I do the same thing except my house has not cooled off. Maybe a few degrees with temps in the teens now.
How do you deal with excessive coaling from oak and other high-density species?
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Sometimes I get carried away like tonight. It 22 outside 76 inside and the secondaries are still flickering. Wife has a late shift so she wont be home until 3am. I 'll just sleep on the couch and reload probably close to when she gets home. Dogs are looking at me like WTF.
Looks like me and ozark said roughly the same thing at the same time. I will add, I have a cat stove and it’s basically the same process. I can run 4 loads a day like this without problem. Morning, Mid Morning/Noon, After Work, and Before Bed.
Usually I just do 3 loads because I’m busy with work.
Before getting the air adjustment down, I would build and build coals until I needed to just burn coals for hours.
Usually I just do 3 loads because I’m busy with work.
Before getting the air adjustment down, I would build and build coals until I needed to just burn coals for hours.
That's my "problem"...everything I burn is oak. Never thought I'd say I wish I had some pine or soft maple! My first year (out of 20) burning an EPA stove, I'm sure I'll get it down eventually.
I'm able...the wife isn't 😆. I get it going 630 am, leave for work, and when I get home at 5 pm it full of coals.
I forgot to mention this is a naturally drafted furnace.
If the intake was forced via blower, I wouldn't be able to feed it fast enough in these cold snaps.
19 outside here. Wife got home from her work and said she was cold. House was 75! Said house is normally 77 😳
I have the Liberty NEXGEN (non cat). I leave in the morning with it cranking, wife reloads mid-day and shuts it down, leaving me with mountains of coals when I get home in the early eve.
We are usually around 74 and let it drop to 70 or even 68 depending on temps outside. Over night last night it dropped to 64 but that was almost 10 hours between reloads and 4 degrees outside combined with me being lazy and not wanting to get up.
Sawset
Minister of Fire
It's cold here, with a lot of oak going in the stove, and everyday a lot of coal buildup. I've timed it so that I can slack off a bit mid afternoon, as long as the sun is shining in and adding heat, to allow the 24hr buildup of coals to burn off some. I have a bucket of dry chips from the chainsaw I can mix in, and some softwood cutoffs from the shop. Within an hour the coals are down, and time to reload. By the time the sun is down it's time to start over for the evening and night. One thing is, it doesn't seem to be a good idea to reload before what is there has had a chance to burn down, way down. Dumping in splits on top of half burned splits thinking I need more and more heat just creates a lot of unburned coals.
My wife leaves it full throttle. She's on the couch 5 feet away buried in her phone, she never even looks over her shoulder. 2 hours later i walk in and it's been ripping the whole time. I say "How's the fire?: "It's good".
Good thing we don't have a strong draft.
Good thing we don't have a strong draft.
Our old Earth Stove didn't have this problem...it also ate through 1/3 more wood! Maybe I need to get up earlier to reload before my wife reloads mid-day...reload schedule is definitely the hardest part of going to an EPA stove. We'll figure it out though.
Our stack is 16', it doesn't pull hard at all. Which makes me feel safe for the reason you describe...sometimes she forgets. I think now she's erring on the side of caution and shutting it down so she can go about her day. She's a city girl that's also busy running a business from home, so I can't complain! At least I don't have to start a new fire every evening 😉
Glad I’m not the only husband that has a wife that is buried in her phone!
Mine is about 16' too. She either chokes it way down or like you say just forgets to check. She does read the flue temp when she does pay attention and does light top down fires when i'm away so that's something.
I asked about some kind of actuater that wood open the air rod for you for situations like that ,for either over night or when you’re at work I didn’t get one response,not a bad idea?stupid idea ?
I don’t think it’s a stupid idea. BK and VC have devices that regulate intake air. If your idea operates differently, you should develop it!
We went double wall inside the house this fall when we upgraded to the Liberty, so our gauge went from stovepipe to stovetop. She was good at looking at the old stovepipe temp (I constantly stressed keeping it in check as our old stove burned dirty with lots of buildup in the flue). I think I made a mistake when I explained this new stove was much safer, cleaner, and easier to use...I might have used the phrase "it's hard to burn the house down with this stove". She's a very intelligent woman, but also a busy one.
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