Wuuf! -16* here

[heaterman]

But all is good. Boiler sitting at 170* running at 71% output and the house never moves from 70. Gotta love it.
Ate about three bags of pellets in the last 24 hours though. Thankful there's no wind .
Probably have a "few" service calls today......
Wife just called on her way to work and said the car thermometer just hit -20 about 4 miles from here.

 

[stee6043]

A balmy -4 a bit to your south. But at least we're going to have some sun today!

 

[NNYorker]

-10 and sunny, finally a break from the snow.........Bumped the setpoint up to 180* last night.

 

[velvetfoot]

Brrrr. Zero here. 172F/72% here too. Took a while to come back from the setback. In my terms, definitely 15KW weather.

 

[woodsmaster]

heat wave here at 2 F. nice and toasty in the house though. Calling for -6 tonight. Suppose I should bring some wood into the boiler shed since I used the last I had inside this morning...

 

[GENECOP]

Nice and warm here on Long island....21Deg..

 

[Woodfarmer1]

-12 here, the winds have finally stopped and the sun is out. Garn is loaded with some heavy sugar maple.

 

[Fred61]

Like summer here. At 5:30 it was 5 degrees and at 7:00 it was 1 degree. Awfully nice when you have the heating system and house insulation near perfectly set up. Usually just before rising you can get a little indication of zero or near zero temperatures by a little chill in the room or a roaring oil gun working overtime. The only indication I have since I don't have clicking baseboard or boiler noise is the sound of my composite deck boards talking as they shrink which echoes throughout the house. No wood fire over night and I'm confident enough now with 6 years with the EKO that I don't even check the temperature of the storage in the morning. Boiler fire will commence at 4:00 PM regardless of the temperature. The radiant is silent.

One morning last week when it was -14 and I was sitting here enjoying my morning coffee my wife told me I was looking pretty smug.

Tomorrow it's our turn for a cold morning.

 

[maple1]

My routine has evolved to where I usually build the next fire before I have breakfast, but don't light it. Maybe give the tubes a brush if it's been a while. Then that afternoon when I seem to be busier it's just a matter of going down & sparking it up with the torch, stage a bit more wood while the fire builds a bit, then close the bypass and it's off to the races. Couple minutes and I'm gassing. I'll glance at storage temps when I'm building it, but don't go down to light until about the same time as Fred does - or maybe a bit earlier if I feel like the house is losing temp.

Anybody elses house make like a shotgun at times when a real cold spell hits? I must have a bit of moisture getting in the walls somewhere & setting up that noise. Bang.

 

[Woodfarmer1]

i have a timberframe, that sounds like a cannon some nights

 

[Fred61]

My routine has evolved to where I usually build the next fire before I have breakfast, but don't light it

That wouldn't work for me. I usually shut it down with a substantial amount of charcoal left. The next afternoon when I rake the coals over he nozzle there are still live coals and would ignite my new fuel. I wouldn't be unusual after positioning the coals, adding the wood and raking the ash from the lower chamber to see the coals are glowing so I just close her up, start the fan, pull the bypass and walk away.

 

[maple1]

That wouldn't work for me. I usually shut it down with a substantial amount of charcoal left. The next afternoon when I rake the coals over he nozzle there are still live coals and would ignite my new fuel. I wouldn't be unusual after positioning the coals, adding the wood and raking the ash from the lower chamber to see the coals are glowing so I just close her up, start the fan, pull the bypass and walk away.

Mine burns completely out - I'm starting from scratch every day. Might be the odd coal left or the odd one in the secondary chamber but they're long dead. Sometimes even if I forget to reload just by a couple hours, I'll have to re-light with the torch.

 

[Woodfarmer1]

The Garn Jr. burns full out for two hours, if i dont need to rake and throw some wood on, forget it, its out. With this cold snap, im trying to keep the temp in the boiler up to 190 so im relighting at least every 8 hours from 150 or so.

 

[Karl_northwind]

we hit -20F this morning. good thing it was inside work today.

k

 

[jebatty]

Eight of the last 13 nights have had low's of -10 to -20F. I spent several of the following mornings verifying that the anti-freeze circulation controller settings on DP's 300 evacuated tube hot water system was doing its job. And it was, although tweaked it a little. Most of the following days had clear skies. Amazing to ordinary thinking, as soon as the sun cleared the trees the tubes heated rapidly, and by 10-11am the system was producing 160F water even though the tubes were fully frost covered. The system has anti-freeze good to about -18F, but the freeze protection adds heat as needed to insure that the system is maintained between 0 and +4F minimum temperature.

The really cold nights/days haven't come yet (-30F and lower), and maybe Nature will spare us this year.

 

[TCaldwell]

I uaslly light first fire at 5:15 am,load wood based on 180 finish temp minus average garn tank temp * 3lbs wood/ degree diff plus a few to compensate for the load while firing. In this weather with fin tube, I'll refire about 5 pm. The garn model 1900 holds 1958 gal, and takes approx 15896 btu to raise tank 1 degree. Depending on wood and other conditions it can vary from 2.6 to 3.6.

 

[woodsmaster]

That wouldn't work for me. I usually shut it down with a substantial amount of charcoal left. The next afternoon when I rake the coals over he nozzle there are still live coals and would ignite my new fuel. I wouldn't be unusual after positioning the coals, adding the wood and raking the ash from the lower chamber to see the coals are glowing so I just close her up, start the fan, pull the bypass and walk away.

I also time mine to shut off with some coals left. Saves on kindling. I just reset the timer, throw some wood in and good to go.

 

[BoilerMan]

It was warmer for us today with only -16F this morning. Much nicer than yesterday at -22F. People were complaining all morning, I was working in a school bus garage with 25,000 square feet of radiant slab heated with oil and two waste oil ceiling hung furnaces. Needless to say it was not cold in there.

TS