Are Your Stoves Keeping Up?

Yeah, 30's forcast for this weekend. Good time to do a mid season inspection.

 

Never thought I'd call the teens a warm up but it is a much welcomed one!!

 

Might be a lot of new " firsts " after this cold spell is done.

 

Well, I survived but not quite as good as I hoped. Woke up 9 hours after reload to 67*. I was expecting 69 or 70* but we did hit -21*. I wish I would have weighed that load but it was at least 50#, and probably closer to 60# of BL. That puts the burn at 50-60,000 Btu/h average and that is right about the max continuous burn rate I can comfortably run with my stove. I did at least hook up my temp recorder last night so here is a quick brief of how it ran. Reload was at 375*. It peaked at 640* one hour into the burn and held 600*+ for one hour. It ran 500 to 500* for 7 hours. Final was 410* at 9 hours 15 minuets.

 

Amazing
Everyone here survived . No frozen bodies.

The news media folks can relax a bit now.
They saved us all from the "apocalyptic north pole vortex"

 

Well I've been goofing off all day and didn't pay attention to my second floor bedrooms. First floor stayed nice and toasty all day with the stove blasting but I've kept the ceiling fan running in the living room where the stove is all day, which keeps the heat from moving upstairs as much. I also forgot to close the doors nearest the stairway to drive heat back the second floor hall into the two rear bedrooms on the second floor. So my bedroom is 58 right now. Oops. The wife ain't gonna be happy about this. Thankfully we have an awesome down comforter on the bed that otherwise is too warm for most nights.

 

Put me down for preferring -5F with no wind than the +8F with 30mph gusts.

 

8 degrees last night reloaded at 8:30 PM and 6 AM with a house temp of 72 dropped to (72 from 74 last night). It appears to keep up fine now that the front door isn't open(I can laugh about it now) ......

I have been setting it up slightly different to reduce the coals and it appears to be working wonderfully! I haven't even had to worry about them yet. It even burned down the ones that built up yesterday when I was running it hard.

 

We had the 30mph gusts on Monday night with -6 degree temps

 

I am actually preferring the cold temp we are having. Of course it's "only" been down to the single digits here, 5 to 10 degrees, haven't required the "-" symbol! But my stove loves this cold stuff. I prefer it because now we aren't baking out of the house with full loads. Nice easy 12 hour burns with 1/2 to 3/4 loads, minimal oil heat (pops on for 5 minutes, 3 or 4 times a night) for 1st downstairs (my stove is upstairs).

The Great South Bay is now frozen solid.

 

It's 20 here today. I'm in love with the warm weather.

 

Temp recorder? I have a thermometer that tells me low and high humidity and temps for the day.

 

I just used the data logging with the primary thermocouple on my Bacharach PCA3 combustion analyzer. I have some toys like this for work.

 

Yes, both stoves keeping the house very toasty. We had -10 real feel a few days and its been in the single digits. House is 75 degrees on average. I have the wood stove on a 2 x per day load and the pellet stove running on level 2 for 23 hours a day. My wife turns it off for one hour, cleans it out and runs it again. she usually turns it off while she is cooking as it gets up to almost 80 in the stove area which is adjacent to the kitchen. All of the hard work is paying off now.

 

Been in teens and 20's here last 2 days, supposed to go up to 40's today, and stay in 40's and even 50's over weekend! Stove going cold now, and will likely stay cold till Monday/Tuesday!

 

Well, no. Got down to 60 in the house and I was fighting a big coal bed. This week I'm plugging some air leaks; Trimming out a replacement window, sealing some electrical outlets, etc. Any breach in the plaster wall coat is a potential source of air infiltration. That cold snap moved weatherization way up the to-do list: 60 in the house isn't getting it at all.

 

I use this stuff on every window & exterior door frame.
Get the Windows & Doors one for around your door frames & windows.

Gaps & Cracks for around, pipes, the footer & crawl space, helps keep bugs out too.
It works great. Lowes, HD have it.
Wait 24 hours & it trims off nice with a knife when dry.

Link Great Stuff

 

Heh-heh, good one, Dave.
Got cans of #2 & #3 sitting in the mud room as we speak. I've got backer rod around the door out there but I can still feel the air when it's super-cold. It's framed and insulated but still have to put up OSB and bead board. It's got eave and ridge vent, so another big loss there. That's a project, but I've got plenty that Great Stuff will fix. Got a replacement window with the plaster/log junction showing all the way around. I found another gap I didn't know about behind the kitchen sink under the window....3/8" in one spot. Electrical outlets are another easy fix. Another thing for down the road would be to put in more attic insulation...only have blown-in about 6" deep.
Hell, by the time I'm done I'll be able to invite Dennis over....it'll be 85* in here!

All of this work will help me in the summer too....I don't have AC in here yet.

 

That's a great run