# Shoulder season,how to, not over heat the house ?



## HDRock (Nov 1, 2012)

I never actually burned during the Shoulder season before, so last week,when I started, I was cooking my butt.
I'm getting a little better now, with smaller fires,but I need info on how to keep a hot fire and flue temp without ! over heating the house .
Fire box is about 6 cub ft, EDIT: (9.5 cb ft) if it matters.
Stove is a smoke dragon, so I'm not sure if this is the right place on the forum for this.


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## BrotherBart (Nov 1, 2012)

Ya wait till the house is getting a little below where you want the temp to be then let it burn down. Restarts in shoulder seasons are a regular routine here. Heat the joint up in the morning and let it go out. Live off of the residual heat and then restart at sundown.

Try to keep smoldering small fires going and you just crap up the chimney and waste wood.


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## HotCoals (Nov 1, 2012)

Your stove is meant to be a hot heater when it's cold out.
A small fire is pretty much your only solution.
Cold weather is a coming! lol


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## clemsonfor (Nov 1, 2012)

Get a CAT stove. YOu can throttle that baby back to nothing and turn the blower way down. I am pretty much running 12 hours on a half a load of pine.


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## BrowningBAR (Nov 1, 2012)

HDRock said:


> Fire box is about 6 cub ft, if it matters.


Wow. So, how big is that house? Is it drafty? That's a big box.


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## HDRock (Nov 1, 2012)

BrowningBAR said:


> Wow. So, how big is that house? Is it drafty? That's a big box.



Yeah, the stove is big, was here when I bought the house, It's round, 36'' long, 24'' front to back, and then a blower on the back.
House is1300 sq ft., it is not a tight house.
Been looking at new and used stoves, not really in the budget,maybe next year.
Don't think I have enough knowledge, just yet to pick a used one off CL


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## BrowningBAR (Nov 1, 2012)

HDRock said:


> Yeah, the stove is big, was here when I bought the house, It's round, 36'' long, 24'' front to back, and then a blower on the back.
> House is1300 sq ft., it is not a tight house.
> Been looking at new and used stoves, not really in the budget,maybe next year.
> Don't think I have enough knowledge, just yet to pick a used one off CL


 
I can relate on many levels.

When the temps do get very cold does it still overheat the house?


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## HDRock (Nov 1, 2012)

BrowningBAR said:


> When the temps do get very cold does it still overheat the house?



Well ! it will if I let it, but it's not so much overheating the rest of house, as it is the living room,(stove room) the rest of the house is not open, it is very cut up, if you know what I mean.
I have been experimenting, with some ideas I learned on here, blowing cold air out of other end of house


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## BrotherBart (Nov 1, 2012)

Oh well heck. That is just known at heating with wood.


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## BrowningBAR (Nov 1, 2012)

HDRock said:


> Well ! it will if I let it, but it's not so much overheating the rest of house, as it is the living room,(stove room) the rest of the house is not open, it is very cut up, if you know what I mean.
> I have been experimenting, with some ideas I learned on here, blowing cold air out of other end of house


Again, I can relate as you can see from my signature.

When you upgrade, unless you do a lot of insulating, you will have to over-size your next stove to provide adequate heating for your house. What size pipe does that stove use?


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## HDRock (Nov 1, 2012)

I will try this:Live off of the residual heat and then restart.
 Heat the joint up in the morning and let it go out.
Good info, Restarts in shoulder seasons are a regular routine here

Trying to keep smoldering small fires going and you just crap up the chimney and waste wood, is exactly what I want to avoid


BrotherBart said:


> Oh well heck. That is just known at heating with wood.


Yeah I know, but It's worse this time of year


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## HDRock (Nov 1, 2012)

When you upgrade, unless you do a lot of insulating, you will have to over-size your next stove to provide adequate heating for your house. What size pipe does that stove use?

My pipe/chimney is 8'' straight up about 15ft from top of stove, to top of chimney, low pitch roof,and the hearth is built,1 ft off the floor,  I get a good draft


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## BrotherBart (Nov 1, 2012)

What stove do ya have?


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## HDRock (Nov 1, 2012)

Stove is , Non EPA, Fire View Stove , very similar to my avatar.
The links will give ya a better idea, but mine is differant model than PDf,and no ash pan, loads on left end

http://www.pholiafarm.com/Fire-View.htm

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/wiki/272e058d020013e4769d4ba6deeebf7c/


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## Backwoods Savage (Nov 2, 2012)

HDRock said:


> I will try this:Live off of the residual heat and then restart.
> Heat the joint up in the morning and let it go out.
> Good info, Restarts in shoulder seasons are a regular routine here
> 
> ...


 
That statement above is not necessarily true at all! If you have good fuel, you can do it and get away with it but you need good dry wood. The wood we burn is usually at least 3 years in the stack after it has been split. We have no problems with crapping up the chimney nor do we waste wood.


