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

i thought the weather maker uppers said it would go down into single digit temps last night, but this morning it is still near 20 degrees. inside it is near 70 with less than one bag of pellets burnt and maybe 10 splits in the insert overnight. i am really happy with the maple and the btus it produces. maple should make it through this winter hopfully and will have ash and oak mix lined up for the next several years. some split, some needing split, and some still standing. i have several large ash still standing on my place that the beetles have hurt badly. they are still living so i am letting the stand right now. prolly start on them this summer.

 

Just shoveled the walk. We prolly got 8" over nite. Hard to tell . By the door it was knee deep ,,, at the end of the walk maybe 4". Walking to the shop where it wasn't drifted its about 18" deep. Forecast for 36" total storm accumulation by Friday. I don't think we'll get that much. 7 miles south of here they have half of what we do. 10 miles north is considerably more.

 

It's a little easier for me, as we're in a small ranch. The pole/handle is 16' long in 4-4' sections, if I remember right.
I can't quite reach the peak on the north and south sides.
I'll try to get a pic up later.

 

10 degrees here, one of the colder mornings of our winter so far. Keeping all day and all night fires now. Going to almost all oak in the stove and a little maple. Also have one piece of locust that was a Christmas gift that I'm saving for the right night.

 

My guess you would not be raking?

 

That oaks gonna be wet next year if it hasnt been split and stacked in your pile a year at least already. Yes Even if the tree is dead.

 

It's about 11 here with this whipping wind. The locust is keeping the house at 72 which is perfect for me and the kids. Just a dusting of snow last night. Stay warm FHC and be safe on the roads

 

Still about 10 here. Six Oak splits on coals about 7:45 am. Probably could have gotten away with just a couple.
68 in the living room when I got up, but I had the DV heater running on low all night....just turned it off.
Might turn it back on and let the fire go out for the day to see how the heater keeps up.
If I have both going, it gets real toasty in here.....like right now.
High should hit 15 today, with 12 overnight.

 

i have ash and oak split and stacked for next year already, will cut and stack wood for '17 this summer. that will be all ash, and have trees still standing for ,'18 and beyond

 

papadave how come you have to rake your roof? Is it because of ice damming or snow loading? Snow is a good insulator if your roof can handle the weight. It makes sense of course that around here the building code requires roofs be able to take the weight but I would think it the same in many areas even if heavy snow loads are a rarity. I do remove snow off my tin shed when it gets over a foot or two and then the house at certain spots in the spring because of ice damming.

 

I was thinking the insulation factor as well. But if you have poor insulation it will met underneath and then dam and run back in the house right?

We dont deal with that down here in SC so just whaht I see on tv. Mainly holmes on homes.

 

Yes this is true. For us we spend almost the entire winter below the freezing point so ice damming only becomes an issue once we get regular freeze thaw cycles.
Edit: I guess it would also occur if the insulation was very poor but in my house where we are slightly under insulated the heat only reaches the roof during milder winter or spring weather, the rest of the time its pretty darn cold in there.

 

Yep Sean, it's the ice damming. Less than ideal insulation causes it. We've got quite a mish-mash of different types of insulation up there, and none is anywhere near adequate, except where I redid some (over the back bedroom, and the stove room).
Making an attic hatch cover, and doing some attic sealing/insulating has helped a ton, but it's not enough.
The attic stairs weren't installed level/square, so the "seal" was/is horrible....lots of heat just flyin' up and out.

 

I need to really insulate my attic stairs there cockeyed as the house settled I assume. I need to get some sort of weather stripping or something to cover the gaps.

A few years ago I cut bats or insulation down to put between the stairs as there was nothing in there just 1/2" plywood attic stair backer that you see!!

A few years ago I bought insulation for the back upstairs bedroom remodel. Never finished the remodel (other more important things and we never used it anyway.) I bought some r30 for over our bedroom too. So I rolled out the 30 over us as were the farthest from the stove. There is r49 up there now. I need to get unlazy and roll what was slated for attic over the other two bedrooms. Been in attic 3+ years in roll form.. done me zero good up there like that!!

 

Attics are often out of sight out of mind. I have a tenant that installs arctic shield insulation. I had never heard of it before but check it out. New Home insulation with Arctic Shield. He installed it underneath a mobile home for a client of his. Before it was installed an IR was reading 16c and after it was intstalled it was 21c. I was told it would cost me about $3000 to have it installed in my attic which I cant afford but another load on the fire I can!
Trying to keep on topic its 32 outside and snowing. I loaded 3 smallish splits of lodgepole in the stove and now my house is sweltering at 75!

 

Usually, but not for me. It's the first thing I think of when checking out a house. How much heat is going out the roof?
I really need to get more up there, but my wife uses the attic as storage for quite a bit of stuff, and the previous owners left stuff up there too.
Anyway, it's still about 15 here, and I'm just about to put some more wood in the stove 6 hours after the first load this morning.
My insulating efforts are paying off, slowly but surely.

 

Awesome to hear your hard work is paying off! Smart move with whatever kind of heating system you use.

 

It's 14 out, the wind today would cut through ya like a knife, just loaded up the Liberty with Beech and Sugar Maple.

 

Thanks schlot.
I really need to get in the attic with some more.
Not to derail too much, but with the colder weather, I'm again noticing the backs of my legs, arms, and my "love handles", ahem, are getting chilly.
Felt around behind me and found at least one culprit....the outlet. Pulled the coveer and now I remember why that one didn't get sealed.......the wiring only allows it to be pulled out about 1/2".
I grabbed a can of Great St, and popped a little in the holes behind the wiring. Helped a little, but there's still some cold air there.
I really wanna' pull this wall apart and fix all the crap goin' on in there.

 

I hear ya' zap. It's just windy enough to make things not comfy. About the same temp here too.
Very light snow right now, but I think it's about to get worse.