Christmas/New Year's cold snap 2017....what's on the stove menu?

For the stove menu, a lot of beech, some honey locust, elm, and pine.


Yes, you guys and your "kicker" stoves. I'm jealous.

Down to 20° or so, my Quadrafire 4100 insert heats the entire house perfectly. In this stuff, actually warmer now at 4° OAT, the gas furnace turns on from time to time. I've been thinking out loud to the wife about an add on wood furnace, plumbed into the existing furnace ducting. I have not heard her say anything about not doing the add on wood furnace, so......
I've got the space, both by the furnace and for basement wood storage, there's a few that are efficient ( Englander?), and I really only need another chimney/ pipe stack run to do it.

 

You know, I do have the lopi endeavor that my parents took out of the cabin up north when they put the jotul Allagash gas stove in. If I put that in the basement that would help as it's on an opposite end of or L shaped ranch from where the insert is....

I just don't want to lug that beast downstairs when I should just do it once with the add on wood furnace.

Next year I'll have a good amount of red oak ( 4 years seasoned), honey locust, sugar maple, ironwood, cherry, and basswood as well as my typical beech and elm.
In 2 years I'll have more shagbark hickory, apple, and sugar maple to go with my normal selection.

 

With the exception of today (a high of +5), we'll be well below zero from xmas eve through next week (about a 10-day run). Lows in the next several days: -15, -25, -30, -20, and -13. Needless to say, I'm running the stove and expecting a lot from it. Birch, jackpine, ash, and red oak on the menu. Tossing in a few pieces of the softer woods really helps get the heat up and keep the harder woods burning. The oak will burn low and slow, but has a hard time really getting hot.

 

Really love the looks of your living room stove insert and that mantle. Very classic and just bold looking. If I had an insert, I'd want it to look like that.


I'm burning a lot of ash, hard maple and a bit of hickory. The hickory may be a little underseasoned but it's burning ok.

 

All I have is ash. Not the highest btu stuff out there, but it's dry and I'm warm.

 

Think I’ll burn “Birch”

Loading 3/4 loads , burning hotter
to get 8 hr burn times.

& raking coals fwd , 3 splits , burn
on high for coals burn down couple time during the day

 

All I got for wood thats dry is a Sugar maple and a mix of Cherry, Ash, Elm, soft maple and white silver and yellow birch.. Daytime mix ..nighttime sugar..
I don' have a wood kicker stove yet. My backup is my Buderus boiler that makes domestic hot water and basement heat. It's hard to justify another stove and chimney when my heat usage 6 months of winter is only 50 gallon of oil more than summer. Have to have a furnace because of mtg and insurance anyways.

 

Agreed. Stupid little bug.

I'm doing ok. No work this time of year, so I'm doing a lot of sitting which is driving me nuts. I lack the ability to do nothing for too long.

 

Ash, maple, yellow birch, red oak.

Yup.

 

I am so excited about finally getting some decent cold air. Lows from 12-17 for a few nights has me loading the nc30 with a full load of hickory at night. It has been css for 2 years so fires right up! I try to have some shorter hotter fires before the evening to get the house up to temp for the overnight burns.

By overnight burn it's really only maybe 5 hours till I get up for work and put another solid load in. Been keeping the house hot at 70-73 downstairs which gets us mid 63-66 upstairs in the bedrooms.


Enjoy all the cold weather and burn safe.

 

Whats a kicker stove?

 

A spare stove you "kick in" when it gets colder.

 

It's been cold here...

Burning white and red oak, hickory and black birch at night, and burning a little Aspen in the mornings to help burn down the coals..... All the wood is 3 years plus.

It sure would be nice to have two stoves, like Scotty when it gets this cold....
If it's below 5 degrees the furnace will run a little starting around 4:00 am until I put more wood in in the morning.

Emma the dog is loving the stove and wood heat on these cold nights....

 

Oh! I thought it was a brand or style...
I been telling Mrs. TD that I want to put the spare Fireview upstairs to get a couple extra degrees.
Guess I'm getting a kicker stove...

 

Been running the wheels off the IS last couple days.
I've burned over a cord of cherry so far this year. Got her stuffed to the gills tonight with cherry and a few pieces of white oak.

 

Actually...at this point...my wood digester is eating wood salad. I just got into the part of the wood pile where I cut up all the scrap bits of blocking and lumber that I had around the yard. A lot of it came out of one of my customer's yards. They build oil rig modules, and they get components and metal in from all over the world. It's all heavy skidded/crated stuff. Some of the stuff I pulled out of their burn pile was as big as 8"x8". I would make you cry seeing what they do with it. They've got a 20ft sea container with the top cut off. They use a wheel loader, and slowly but surely burn it all just to get rid of it. At one point, the wood pile got to be about 50ft by 150ft x 30ft high. The sad part is...I'm not allowed to bring a chainsaw on the property. The safety nazi's we have here are completely off the rails and they're out to save the world one paper cut at a time. Anyway, I haven't got a clue what species it all is, but it's all dry, untreated, free heat to me.