Are Your Stoves Keeping Up?

Woody,
Thanks for reminding me about electric outlets, I need to take care of mine. When we had that last cold snap I went around with my IR gun and found it quite a bit colder around them.

 

I got some of the foam sheets that fit over the outlet, under the cover plates, but I don't know if they'll work like they're designed to. Some of the boxes are sunk in below the wall surface, so they have no plates. I'll figure something out....

 

In Indiana we had -8 temps and -40 wind chill factors. My stove had trouble keeping up but is undersized for the house anyways. So I expected it to be a struggle. I work so couldnt be home feeding the stove extra wood. One night I got up and loaded the stove at 3am. One thing , in those temps try and keep the house temps up, if you let the stove burn out and the house temps drop its like heck getting the house's thermal mass heated up. Its the houses thermal mass that helps buffer the cold. Thats why its so important to keep the stove going and going at a high level. When I would get home from work, it was a challenge (I love a challenge) me against mother nature, to load the stove for some high temp burning to build the heat up in the house before bed time. I would select some of my best quality high BTU woods like Hickory and Oak. I would split them again down some to like splits no bigger than 4" then fill the stove up with them. I was always trying to figure out the best input air setting for high burn but not flushing too much heat up the flue. i have to admit my wood isnt as dry as I wanted to be. Its usable but one thing I have learned is really good dry wood makes these stoves perform at such higher levels. You dont want to have moisture cooking out of the wood and cooling your secondaries. You loose alot of BTU's cooking out the moisture. Plus seems like with subpar wood even if its just slightly sub par its takes much longer to get the stove temps up so you can get the input air shut back down and good secondaries firing. What I noticed is i burn up alot of the wood waiting for temps to rise. With really good seasoned wood things happen so much faster, getting that input air turned down and getting the stove to the point just secondary burning smoke and the main wood load is just very slowly burning down. I measure my wood moisture and its seems to be in the 20 to 21% range. Things work alot better in the 18% or less range. Dont get me wrong I can still get good burns but in minus temps its nice to have really dry wood.

 

Huntindog-its always nice to see numbers with your results (even though we know those can be different from MM to MM)
My stove was just so so during that bad cold spell but seems to be working better now and have no idea why. Maybe just the little warmer temps but still cold here just not so bitter.
Have been going around finding air leaks so maybe that is helping (cant hurt)

 

Keep doing that oldspark.
It absolutely helps.
Mid teens and I don't have an issue keeping the house comfy, it's just when temps get below about 5 that it starts getting a little more difficult.
Below zero, and I start thinking about turning on the DV.

 

My woodstove kept up fine heating my upstairs 1200 sqft but I just rcvd my gas bill and got hammered with a $145! guess there's a little learning curve with my little gas stove in the basement. I was use to $30-$40 gas bills before I installed the Jotul Allagash and figured that bill would maybe double not quadrupple! Was keeping it at 67 down there but I know there are many times during the day the wife and son had it turned up. I'm turning it down a few more degrees and paying a little more attention to it this month and if it doesn't get better I may have to go back to wood heat in the basement. How much is that new Woodstock going for?

 

LOL, That hearth sure does cycle through some stoves.

 

Temps were in the teens last night and low 30's today and the last reload was 18hrs ago so I would say I'm doing fine lol

 

Looks like the cold weather is on its way back! Get your good wood ready!

 

Our projected temp low next Wednesday is -8 F. Hope it isn't windy. Not really looking forward to another cold spell. We are ice here...solid ice. Can't walk outside. The fields are ice. The road is ice. The cliff is ice. The lake is ice. Using lots of ashes.

It's been mild (for here) and the house is warm with very little wood in the stove. Just below freezing during the day, cloudy. Maybe down to 22 - 24 F nights. Within a day or two we'll be back to normal, probably about ten degrees colder than that.

 

Going to top off my locust, hickory, and oak pile that I brought up by the patio door at the last cold snap. If that don't do it maybe I'll try soaking some of it in gasoline for a day or two.

 

Its funny you should post that, I had a guy who I was talking with on the unmentionable site through PMs and he had a chance to pick up a free Nashua and I told him it would be well worth picking up, he just got it hooked up (ton of heat he said) and he has some newer stove and he is now thinking about shredding it and feeding it to the Nashua.

 

We are now forecast to have -13 F the next three nights.

COLD.

My stove will be loaded with Ironwood.

 

About 50 yesterday, cut some trees down and split some today but back in the crapper with the temps.
Stove has a mix of ash, cherry and oak for the overnight.

 

The cold is back, -18 this morning! I think I'm ready for Spring!

 

They make extra long plate screws for that scenario. Got to the local hardware store, and ask for "outlet plate screws for Granite". They will know exactly what you need. When people reface their kitchens with Granite (including the back splash), they then need the longer screws to get the plates back on because of the thickness of the granite.

 

There are spacer kits to bring the face of an outlet out too. Come in different thicknesses depending on what you need.

It's amazing what a difference wind speed makes. Last cold snap had continuous 35mph winds with 50 mph frequent gusts for a few days and this house got cold. Winds are under 20 this time and I came home to a hot house tonight.

 

Doing a little better than 60 in the house this time, but it's not as cold. Put window film on a bad leaker, and sealed two big gaps in the interior walls. It was in the teens and windy this afternoon, and the house held 67. It's 8 outside now, wind has settled down, and it's 68 in here. I'm pretty sure that those easy fixes have gained me several degrees of room temp.