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## BrowningBAR (Nov 2, 2012)

Yeah, but he is using an old Non-EPA smoke dragon stove. If you try to have a low temp fire in a Non-EPA, your chimney is gonna have a bad time. Small and hot is his best solution with the old stove that he has, unless I'm missing something.


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## Backwoods Savage (Nov 2, 2012)

Not true in a non-epa. We burned all non-epa stoves before the Fireview. Only had creosote problems with one stove. All others did very nicely.


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## HDRock (Nov 3, 2012)

Backwoods Savage said:


> Not true in a non-epa. We burned all non-epa stoves before the Fireview. Only had creosote problems with one stove. All others did very nicely.


I'm not quite sure what you are trying so say.

I don't have creosote problems cuz I burn a good hot fire, cleaned the chimney a couple of week ago, and there wasn't' much to clean.
Like I said I never burned in the shoulder season before and it is quite different.
On top of that I rarely have the best wood, most of which I buy.
I'm kind of a part time burner,and I thought I knew what I was doing, Ah ! Well I kinda do but,  I have more to learn, and more planing ahead would probably help cuz,     I have used good dry wood, not so dry and wood that was foaming as it burned


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## BrowningBAR (Nov 3, 2012)

I'm interested in hearing how you burn at low temps in a Non-EPA stove without smoke, as well.


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## HDRock (Nov 5, 2012)

HDRock said:


> I never actually burned during the Shoulder season before, so last week,when I started, I was cooking my butt.
> I'm getting a little better now, with smaller fires,but I need info on how to keep a hot fire and flue temp without !  over heating the house .
> Fire box is about 6 cub ft, if it matters.
> Stove is a smoke dragon, so I'm not sure if this is the right place on the forum for this.


I just wanted to clarify, I did the math wrong, my stove is 9.5 cubic ft


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## nate379 (Nov 5, 2012)

I'll be happy to send you some cold temps.  5* tonight, wouldn't be surprised to see negative temps in the next week or two.


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## HDRock (Nov 5, 2012)

nate379 said:


> I'll be happy to send you some cold temps. 5* tonight, wouldn't be surprised to see negative temps in the next week or two.


 
  Thanks for the offer, even though it would be easier to run the stove, I will pass.
Still have work to do outside, once it gets down to 20 above, I don’t like to go outside


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## hilbiliarkiboi (Nov 5, 2012)

Gunna have to get a smaller stove.  For now, do what you've been doing- just burn the condensate out by getting the temp up before shutdown.


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## rkshed (Nov 5, 2012)

Backwoods Savage said:


> That statement above is not necessarily true at all! If you have good fuel, you can do it and get away with it but you need good dry wood. The wood we burn is usually at least 3 years in the stack after it has been split. We have no problems with crapping up the chimney nor do we waste wood.


 I agree.
Our stove idles all day this time of year and I have no issues with a gunked up chimney, etc.
I did accidentally get the house to 76 last night though which is way too hot.


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## HDRock (Nov 5, 2012)

rkshed said:


> I did accidentally get the house to 76 last night though which is way too hot


Way to hot ! That depends, on how a person likes it.


One thing I have done , I stopped turning on the blower so it keeps the stove hotter with a small fire.


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## begreen (Nov 5, 2012)

For shoulder seasons, just burn a much smaller, hot fire and let it go out.


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## lopiliberty (Nov 5, 2012)

Since you already have an 8in flue way not look at a blaze king.  Not the cheapest stove out there but at least you won't be cooked out of your house during shoulders seasons


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## HDRock (Nov 5, 2012)

lopiliberty said:


> Since you already have an 8in flue way not look at a blaze king. Not the cheapest stove out there but at least you won't be cooked out of your house during shoulders seasons


Thanks for ,suggestion, I looked at stoves a little bit, but I don't know what is good or bad, I don't know much about the new stoves at all, I have been searching around, and, reading on here, learning a little.
It sounds like I may need to match a stove to the chimney I have,IDK, to avoid having to redo the chimney. Is that correct?
Anyway, I will do some homework on the blaze King


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## begreen (Nov 7, 2012)

HDRock said:


> Thanks for ,suggestion, I looked at stoves a little bit, but I don't know what is good or bad, I don't know much about the new stoves at all, I have been searching around, and, reading on here, learning a little.
> It sounds like I may need to match a stove to the chimney I have,IDK, to avoid having to redo the chimney. Is that correct?
> Anyway, I will do some homework on the blaze King


 
The big BK King uses 8" but that is not be your only option. There are other stoves and it could be that a 6" stove will work. It depends on the current flue setup. If the chimney draws well then a 6" flue outlet stove might work perfectly well with it. Based on the size of the house I suspect you will do fine with a much smaller stove like the 6" flue outlet BK Sirocco or Princess, Woodstock Fireview or Buck 20 (or Buck 80 for 8" flue), if looking at cat stoves. But there are good non-cat stoves that will do the job as well. If you have questions about new stoves, start a new thread in the main hearth forums and we'll help you out there.


