on the thermometers would have everyone wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts.

Am I just hopelessly optimistic or is there a distinct different feeling of wood heat vs. baseboard heat? All I know is that, even at 60F I feel VERY comfortable this evening. Enjoying an ice cold Bass Ale as well. I would blame my mind and assume that I'm just so enthusiastic about the stove that I'm tricking myself into feeling this way, but that wouldn't explain why my 8 year old son was walking around without a shirt on (he's in bed now, as it is past 9 here in New England). We can't all be going crazy, can we?

Thoughts on the difference from wood heat vs. oil/baseboard and why 60F would feel more comfortable to me this year vs. last year?

Not to me. To me heat is heat. I burn wood because it's free (and I'm cheap). If electricity were free I'd fire up the baseboards every day.

 

[gyrfalcon]

It's the RADIANT heat! There's nothing like the infrared energy given off by a 500 degree hunk of furniture in the same room as YOU.

Human physiological reaction to temperature, humidity and airflow all vary with age, sex and emotion. Old women get cold much faster than young men and children. I'm not trying to be sexist here; just trying to justify the kids standing at the bus stop in shorts when it's 25 degrees out while my wife is begging me to go start her car for her!

Humidity is even wierder. As soon as the humidity starts to climb in the spring, everybody is cranking on the AC, even though it's in the 70s. By the end of the summer, 80 feels good.

Just a humble observation.
Chris

Hey, Chris, not to get technical on ya or anything, but females are conditioned by a gazillion years of evolution to be super-sensitive to heat because of the need to keep the babies in the oven comfortable and the mother's body not stressed. Even though even the thinnest of us have an insulating layer of fat under the skin you guys don't have, the system is set up to freak out at temperature changes. It's kind of annoying to those of us who aren't carrying or past that age to still be so sensitive, but there it is. When you think about it, primitive pre-civilization men out there hunting mastodons didn't have the luxury, or the need, to be super-sensitive to temperature. So you guys are usually much more physically tolerant of temperature extremes. For some incredibly stupid reason, though, the female body thermostat usually goes broke after a certain age, too, so the tolerance is even narrower. Whatever, it gets incredibly tedious throwing off and putting back on layers of clothing every half hour or so. Just be grateful your body does't do that to you, and be nice to your wife. She's not being perverse, it's just the way her body is designed to work.

And you're so right, radiant heat is the best. Baseboard heat of any kind is nice because it hits your ankles first, but if I can't have a woodstove, give me those old-fashioned cast-iron radiators any day.

 

[gyrfalcon]

Chutes, ever notice, too, how 60 degrees in the middle of the day, particularly but not only if it's sunny, feels far, far warmer than 60 in the dark of night? Perception of heat is weird. Back in the days of oil heat, I used to think I couldn't function without at least 70 degrees, but trying to get through winter with my too-small stove, I've gotten used to lower temps, and now 64, 65 feels blissfully warm. If I get to feeling chilly, I go outside and split or haul wood for a while, and then coming inside again, it feels like a sauna at 65.

I think the body's thermostat rises to what's asked of it. If the temp is lower, the body cranks out the heat to compensate. If you're very warm, it stops down to compensate.

 

[otrip]

I wish I could figure it out myself.

Sitting around a fire is always comfortable weather it be a campfire when it's 90 outside or when the power goes out and it's 50 inside. As long as there's a fire everything’s fine.

63 and wood I'm warm.
66 and the furnace I'm cold.
75 and I'm freezing in the truck in winter.

There's just something about wood heat.

 

[Redox]

It's the RADIANT heat! There's nothing like the infrared energy given off by a 500 degree hunk of furniture in the same room as YOU.

Human physiological reaction to temperature, humidity and airflow all vary with age, sex and emotion. Old women get cold much faster than young men and children. I'm not trying to be sexist here; just trying to justify the kids standing at the bus stop in shorts when it's 25 degrees out while my wife is begging me to go start her car for her!

Humidity is even wierder. As soon as the humidity starts to climb in the spring, everybody is cranking on the AC, even though it's in the 70s. By the end of the summer, 80 feels good.

Just a humble observation.
Chris

Hey, Chris, not to get technical on ya or anything, but females are conditioned by a gazillion years of evolution to be super-sensitive to heat because of the need to keep the babies in the oven comfortable and the mother's body not stressed. Even though even the thinnest of us have an insulating layer of fat under the skin you guys don't have, the system is set up to freak out at temperature changes. It's kind of annoying to those of us who aren't carrying or past that age to still be so sensitive, but there it is. When you think about it, primitive pre-civilization men out there hunting mastodons didn't have the luxury, or the need, to be super-sensitive to temperature. So you guys are usually much more physically tolerant of temperature extremes. For some incredibly stupid reason, though, the female body thermostat usually goes broke after a certain age, too, so the tolerance is even narrower. Whatever, it gets incredibly tedious throwing off and putting back on layers of clothing every half hour or so. Just be grateful your body does't do that to you, and be nice to your wife. She's not being perverse, it's just the way her body is designed to work.

And you're so right, radiant heat is the best. Baseboard heat of any kind is nice because it hits your ankles first, but if I can't have a woodstove, give me those old-fashioned cast-iron radiators any day.

I KNEW there was a reason! I stopped arguing about temperature with women many years ago. My wife is always cold, but we haven't been through menopause yet...

Chris

 

[Backwoods Savage]

It's the RADIANT heat! There's nothing like the infrared energy given off by a 500 degree hunk of furniture in the same room as YOU.


