This evening, I didn’t quite make a fire when I came in. Usually the case is, let the daughter play while that fire gets built. Well after having dinner, watching a movie, it was apparently still cold after almost 30-45 mins of a starting fire. Now we’re about an hour from when I started the fire and just finally warming up. It’s not even considered cold out in comparison to you others... Hypothetically questioning, how long would it take for your house to warm up if you had let it get down past a cold point? The cold point for the house was down between 55-60F. Yours could be considerably lower.... Even with my small house,I don’t open my rooms up until the stove room is well above 72°F. In fact, the only way this house gets balanced is to open the rooms up, and the heat flows quite quickly when there is nearly 30° difference.
The cottage is around 500 square feet. When we get there in the fall, lets say the indoor temps are right around 40-ish. That means, everything is at 40 degrees....most. Walls, floors, ceilings, cabinets and there contents, furniture, carpets, you get the idea. With the nc-13 cranking, and the ceiling fan helping, usually it gets comfortable (for me) to take off jacket within an hour....but everthing else is still cold. 3-4 hours later, is a nice time frame for everything....although the rooms without the air circulation can still feel the difference. Flannel sheets on the beds for sure! By midnight, the covers are thrown off and the windows are opened if you don't turn the stove down. So.....depending on size and air movement and contents and temps... "everyone's mileage will vary"
A difficult question to answer. Most of the answer depends upon the outside temperature but as Dave wisely pointed out, everything in the house has to be warmed before it is completely comfortable. I remember one time our temperature was -24 and the inside temperature had dropped. I also remember it took several hours to raise the indoor temperature 6 or 8 degrees, back to our comfortable temperature. On the other hand, if the outdoor temperature is 30 or above, it does not take long to raise the indoor temperature.
I concur with it being a very difficult question because of so many variables: house “tight” or not, how much square footage, ceiling clearance etc.... Dave did point that out well that comfort becomes widespread yet once it warms up, it seems to become quicker past a degree. Then the covers are making it worse. Sometimes I let my room warm up then let a window cool it down. Since I started a fire so late, the cycle was longer leading up to bedtime so less need for reload. In the Timberwolf, there isn’t really a “turn the heat down” option but would make a great candidate for a cat stove if such an idea were viable. Anyways I don’t want to get off track here but the only key for getting the heat to be “lower” is to load only enough for the night. 8 times out of 10 I am reloading cold but the house holds the heat relatively well if the bathroom is closed up. Heat isn’t terrible for sleeping but for many it works best when you walk in your living room at 5 in the morning.
By turning the heat down, I mean not to load it to the gills and also turn down the combustion air a bit. It will all equate into a slower burn.
There's warming me, warming the air, and warming the house. Depending on the size of splits and type of wood, etc, it takes maybe 15 minutes before the stove is throwing some pretty good infrared out. That warms me or at least the part of me facing stove as long as I'm line of sight to the stove window. Warming the air takes longer, but within a half hour or so, maybe a little longer, the thermometer across the room starts to move. Warming the house takes the longest of all and it does feel different with walls warm and walls less warm even at the same air temperature.
Yes, this is mainly why I just put softwood in the night load because it doesn’t quite last as long. Prompts a cold start, just has benefits otherwise. Or I will try and load a few splits of hardwood but its not often I get coals. Black Locust will...but golly it’s got heat...
I definitely make the observation that One would feel more cold for such as being sick or poor circulation etc. then the warm up turns out to be more mental than physical and depends wholly on the individual. Plus warm would mean several things ranging from comfortable to stress-free. I experienced this also more in the beginning and then time to time...most likely my first power outage with this stove has that ability to bring it back again.
I started building my house in 2013, and finally got it sealed up and insulated in January of 2015. As I recall, the indoor temperature the day they blew the cellulose into the attic was 20F. COLD for a house. That winter, I never got the house over 60. I just couldn't overcome the high mass of the plastered walls. (1 1/4" thick.) Fast forward to now, and on Saturday I woke up to -10F, and the house was a cozy 73F.
