Back on Jan. 4 I posted that my Accentra FS was struggling overnight with temps in the teens. I wrote:
"Woke up to a 13º morning with the house on the cool side - about 67º upstairs and 64º downstairs. The stove is on the first floor, but we partition the area where it is (a foyer opposite the stairs and adjacent to the main room) so more heat goes upstairs overnight.
The stove is going full blast but is just keeping up. The house is about 1500 sq. ft., stone and brick, circa 1910, plaster over lathe walls and not insulated. If we have a prolonged spell of temps in the teens, looks like I will have to burn a little oil as a supplement. Oh well."
With a little more experience - and lots of help from everyone here - last night was completely different!
Jan. 15: This morning I woke up to 14º outside and the house was completely comfortable. The two main changes from the last night we had in the teens - both based on advice gratefully received in response to my original post - are better/hotter pellets and running on stove temp. I did a bit of insulating as well, but probably not enough to make a major difference. That will have to wait till spring.
In anticipation of the cold weather I had my son bring in bags of Great American’s and they are burning much hotter than anything else in my stash. I set the stove on high for blower speed, upped the feed rate to 5 and stove temp to 4½. The partitioned off lower level was at 63° at 7:00 AM, but upstairs was 69°. I opened up the heavy curtains and the temp is rising downstairs at about 2° per hour. I burned through a bag of pellets between 4:00 PM yesterday and 7:00 this morning, BUT we are happily warm.
P.S.: Madame Defarge is stiill pressing to turn on the oil burner for a controlled burn to prevent frozen pipes in the unheated basement, but I am holding out as long as I can.
"Woke up to a 13º morning with the house on the cool side - about 67º upstairs and 64º downstairs. The stove is on the first floor, but we partition the area where it is (a foyer opposite the stairs and adjacent to the main room) so more heat goes upstairs overnight.
The stove is going full blast but is just keeping up. The house is about 1500 sq. ft., stone and brick, circa 1910, plaster over lathe walls and not insulated. If we have a prolonged spell of temps in the teens, looks like I will have to burn a little oil as a supplement. Oh well."
With a little more experience - and lots of help from everyone here - last night was completely different!
Jan. 15: This morning I woke up to 14º outside and the house was completely comfortable. The two main changes from the last night we had in the teens - both based on advice gratefully received in response to my original post - are better/hotter pellets and running on stove temp. I did a bit of insulating as well, but probably not enough to make a major difference. That will have to wait till spring.
In anticipation of the cold weather I had my son bring in bags of Great American’s and they are burning much hotter than anything else in my stash. I set the stove on high for blower speed, upped the feed rate to 5 and stove temp to 4½. The partitioned off lower level was at 63° at 7:00 AM, but upstairs was 69°. I opened up the heavy curtains and the temp is rising downstairs at about 2° per hour. I burned through a bag of pellets between 4:00 PM yesterday and 7:00 this morning, BUT we are happily warm.
P.S.: Madame Defarge is stiill pressing to turn on the oil burner for a controlled burn to prevent frozen pipes in the unheated basement, but I am holding out as long as I can.
