Good morning - this will be my second season owning a Yukon furnace. Do you have a certain outdoor temp guideline before you will start using your furnace?
What temperature is it before you fire up your furnace?
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brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
As a former Yukon owner, you have my sympathy's, 
hopefully it works out better for you than it did me.
As for the temp...I wait until its in the low 50s (or less) or so to do a cold start (chimney draft)and the house is down to the upper 60's...much less than that and there will be much squawking! If it is just a short term cold snap I will fire up the wood stove in the living room fireplace, that takes the chill off the house pretty well, but once the whole house cools down, it doesn't work as well being a "room heater" and all...
hopefully it works out better for you than it did me.As for the temp...I wait until its in the low 50s (or less) or so to do a cold start (chimney draft)and the house is down to the upper 60's...much less than that and there will be much squawking! If it is just a short term cold snap I will fire up the wood stove in the living room fireplace, that takes the chill off the house pretty well, but once the whole house cools down, it doesn't work as well being a "room heater" and all...
JRHAWK9
Minister of Fire
This should give you a good idea of when I light my first fire. For me it's based on nighttime outside temp related to inside house temp. If the house is into the 60's and the temps outside are going to drop much below 50 or so, I will probably light a fire.
- Morning, Afternoon and Night corresponds to the loading weight.
- Hi and Low corresponds to the daily high and low temp of the day, with CALC HDD is the calculated HDD's based on the low and high.
- LP Away is how many minutes the LP furnace ran, based on the minute timer I have on my LP furnace when it calls for heat.
You'll see below the LP furnace ran a total of 514 minutes before I decided to light my first fire of the year on October 17th. If I had the basement ready, I probably would have lit one a few days earlier than I did. The abnormally warm fall we had kind of lulled me to sleep.
![[Hearth.com] What temperature is it before you fire up your furnace?](https://www.hearth.com/talk/attachments/1634994426580-webp.283793/ "[Hearth.com] What temperature is it before you fire up your furnace?")
- Morning, Afternoon and Night corresponds to the loading weight.
- Hi and Low corresponds to the daily high and low temp of the day, with CALC HDD is the calculated HDD's based on the low and high.
- LP Away is how many minutes the LP furnace ran, based on the minute timer I have on my LP furnace when it calls for heat.
You'll see below the LP furnace ran a total of 514 minutes before I decided to light my first fire of the year on October 17th. If I had the basement ready, I probably would have lit one a few days earlier than I did. The abnormally warm fall we had kind of lulled me to sleep.
As a former Yukon owner, you have my sympathy's,
As for the temp...I wait until its in the low 50s (or less) or so to do a cold start (chimney draft)and the house is down to the upper 60's...much less than that and there will be much squawking! If it is just a short term cold snap I will fire up the wood stove in the living room fireplace, that takes the chill off the house pretty well, but once the whole house cools down, it doesn't work as well being a "room heater" and all...
Thank you! I will hopefully be switching out for a Kumma next yr. Feel like it is bad juju to replace something that is working “fine”.
JRHAWK9
Minister of Fire
I just use a cheap platform scale that I have a HD bin sitting on right between the wood rack and the furnace. I put the wood from the rack into the bin and then slide the bin over to the furnace to load.
here's an older photo:
![[Hearth.com] What temperature is it before you fire up your furnace?](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/283/283836-481e2b23dea1546dc652d8cb6c0c1031.jpg?hash=kQNTojGlW4 "[Hearth.com] What temperature is it before you fire up your furnace?")
sloeffle
Minister of Fire
I generally start burning in December, or when temps are consistently in the 30's. My house gets too hot if I run the wood furnace at higher temps. If I had a Kuuma or HC that provided consistent heat across the whole burn I probably could burn when temps are a little higher. I have a Caddy and you tend to get a lot of heat at the beginning of a load.
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
Just so everybody is clear, the Kuuma and the HC still make the most heat early on in the load...similar to your Caddy...they don't do "low n slow" like a cat stove will...they just keep the fire maximized (burning clean) for the "load" that the computer is seeing (via the controller:Kuuma, or the t-stat:HC)
Gasifier
Minister of Fire
I use to start burning in September for domestic hot water. Just bring the boiler and buffer tank up to temp and let it go out. But I now wait until we begin getting temperatures in the low 40s and high 30s every night. We are almost there now. I just did some maintenance to my gasification boiler and need to wait two days until the high temperature silicone cures all the way on the new door seal. Then the burning will begin on Wednesday. Hope you all have a great burning season.
sloeffle
Minister of Fire
Based off of your experience with multiple furnaces, you don't think the Kuuma does a better job of creating even heat through out the burn vs the T1 you had ? I'd say the T1 and Caddy are very similar on how they burn.
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
A little better, yeah...but still certainly "front loaded"...look at one of @JRHAWK9 s temp trend charts, you'll see what I mean...
I built a fire at 62 degrees lol. Did a small break-in fire. The house actually was comfortable due to the fan shutting off and the fire dropping to a low burn.
![[Hearth.com] What temperature is it before you fire up your furnace?](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/284/284063-eece07379cd8bae6eadd626ba32905f9.jpg?hash=pW11TR7mYh "[Hearth.com] What temperature is it before you fire up your furnace?")
JRHAWK9
Minister of Fire
All depends on how cold it is and how aggressive I want to load. I can keep my supply temps pretty consistent (for wood burning) when I have to. Mine is not typical though, due to my blower setup.
I agree though, in order to burn clean non-cat units must maintain a certain level of minimum burn in order to burn the gasses. Cat stoves pretty much smolder the fire and then rely on the cat to clean up the smoke and turn it into useable heat energy.
I saw the reply in my email and was wondering why you needed to do a break-in fire on your old unit. Thought you may just call the first fire of the year that. I then accessed the thread a couple hours later and saw the photo. Makes much more sense now!
Congrats! 
I saw the reply in my email and was wondering why you needed to do a break-in fire on your old unit. Thought you may just call the first fire of the year that. I then accessed the thread a couple hours later and saw the photo. Makes much more sense now!
Thanks! Looking forward to see what happens! I did go outside numerous times and nothing from the chimney. I turned down the thermostat to let the furnace cruise and worked perfectly. May get boring lol!
sloeffle
Minister of Fire
Laynes --looks like a nice set up for house heating and hot water. So its boring in time...lol
Those look really neat and found some pictures of them.. A lot of money here...clancey
(broken link removed)
Those look really neat and found some pictures of them.. A lot of money here...clancey
(broken link removed)
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I ended up with a Caddy Advanced with an ECM
blower.
Yeah, I installed an 80 gallon HPWH, a new LP furnace and added A/C also this year so I figured I would upgrade the woodfurnace. It will make it much easier for the kids to operate the wood furnace.
As soon as the girlfriend says she’s cold. So this year my first burn was around the end of September
JRHAWK9
Minister of Fire
If I used that as a gauge I'd be going from heat to AC back to heat back to AC.....all within a few hours! LOL The house can be 70° and she'll say she is cold one minute to then being too warm an hour later......when the house temp never moves.
Women have -BAD- HVAC systems!
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
Yes , I often run the heat and ac in the same week. Welcome to Ohio where the weather changes back and found
You people just have the wrong attitudes about important things and "us wonderful warm lovable creatures just love to stay warm and will of course "let the whole world know when we are cold"..and a happy house is a warm house especially in the real cold of winter..Our HVAC systems are just wonderful with good readings as well...a good temperature reading for me would be about 60 degrees..That heat feels amazing too and its such a relaxing feeling especially with a good cup of coffee in the morning and that starts our day off. Be kind to us wonderful better halves..now go make the fire larger--lol clancey
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