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

Woke up to -20f outside and 70 inside. Both stoves had "just right" coal beds, so the restart is right on. We are supposed to have a high tomorrow of -21f and a low tomorrow night of -32. Winter now has some fangs...................

 

About 16 right now...probably won't get too much above that today.

Getting a little tired of these wimpy 12 hour burns with oak so I tapped into the hedge stack for the subzero temps forecasted tonight and tomorrow.

 

I pulled one of my stupider moves last night. Planned to reload at 6 and 12 with ash. Decided to burn the coal bed down instead and reload at 8. Come 10 PM and I had not reloaded, still lots of coals. So, I added two small ash splits, planning to reload around midnight. Got distracted on the site, and found it was well after 1, the house still warm and the coal bed burned down quite nicely. Decided to let it burn down another 15 minutes with the air wide open, then reload with Ironwood and ash. Sat on the sofa wrapped in a throw. Next thing I know it is 7:30, and the house is COLD. The only bright side is that the coal bed was burned way down. SO, I emptied the ash, which left me with about an inch of small coals and one or two larger ones in the front of the firebox. Took the coals out, brought one load of a mix of ash and maple in, put an 8 inch maple round and the same size ironwood split in, topped by two ash splits. Dropped some maple splinters from splitter activity between the logs down onto the coals. They ignited within a half a minute. Closed door, closed air to 3/4. Stove engulfed in flame in a minute. Closed damper. Started writing this three minutes ago. Had a very strong fire and closed the air to 1/3 just now. Closed bypass. Flue temp is 620. Engaged cat. Interested to see how quickly the house warms.

It is 0 F out, and 54 degrees in here. what a night to let an over 3000 square foot home with lots of windows go without any heat. I think I'll let the stove get nice and warm. Probably should have put more, smaller splits in, now that I am awake and thinking. Was going for the higher BTU content. Oh, well.

Hope everyone stays nice and warm. It is bitter cold, and only getting colder in the next day or so. Calling for snow here all day. Have to get into the basement for my saw to clear the tree off the road before the real snow starts.

 

Kinda did the same thing sherwood, alot of coals and a cool house around 5am Got a shovel full of coals out before work this morning and filled it full with elm. Should be fine till 4

 

Tomorrow's forecast:

Patchy blowing snow. Mostly sunny and cold, with a temperature falling to around -4 by 10am. Wind chill values as low as -26. Northwest wind 15 to 18 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph.

 

19 degrees here in Southeast Ohio with a fresh coat of 5" of snow. Running the Clayton (indoor wood furnace), and burning a mixture of locust, oak, and cherry. Got a 9 1/2 hour burn last night, 70 degrees in the house this morning when I got up and plenty of coals.

 

Checked accuweather early this AM, showed snow all day. Environment Canada shows 30 % chance of flurries today and tomorrow. High tomorrow -4, low tomorrow night -18F, with strong winds. Wind chill -33. A day to anticipate with glee....and to keep the stove full

 

I was just going to say we NEVER get quite that cold and I looked and saw w/ the real feel we should be getting pretty close tomorrow night!

 

7 here this morning. Put a BIG coal and wood sandwich in the furnace and left for the mill. Got back to 74 inside,,, 15 outside.
10 for daily highs here till Sunday. Brrrrrrr.

 

I've done this same-dang-thing more than once Sherwood! When my kids were little we lived in a house down at the farm that was partially insulated like a corncrib. I had one heck of a big home-grown stove right in the middle of the house but I was never far enough ahead on my wood-hoard so always burning questionably dry stuff. Anyway, I'd load up the stove and scoot my recliner over towards it so that I could just reach the draft controls with the fire poker. That's how I'd spend the night, no blanket allowed. When it got cool enough to wake me up I'd reload the stove and adjust the air from my chair. Every now and then I'd doze off before turning down the air far enough and wake up to an almost stone-dead stove and a bunch of heat gone up in smoke! It worked but I wouldn't want to go back to those days if I didn't have to.

Oh and I'm burning my elm and ash, and it's going pretty quickly when the temps hover around zero and the sun doesn't give us much help. Pretty much the same weather as Sherwood is getting it sounds like. I don't mind winter because hey, we get to burn wood, but it doesn't really have to be THIS dang cold!

 

Right now it's in the mid teens, supposed to drop down to near zero, right now I'm burning off the last of my surely seasoned oak and getting into some questionable standing dead elm I scrounged. 70 in the house at the moment, outside it's snowing and bitter cold with the wind.

 

Finally mad the switch from pine to hardwood yesterday and I have to say all the insulation is making a HUGE difference. It hasn't been over 24 degrees in the last two days and it was in the teens all night last night. The house hold temperature so well now, 11 hours on a load of oak and the house was still 74 this morning. Why did I wait so long to do that.......

 

It was 6 degrees this morning so I loaded up five splits of Beech this morning at 6:30, I just reloaded with five splits, three Cherry and two Maple.

The chit hits the fan tonight (realfeel dropping to -38 / 7-10 inches of snow) both the Liberty and the Yankee pellet stove will see action until Thursday.

This morning after running both the wood and the pellet stove last night, the basement was 80, the living room at 73 and the sleeper was 70.

 

I ran into a whole row of Pine. Not the right time for that. I'll move some wood around and dig out the Ash and Maple. We had such a mild fall that I am not back to the stash of good stuff yet!

 

12º outside right now and the forecast says low of 11º.....I think they may miss that one, unless it just hangs. Loaded the Buck with about 8 smaller splits/rounds of sugar maple, ash and beech. Came home to 72º in the living room after 10 hours and 5 medium size sugar maple and elm.

 

It's 10 right now but supposed to fall to -6 and then the heavy wind chill fires up. Supposed to stay around -4 tomorrow then drop to -32 tomorrow night. They are saying with the wind chill tomorrow night, temps should feel like the low -40's. Both stoves humming along on a diet of hard maple, beech and red oak. All good so far and getting 11 hour burns.

 

Those are some nice burn times Rottiman!

 

cold here, white oak on tap, end of story

 

Yeah Gas, I'm happy. The wood is 2-3 yo and burnin clean as a whistle. Coal beds are just right @ the end. Windows on stoves nice and clean. Happy,Happy...Happy

 

Back to normal here after a cold week last week. It's now about 50F and easy heating. I'm into a stack that's mixed Doug Fir and Alder, and am able to keep the place about 70 with just a short burn in the a.m. and few hours at night. I'm waiting to light off right now so I don't cook myself out of here before bed time. Y'all stay warm out there, you guys are talking about some serious COLD over there!