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

50s here Thurs and Fri...I may or may not be motivated enough to run the soot eater through the chimney as a "mid season sweep"...I have my doubts its even necessary, but peace of mind is nice too.

 

I know mine needs it. Got a few back puffs Monday night on the reload ( that's usually the signal to sweep) so I let it go out yesterday. Plan on a sweep today.
19 early this morning when I got up. Pane was running . Woke up without nose boulders . Might have to put the pane thing on a schedule !

 

Working on it a bit at a time. Blew in some of that recycled paper insulation about 6” between ceiling joists in attic. Also got new windows in the house i live in this year. Tore out all exterior walls from inside whilst doing the windows, some kind of shiny backed tissue paper insulation in there called Kimcel. Replaced it with fiberglass insulation hoping these will help.

 

Poplar

 

Chilly out there, and a decent amount of snow. Poplar in the reactor.

Funny thing with the dumping of snow, you sure realize it's insulating properties, either banked on the skirting or on the roof. It must be worth about 5-10 C.

 

Enjoy the nice weather while you can Dennis. We'll hopefully be out of this system by the 16th.

 

-16c/3f with blowing snow. 45 km gusts and windchill of -28c. Just loaded up the stove with pine and fir. Warmer here than some and colder than others.

 

33ºF
72ºF

white oak

 

Yessir that’s what I am hearing. Not sure the people I heard that from knows. The few that may burn that amount burn 365. Do the non heat season for domestic hot water. I want a shop/ man garage and want to put one inside it, and heat that and the house. Have the wood mess there, be able to bring the tractor in and park right in front of the boiler and load from the bucket.

On a better note Jack’s back.

 

I'm running into these insulation issues with my house. Late 50s split level, just purchased last year. Amazing that it took this long for someone (myself) to come up with the bright idea to put in a wood stove AND add insulation rather than just cranking up the gas furnace. Sure it's pretty easy to just turn the thermostat up and have the furnace run non stop but its freakin expensive. My gas bill is more than cut in half now with the stove. But now it's time to add insulation where it's been lacking for the past 60 years. Attics, crawl space, maybe side walls. But now of course, as one thing is always leading to another, I can't blow in attic insulation before I re-do a couple of ceilings.

Crawl space on the other hand will be spray foamed (rim joist) next week. Even getting estimates for that was a headache. It's amazing that even when you're willing to practically throw your wallet at a company to get a job done, they still can't even get back to you with an ESTIMATE. I had two different companies come check out my house, I signed with the second company today after it took them 4 days to come up with the estimate which to me was fair enough, both price and time wise to get the estimate to me. The first guy is going on 3 weeks now without emailing an estimate, after spending 2 hours at my house measuring every tiny little detail, and after I've called their office a few times to "remind" them to send it to me. Sorry to go off on somewhat of an unrelated tangent, BUT WOW !!!

 

In my experience, a holdup like that means they don't want the job.

 

Burnin some walnut today 39 now
they say it's going to get warmer overnight 53 by 5am

 

I hear you on that. I had seven contractors come out to look at my apartment house for vinyl siding, and got one estimate, that was given on site and calculated freehand on a scrap of paper. Granted it's a tall house with lots of windows, but I made it clear that this was going to be a cash transaction (well, money order or cashier's check, but the point was that I wasn't waiting for financing) and I wanted to start asap - not at some mystery time down the road. Bizarre.

 

Yeah, crazy. Even with my business I tell people if I don't want their job, and why I don't. I explain it all and I call everyone back same day, SOMETIMES the next day. I then recommend who they could contact instead. I'm often thanked for a timely response or for even calling back, and I always think to myself "Ok? Just doing my job..." but after dealing with contractors I realize now that laziness is the new norm.

At least my wood stove installer wasn't a flake!

 

Weather guessers are predicting the return of winter overnight with freezing drizzle to start and then snow throughout the day tomorrow. Temps will drop throughout the day with winds and tomorrow night should be below zero once again.

the amount of snow varies from 3" on up to over a foot. But again, this is over a whole day time period.

We'll see.

 

Stove was out by morning and kept the heat pump off all day.
Left the house at 6a it was 67* inside, got home at 7p it was still 62*...
Sweet! Got a few more days like this and warmer coming. Gonna be up over 60* on Fri!

Burning some poplar stove rounds I put up fall before last and they are blazing. At first I was a little bummed that the majority of my trees are polar right now, but seeing how it runs with a bit of seasoning, and knowing how easy it is to process, I'm feeling pretty good about it.