Hey, Chris, not to get technical on ya or anything, but females are conditioned by a gazillion years of evolution to be super-sensitive to heat because of the need to keep the babies in the oven comfortable and the mother's body not stressed. Even though even the thinnest of us have an insulating layer of fat under the skin you guys don't have, the system is set up to freak out at temperature changes. It's kind of annoying to those of us who aren't carrying or past that age to still be so sensitive, but there it is. When you think about it, primitive pre-civilization men out there hunting mastodons didn't have the luxury, or the need, to be super-sensitive to temperature. So you guys are usually much more physically tolerant of temperature extremes. For some incredibly stupid reason, though, the female body thermostat usually goes broke after a certain age, too, so the tolerance is even narrower. Whatever, it gets incredibly tedious throwing off and putting back on layers of clothing every half hour or so. Just be grateful your body does't do that to you, and be nice to your wife. She's not being perverse, it's just the way her body is designed to work.

And you're so right, radiant heat is the best. Baseboard heat of any kind is nice because it hits your ankles first, but if I can't have a woodstove, give me those old-fashioned cast-iron radiators any day.

gyrfalcon, I hate to inform you of this, but I know plenty of us guys who also carry around a very heavy insulating layer of fat!!


I used to think maybe it was me because wood and coal heat was all I knew in my youth. Later I did learn it was the radiant heat and also those cycles of the oil furnace. It didn't take us long to go back to wood heat!

 

[Patapsco Mike]

But, it did occur to me, that I'm spending lots of time in the 76F fire room and walking out to the 60F room (now 61F), so, I think i'm carrying that nice 76F around with me.

I was going to chime in to say this... I think you have two things at work. First, that Honeywell is off. 60 is not comfortable for just about anyone wearing shots and a t-shirt. With those clothes 65 is OK for a few, 70 for most people, 60 isn't for anyone I've ever heard of. 60 is going to make your hands and feet cold pretty fast. Check that thermometer against a somewhat accurate portable and I would bet you $20 it's at least 5 degrees on the cool side and probably more.

Second, if you can pop into a 76 degree room once in a while it makes a huge difference as to being able to tolerate cooler temps in other rooms. This is both physical and psychological. 76 is about where I try to keep the room my stove is in, and that is cooking. No need to be close to the stove when the whole room is 76- in fact even the dog doesn't stay too close at that temp. She lays on the floor near the door out of the room.

 

[chutes]

But, it did occur to me, that I'm spending lots of time in the 76F fire room and walking out to the 60F room (now 61F), so, I think i'm carrying that nice 76F around with me.

I was going to chime in to say this... I think you have two things at work. First, that Honeywell is off. 60 is not comfortable for just about anyone wearing shots and a t-shirt. With those clothes 65 is OK for a few, 70 for most people, 60 isn't for anyone I've ever heard of. 60 is going to make your hands and feet cold pretty fast. Check that thermometer against a somewhat accurate portable and I would bet you $20 it's at least 5 degrees on the cool side and probably more.

Second, if you can pop into a 76 degree room once in a while it makes a huge difference as to being able to tolerate cooler temps in other rooms. This is both physical and psychological. 76 is about where I try to keep the room my stove is in, and that is cooking. No need to be close to the stove when the whole room is 76- in fact even the dog doesn't stay too close at that temp. She lays on the floor near the door out of the room.

I can't imagine what would make me want to go out and buy a portable thermometer. You may be entirely right. The reading on the Honeywell might very well be wrong, but it is still relative, right? I mean, if I had set that thermostat for 60F then it would have felt cooler to me than it does this year with the insert burning away on the other side of the house. Even if off by 5 degrees, that room would have been off by 5 degrees last year too.

I think that there is something to the radiant heat idea that others have posted about here. No doubt, wood heat has a different feel to me and so I can't complain at all. Very pleased.

Although, you're right too that bopping in and out of the stove room certainly helps to endure the cooler rooms of the house.

PS - if it is 60F in spring, summer, fall - then I'm in shorts inside and outside. Even in the high-50s I'm in shorts, though usually with a long sleeve shirt or hoodie. But, before moving to CT I lived the majority of my life in Fairbanks, AK.

 

[karri0n]

Warning - New Age Hokey(also a bit of old wisdom) content ahead!

With forced air heat, the temp difference from wood to furnace heat being explained by the difference in radiant to convective or reflective heat is pretty sound. However, Being in a 250 year old house myself, we have old cast iron radiators. Don't get much more "radiant heat" than that. The radiators definitely provide a nicer warmth than a home with forced air blowers for heat, but it's still not the same as the heat that a real wood fire gives off. I'm reminded of a quote that I found, either here or on woodheat.org. "Fire's the sun, unwindin' itself out o' the wood." There's no heat quite as penetrating as from the sun, and the only thing that seems to come close is the heat put off by a nice rip-roarin wood fire. I attribute this to the fact that then infrared energy isn't the only energy absorbed by the sunlight into the wood, but also the UV and light that the tree absorbs, as well as the multitudes of other immeasurable energy interactions that go on within the tree when it's living. When working with a petroleum based fuel, you are getting nothing other than chemical energy being released with the combustion process. There's just something more to it when you incorporate something that was once living. You could argue that sure, fossil fuels were once living, but the refinement process strips out everything from the fuel other than the pure volatile combustibles. I can't prove this with scientific data, but walk into a climate controlled city building at 70 degrees, then walk into a country home with a nice wood burner cranking in its heart that is also at 70 degrees, and you tell me which one is warmer.

 

[ScottF]

60 is not comfortable for just about anyone wearing shots and a t-shirt. With those clothes 65 is OK for a few, 70 for most people, 60 isn’t for anyone I’ve ever

This is not true for all. I am very comfortable in the middle of the winter at 60 with shorts and a tank top. As a matter of fact I sweat at this temperature if I move or work. I think body type may have a lot to do with it as I was always a gymast and have more muscle mass. At 65 I start to get too warm even in a tank and shorts.