I never really heard the term until I found this site. Here in the PNW I’ve got to believe our Winter is comparable to a lot of the country’s shoulder season. We get a lot of moisture but not that many days of freezing weather and very seldom temps much lower than the high 20s. The big advantage of wood heat here is it takes the moisture out of the air and makes it feel better than the other types of heat available. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Yup, and there are some other areas of the country where it is shoulder season all winter; just throw a sweater over the shoulders and you are warm enough.
I had never heard the term either Reloader til i joined FHC. Ive learned a lot here already. Working on my FHC PHD...Professional Hoarding Doctorate!
All I really know about shoulder season is I'm beginning to hate it at this stage of the season. Would love to be done for the year but temps are still too low. It's so much easier burning 24/7 and hardly doing a cold restart. Instead, I'm cold starting once a day, making a small-ish fire and basically just letting it burn down, maybe throwing a couple more big splits in for overnight. Shoulder season is where a cat stove would really shine, I would think.
Not necessarily so. Cat stoves still have to be re-started during this time of the year and then you have to wait until the stove is up to temperature before engaging the cat. It really is not a problem but the constant restarting a cold stove does get tiresome after a while. Plus, use a lot of fire starters and/or kindling.
True, but I could see the value of a long slow and low burn this time of year. There's a strange cult on another board incessantly touting Blaze King stoves, some advertising an up to 40 hr burn time on low. I never really thought I'd care about something like that, but this is the time of year where I could see it being useful. I assume it would be just enough heat to take a chill off.
I don't know.. I can load Woodstock IS with ash and poplar at 7 at night and just reload at 6, 23 hours later.. BUT my shoulder season now is 30 at night and 50s in day..
Ideal Steel here also, and I'll echo CBVT - with hardwood properly controlled, 12 hours+ low and slow is no problem. Cloudy here today and 40s until we maybe touched 50 for a minute when the sun came out for an hour before setting. House stayed 70+ on a 3/4 load I put in at 5am. I'll relight when I go inside in a few minutes to keep the temp up overnight. This is on a mix of pine and sugar maple, questionable moisture content. In the PNW given the same house (1400' ish moderately insulated, but dirt basement and stone foundation making for chilly floors) I'd run a Bk Princess I think.
I also had never heard of shoulder season till I found this site, nor N/S and E/W loading. I've got to get my poplar and pine ready for future shoulder seasons, as I'm still burning primarily ash, it hit 85°F inside a few nights back, with the IS lowered as far as I could without killing the fire completely. Still seems wierd to have the stove going, and opening the windows.
Once you have a supply of nice dry pine (dunno about poplar ) you'll find it is a real handy wood to have some of. I don't "waste" my good wood in shoulder seasons any more. A pine fire or two in the morning this time of year will get the house from, say, 62ºF to 72ºF and then burning is done. More so on a sunny day. With oak it just burns too long - and then you're opening windows. No choking down the fire to try to burn at too low a temp. making soot and smoke. Good hot quick fire and done. At least with a tube stove. With a catalytic or hybrid stove you probably have even more burning parameter options. I like getting the room warm quick with pine then calling it done for the day. Or if it is cold out filling it up with gooder wood after the pine fire.
