Changing my burning habits...seems more efficient

[egghead2004]

I've been burning 24/7 for a few years now with my stove in the basement heating a 2 floor 2100 SF cape. Originally I was adding 3-4 normal size logs into the coals and trying to keep the stove temp around 350-400 during the cold winter months. It would take 3-4 hours to get the first floor up to 70 in the morning. Sometimes I would need to use the oil to assist.
This year I tried a few different things, one of which is burning short hotter fires (425-450) earlier in the season, still using 3-4 normal sized logs. That seemes to work pretty well, but it still would take a couple hours to heat the house up.

Over the last month, I have tried a new approach, cutting some logs in half with the chop saw. On a bed of coals, now I add 3 half length splits facing front to back rather than side to side. On top of those I add 2 regular splits across to make a criss cross pattern. With the damper in the same position, the temp of the stove shoots up to 500-575 in no time. I get a good 45 minutes of over 500F with secondary burn before it all turns to coal and the temp drops to 350-400 for another hour. The house heats up faster without ANY oil assistance. I know I am using less wood doing it this way, at least I use less wood. My wife figured this out and on the days I am not home, she gets the first floor up to 78 by dinner time when I come home, too damn hot! Anyway, the house is warmer, and the first floor never went below 65 during the 3 day power outage last week. Also, I have used the boiler for hot water only, no heat.

Hotter fire is more efficient for sure.

 

[joesat78]

you may be right here... this is what my very minimal experience has showed me till now.

I've been in this forum only for the last few months and I've read many times that once you get a good layer of coal, load the stove, damper is down as much as you can (varies by stove) and get that long burn. Newbies like me sometimes mis-understand this. I found that this setup does not 100% work in my case.

When I come home, the temp inside ranges from 50s to 55s. I quickly start a fire and burn with door cracked open for 5-10 mins and the open the damper 100% and close the door. After 20/25 mins I close the damper 40%. The 5 splits that I put in initially would be in coals by 75-90 mins. The temperature now is up by around 8-10 degrees... so, it would be between 60s and 65s. Earlier, I used to load the stove with 2-3 large splits/rounds and damper it down after 10 mins... However what I found is that this maintains the temperature of the room and does not raise it. So, lately, I started to burn the reload just as I burned the initial load (burning with the damper open 100% for 20 mins and dampening it down BY 40%). In another 30 minutes, the room is at 72. Once I reach my ideal temperature, I try to damper down as much as possible and try to maintain temperature.

My conclusion here is - Shorter & hotter burns can be used to quickly ramp up the temperature. Loading and dampening it down to minimal is to maintain the temperate (cruising).


* Air seems to move faster into the stove with cracked open door than opening it wide
* Regency I2400 doesn't seem to run great (without smolder/smoke) when the damper is down by more than 50% or 60% - I might be doing something incorrect here.