Colder here. What's your temp? What ya burnin?

That's okay. It's good for the furnace to kick on every now and then.

 

Not when it is a 60% efficient 200K BTU propane powered $ eater.

 

If it's warm out no, if it's single digit cold and getting colder I load when the house temp drops a degree or two. It turns into a struggle warming the place up if I wait. I think the ST was around 370* on that reload. I've loaded on a coal bed up to the bottom of the door opening without trouble, it's a BK you can load with a silly hot coal bed turn the stove down and it acts no different one way or the other.

 

Bit of snow last night...-9 plus lots of wind. Most schools have late starts or cancelled because of the cold and wind chills. Fed the stove with mulberry before heading out for work.

 

It's Wednesday morning 8:27 am. 1/7/15 and it's 10F. out and 70F. in. Burning 2 splits of blue ash and one split of black locust after an overnight, 10 hour, burn of ash, hackberry and one split of black locust. I AM NOT, AND HAVE NOT BEEN, USING ANY PROPAINE!

 

It dropped from 13.4 to 3.9, Accuweather has a realfeel of -52 tonight and NOAA has the windhill at -42.

Just the Liberty going at the moment so the upstairs is at 71, I might kick the pellet stove on at noon.

 

I burned a bunch of ash and elm with a few random pieces of the last oak splits overnight. Both stoves reloaded at 730am with the basement at 75 and the main level at 65. Apparently the outside temp is cold enough to cancel school according to their policy, -40 with the windchill. I stretched the last load to 5 hours and still had plenty of coals left so I guess I can either turn up the air on the Answer a tad or get another half hour of sleep. We'll see how the kid's do with keeping them fired during the day today!

 

'Nuff said.
Forecast low of -4 last night and I awoke to -6 at 8 a.m., with the house at 67.
The only reason it was that warm is because I turned on the DV heater in the laundry room.
Opened up the air, got my coffee going, then did a reload of about 8 med-small splits of Oak. That was right after 8.
Still have nice secondaries and the house is back up to 72.3.....I still have the DV running. Just killed the air to zero (about 9:30), and the secondaries are still crankin' right along.
Time for more Java juice.
BrowningBAR , you were right about the blower. It really helps....along with some of the other things I've done.

 

Ok, this is upsetting.
Loaded the stove at about 8 a.m., and now the fire is out with a huge pile of coals in the stove, and the stove is back down from about 550 to 300.
2.5 hours.

 

With the blower on, it makes the stove top show a lower than actual reading. But, depending upon the load, that seems about right. Bigger, tightly packed loads will last longer.

 

This doesn't seem to being holding true for me.
You're right about the STT though.
I pulled some coals around, then put a decent sized split on top......house is still holding at 72.9, with the DV heater running on lowest setting.
Just typing out loud for posterity.

 

Wow, I don't even know how it would be possible to burn 3.5 cu ft of wood in that amount of time....... Something seems off.

 

In an earlier post, I mentioned only putting in about 8 small-medium splits.....mostly medium, maybe 5" across.
Still seems crazy when I can put a single split on top of coals and have that burn for just about an hour.
Nice thing is that the house is now just above 73, so we're gaining on it.
Dv is still running and the outside temp is now up to about -4.

 

Pack it tight. If you got a bunch of space around each split it will coal quickly.

I threw 5 medium/small splits on this morning at 6 am onto a big bed of coals. the splits were tightly placed together and not spread out. With the fan on, I just loaded the stove 5+ hours later and the stove top was north of 250 with the fan on at the halfway point of the controls.

 

Nice! I would have a blast furnace going in no time loading on top of that bed. It's really nice how you can shut down the bk.

WOW! That is crazy... how do you deal with that for overnight burns??

 

Machria, I load on a bed like that all the time on days like this. The wood ignites before the door is closed, and the stove roars. I shut the flue damper and the roaring stops. Close the air to 1/2, and the flames slow right down, the fire gets established in a few minutes, flue temp by probe high enough to engage cat, so I do and shut everything down. Get a nice long low burn, no roaring flames. Or, open the air about a quarter inch to 1/2 inch if I want more flame, more heat, shorter burn, hotter stove. Still very controllable, mild flames. Love the stove.

Don't think you can go wrong with quite a few stoves on the market, including the Woodstocks and Blaze Kings, PE, Jotul and Englander. Nice to have such a wide assortment of really good stoves that all have slightly different points in their favor. makes for a nice fit for a great many families.

 

You have a damper in your stove pipe? Or are you referring to the stoves air control?

I can load on a big bed like that no problem also, but I get sooooo much heat out of the stove with the coals like that I don't see the point unless your in a hurry to get out the door or something. I like buring it waaaaay down before I reload. The stove gives off so much heat after the burn is long gone / done, I find it doesn't matter much how long I wait as I'm still getting the heat I need.

 

Yes, I put a flue damper in three weeks ago. Should have done it three years ago, when Woodstock first recommended that I do so.

My climate is colder than yours. We are -1 F right now, with about forty mph wind gusts. It is cold. I am exposed, lots of windows, no way the coals will keep the house warm in this setting. Trick is to find the mildest day in a week and burn the coals way down, get the ash out, and set for another week without worrying about coal levels.