And got a free (almost free) lesson in thermodynamics. First off, first year burning with a Buck 81 heating about 2800 sqft (2 story colonial with a walkout basement forced hot water on Heating Oil ugh.). Didn't get a lot of time to gather wood, what with the 6 month deployment to Japan and all, so we've been keeping things cool 65-70 degrees and trying to stretch out our wood while gathering more wood that can be burned this year (yeah i know about moisture content and fortunately my dead oak was at 17% on a fresh split). I'm about a month ahead on my wood stash right now.. So as of a couple of days ago, this is what my basement stash/processing section looked like and yes, it was an absolute disaster with snow still on one of the beech rounds. So I got it cleaned up. Cut the sticks on the compound mitre saw and split the beech as well as some of the oak rounds on the right and set up a fan to accelerate the drying process (most of the wood had surface moisture) so my setup then looked like this. Well, it's 4 degrees F outside and we're in for our coldest night of the year tonight (like many of you) so I was just wondering what the temps were around the house when I came across this. Seemed strange since all of the other pipes in the basement were around 5 degrees C. Then it hit me. The fan in the corner that was evaporating the moisture was also cooling that corner of the basement... So, I gave in, shut off that fan in the corner and hit the switch to turn on the boiler. Got all the pipes up to temp and then shut it off 30 minutes later. I think that now that the fan is off, the temp in the basement will equalize.. But I will be checking over the next couple of hours. Figure that lesson cost me about $2.00 in heating oil. Not bad for a lesson. Everyone stay warm out there!!!!
