How are those stove running ?

Just wondering how everyone’s stoves are keeping us with this extreme cold . I’m managing to keep the basement around 73 on a medium setting. Going through roughly a bag and a half a day with my QuadraFire classic bay 1200 .

 

Currently 8° here. The hastings is keeping the main living area and kitchen at about 70°. The kitchen has a vaulted ceiling so I lose a bit of heat there but it's not too bad. I've been toggling it back and forth between levels 3 and 4 burnin a mix of chows and freedom fuel soft woods. The bedrooms are a bit chilly but they're around corner from the stove and down a hallway. I just bump the oil burner on at night to take the chill off them.

 

Haven't seen any extreme cold yet. Was -10f a few nights, but nothing bad.Stove running fine

 

A little nippy last night, my p43 was struggling to keep the house above 70. It could have been the pellet mix I threw in it though. I don't like the way the wood and son's burns, so I cut them with NEWPs, going to have to try to cut it with something else to see if I can get a little more heat.

 

Any chance that ceiling has a ceiling fan? Run in reverse in winter, they push all that warm air out & down the walls.

 

My stoves are keeping the house nice and warm. Living room is a bit warmer than I like, but when it is -7* out, I have to keep it in the mid 70's to keep the bedrooms about 66*. The P43 was on Manual, with a feed rate of 2 early morning, but is now at a feed rate of 1. Basement stove is running off the thermostat. Biggest issue is that the P43 OAK is grabbing all the moisture in the air and creating frost. Until a little while ago, it was 17% humidity in the living room (measured at the far, diagonal corner, and out of the air stream). I moved the humidifier a little and it is back up to 25%.

P43 - I didn't realize the humidifier output was being drawn toward the stove (it is about 9' to the right and a little forward of the stove). It is supposed to warm up today, so the frost will melt and re-evaporate into the room air.


P61a - little frost for about the first 6", but it gets the warm air that rises from the stove to keep it pretty much frost free

 

Yep, it's basically on low 24/7 to keep the air circulating. It definitely helps.

 

The Therm Guard is doing it's job still, I assume.

 

Yes it is. But since I only have it run 3x for about 8 minutes per day, the circulation does not add a significant amount of heat to the bedrooms

 

I considered installing "OAKS" then thought better of it.
Each bathroom has a vent that goes to the roof and air can move freely...Also the furnace/air handler has a vent to allow fresh air to mix in from a vent on the roof.

Allowing the stoves to consume air from inside the house clears cooking odors and such and keep the place fresh.....

 

I have 4 firebreathers in this small abode (2 pellet stoves, gas boiler that currently has pilot light lit and runs 3x/day to circulate water, plus the propane DHW appliance) .OAKs ensure there is no shortage of fresh air. Plus, really don't want to be using my nicely heated inside air to be replaced by -7* outside air.

 

Agree 100%

 

I have a valve on mine, if cooking smells are big or bad, or I start getting frost (-20 and lower),I just flip the valve.

 

The E2 is working great. Turned it up to about 60 %. Warm front pellets. -2 deg. out 70 inside on the stat. I turned up the stat in the bedroom a deg. to let the boiler turn on a few times. Grandsons spent the night and were nice and toasty. (The 2 in my avatar). Having Christmas today with the family now that we are all covid free. I guess a bit of sn*w and ice tonight.

Doggy

 

Lets see. The USSC is running on HR 7 and has been and even the top of the stove is pretty warm and I have a large fan sitting on the hopper to help push the heated air out into the great room. I went and bought one of those Harbor Freight squirrel cage air movers that is sitting on top of my wife's curio cabinet that 'pushes' the heated air into the kitchen and laundry room and the upstairs door is opened crack so it's toasty upstairs for the cats I guess as we sleep on the first floor in an unheated bedroom with a small electric heater and electric blankets. I don't like it overly warm where I sleep anyway.

The kitchen and laundry room are around 70 and 72 in the greatroom and I have the propane central furnace set on 68, just in case. Came on this morning for a short time as the inside temp had dropped below 68 in the kitchen where both thermostats (stove and central furnace) are located at. Going through a lot of distilled water to hold the RH at 50%. The humidifier sits across the room from the biomass stove.

My outside air intake is also frosted up, when it's this cold outside (8 actual), it always frosts up so long as the ambient inside RH is around 50%.