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## peakbagger (Nov 7, 2012)

I have known a few folks who have a Jotul 602 (small stove)  for shoulder season and then switch over to a larger stove once its gets real cold.


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## BrowningBAR (Nov 7, 2012)

peakbagger said:


> I have known a few folks who have a Jotul 602 (small stove) for shoulder season and then switch over to a larger stove once its gets real cold.


You mean they have two stoves installed or they uninstall the Jotul and put in a larger stove?


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## Boog (Nov 7, 2012)

The shoulder season (thanks - I never heard that term before) was always a challenge for me with my early 80's Charmaster wood/oil combo forced air furnace. I was constantly baking myself out of there, walking around in my underware all the time. I ultimately worked out the best method for me which was to build small fires, but always put at least one bigger log in there to keep some coals going. After the smaller fire burned out, the coals under the bigger piece would easily start the next "small fire" by just throwing some small stuff on them. I always cut my wood all the way down to about 1.5" branch tips, very little gets wasted on my place. Obviously I have the oil backup, but over time I even disconnected some of the "auto" controls to manually run a better wood fire. I'm retired now, and home most of the time to feed it just right. The fire that I started in early October has never died out yet, even when I empty out ashes to the pan underneath, I always leave a good bunch of coals left and just feed it again. The only time it ever gets "totally burned out" is about twice during the winter when I disconnect the back pipes off it to clean between the furnace and the 12" clay lined chimney. I will build up in that section of pipe to the point of restricting flow if I don't clean it out about twice during the season.


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## HDRock (Nov 9, 2012)

Boog Powell said:


> The shoulder season (thanks - I never heard that term before) was always a challenge for me with my early 80's Charmaster wood/oil combo forced air furnace. I was constantly baking myself out of there, walking around in my underware all the time. I ultimately worked out the best method for me which was to build small fires, but always put at least one bigger log in there to keep some coals going. After the smaller fire burned out, the coals under the bigger piece would easily start the next "small fire" by just throwing some small stuff on them. I always cut my wood all the way down to about 1.5" branche tips, very little gets wasted on my place. Obviously I have the oil backup, but over time I even disconnected some of the "auto" controls to manually run a better wood fire. I'm retired now, and home most of the time to feed it just right. The fire that I started in early October has never died out yet, even when I empty out ashes to the pan underneath, I always leave a good bunch of coals left and just feed it again. The only time it ever gets "totally burned out" is about twice during the winter when I disconnect the back pipes off it to clean between the furnace and the 12" clay lined chimney. I will build up in that section of pipe to the point of restricting flow if I don't clean it out about twice during the season.


Yeah I have been known to stripe down to a pair of shorts

_*I have been wondering what people, consider the size, in inches, of a small split, medium split and a large split ???*_
_*Whats the biggest size piece you use, to burn ???*_
  I have been doing pretty good , not cookin by butt with small fires.


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## HDRock (Nov 9, 2012)

begreen said:


> The big BK King uses 8" but that is not be your only option. There are other stoves and it could be that a 6" stove will work. It depends on the current flue setup. If the chimney draws well then a 6" flue outlet stove might work perfectly well with it. Based on the size of the house I suspect you will do fine with a much smaller stove like the 6" flue outlet BK Sirocco or Princess, Woodstock Fireview or Buck 20 (or Buck 80 for 8" flue), if looking at cat stoves. But there are good non-cat stoves that will do the job as well. If you have questions about new stoves, start a new thread in the main hearth forums and we'll help you out there.


My current stove is actually a 6" outlet with  an adaptor,8'' single wall pipe, steel chimney, straight up ,and pulls a good draft


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## Boog (Nov 9, 2012)

HDRock said:


> Yeah I have been known to stripe down to a pair of shorts
> 
> _*I have been wondering what people, consider the size, in inches, of a small split, medium split and a large split ???*_
> _*Whats the biggest size piece you use, to burn ???*_
> I have been doing pretty good , not cookin by butt with small fires.


 
Well HDRock, small would be down around the 1.5" branch tips I cut, large would be anything I can get in my 11x13" door up to 30" long .  For the purposes of the shoulder season discussion, I'm burning 1.5 - 3" stuff topped off with maybe a 7 - 9" piece for a "coal log".  I usually burn things in the 16-18" length range.... sometimes in deep winter approaching 24".  I've never put a 30" in mine although I could!


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## HDRock (Nov 9, 2012)

Thanks , Boog


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