I believe I'm using about 125 pounds of pellet-corn mix every 24 hours which sounds like a lot but the stove is only 2 heat ranges below maximum and I've adjusted the firing algorithms to deliver substantially more fuel to the burn pot than the default configuration delivers.

Cannot run it wide open or it will go into overheat shutdown, HR 7 is about it's limit. Keep in mind that I'm basically heating a 2400 square foot 2 story farmhouse. We did redo it some years back with new windows and foamed in insulation but that is still a sizeable square footage for one unit to heat.

Learned a long time ago that the higher the RH is, the warmer it 'feels' so I strive for 50% no matter what.

basement is at 60 where it usually stays all winter and summer too.

If the wind picks up, the furnace will come on as the stove can only assume the heat load with no wind outside. Right now, I'm dreading going to the tractor barn and firing up one of the tractors,. I'm sure it will be banging and clanging as it warms up. They aren't plugged in (no electricity in the barn) and diesels don't like the cold anymore than I do.

My big and ongoing expense is the distilled water I (we) have to buy for the humidifier. I cannot use the well water in it, contains too much calcium and destroys the element in no time so we buy 2.5 gallon jugs of the stuff every week it seems like. Fuel isn't an issue with free off grade seed corn and pellets mixed in, looks like this will be a 2 skid year for pellets if this keeps up for any length of time. Besides getting the plow and blower on the cab tractor (and freezing my butt off, I have to fill all the bird feeders today. The little poopers are draining the feeders about every 3 days and the cost of bird seed and sunflower seed has increased with inflation as well. Least the resident squirrels I don't have to feed, wife handles that chore and the dog likes to try and get them on the squirrel feeder, great entertainment for him and the squirrels. The feeder is about 7 foot up on a tree trunk and he cannot reach them and they know it so he sits under the feeder while the squirrels scold him, not that he'd know what to do with one if he did manage to catch one... Good entertainment for him and us actually.

We are supposedly getting a snow blast early next week but it will have to warm up for that. When it's this cold it don't snow as the barometric pressure is too high so no cloud cover, sunny out but very cold.

What it looks like all outfitted with the blower and the plow. Being retired and not having to get out to go to work now, my only requirement is clearing the drives in the rental homes. I clear them to the road, after that it's 100% on them. I used to do the road to the pavement but I quit doing that. The cost of farm diesel to run the tractor don't justify the means for me anymore. If you have to go to work or else, better find a way to do it... Played that for a whole lot of years myself. Don't anymore. Top picture gives you an idea of what the road can look like after a blast and it's just over 3/4 mile from here to the pavement. Turns into a 'winter wonderland ' out here with a bit of wind and snowfall combined. I made a couple hundred bucks pulling adventerous idiots out of the ditch's after they slid in while trying to play 'I gotta get to work, no matter what' and most all of them were either 4x4's or SUV's. My philosophy is... you hook the tug strap where you want to because the tractor will yank you out no matter what and I'm not responsible for any damage incurred. it's well capable of amputating a bumper or bending suspension parts so I don't do that, you do.

To think in a couple short months, this will only be a memory.. I cannot wait actually. This stuff gets old real quick, least for me it does.

 

That is funny right there. My wife is a professional food burner. Seems like about every week she smokes up the kitchen and none of it sells good either...

 

Very interesting how we all have our own systems of moving heat around and balancing with the furnace or in my case mini split which handles heat and ac . So my break down is $ 260. a month on pellets and $ 150 on electric for the heat portion the mini split is putting out . Oh yeah that’s a raised ranch with basement door open so temps range from 73 to 70 upper rear bedroom.

 

In the past I've used the manual blower on switch and allowed the furnace blower to distribute the heat but I found that running it continuously tends to eat run capacitors. I may buy myself one of those Therm guards and try that next. My last wall t'stat had that feature built in but it died a few years back and I miss it. Your KWH rate must be pretty high out there. Our entire electric bill for everything is what yours is a month and we heat water bowls for the outside cats too. I knopw my buddy in Stockton, Maine took a heck of a rate increase this month. His KWH rate almost doubled.

 

Also the mini split is a 25 thousand btu system. We are keeping things on the toasty side . Usually it’s a t shirt and jeans house but this weekend it’s add a sweatshirt. My son also has a home office in the basement so I try and keep him comfortable.