Zip, this is my first season with a PE Summit, and I am noticing what Murinsky noticed as well, at a certain temp you are going to run into the limit of your stoves heating capability. Since we started heating with wood, I've turned into the "furnace nazi" who can hear the furnace cycle on from anywhere. But what I've found is that if my stove is struggling to heat the house up, a little help from the furnace goes a long way. Let it cycle a few times and you may be surprised with how much better your stove can keep up. SB
I'm falling out of love with my stove.
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I would agree with what everyone said so far. and if i fixed some of those things im sure it would help. but i still feel there is something with the stove. even eariler this season with the same house setup and colder temps the stove was running fine. yesterday it was a high of 50 and i worked my butt off to keep the house above 65. i could have run myself out of the house with this stove even with the temps below freezing. last night i shut the stove down and tonight when i get off work im going to look at the firedome. not sure what to look for but im going to try before i call the stove shop. I would also like to hear any other thoughts you guys might have. Thanks.
Definitely sounds like a stove problem.my TL is a bear that cooks me out of my partially insulated 3 story 3000 SF house every time i use it. Dont matter what the outside temp is. Sounds like theres a blockage either in the stove or the flue.
Zip, I put my BK insert in my finished basement. Ran the thing hard and my upstairs never got warm. I moved it upstairs to my main level and the thing freaking rocks and keeps us warm all the time! I don't know how, but convince your wife to move it upstairs! Jewelry? Put diamonds on the stove? We just recently bought a pellet stove to put in the basement for when we go down there.
What was the temp in the basement vs upstairs? Your stove top temps seem to be about 150F below what should be easily possible with this stove. I suspect the wood. Can you buy a couple bundles of dry wood at the grocery or hardware store?
My TL maintains 500-550 even with a big squirrel cage fan blowing the heat off it from behind,and the attached stove fan blowing up from the back. Will easily go to 650 but it cruises at about 450-550 stovetop even on the lower air setting. As i said try to take the flue pipe off and look down into the area around the cumbustion package,you can see the whole external cumbustion structure from there and tell if its collapsed or blocked in any way. You can feel the open outlet slots on each end as well to check if they are unobstructed but be very gentle and dont pull on anything. also you might try to vacuum out the secondary air holes in the hard ceramic firedome entrance from the front. Dont poke anything up into the firedome,but just the air holes in the hard ceramic you wont damage with the vacuum nozzle.
Same wood I have been using all year. I can make the stove much hotter it just eats the wood to fast.
Somethings not right,as i said i cant even start my stove if outside daytime temps go over 40. The house will be 85-90
I use pine during the day and on start-up and then seasoned oak overnight. If it approaches 38-40 during the day i dont even run the stove then...... only at night. House still stays above 70
I use pine during the day and on start-up and then seasoned oak overnight. If it approaches 38-40 during the day i dont even run the stove then...... only at night. House still stays above 70
Does that include the Keytsoker firing also. It a bit hard to believe a 3 cf stove is heating 3 stories in a partially insulated 3000sf, 3 story house. And at any outside temps cooking inside the house? Something ain't adding up there. 3cf is 3cf, square peg ain't fitting in a round hole. Are you sure you aren't embellishing a tad? You can't load enough wood in that thing to put out what your claiming.
I only have one flue so i can only run one stove at a time. My stoker was broke down from december 20 until after the new year about 2 weeks or so. The harman was the sole source of heat. On milder (35-38)sunny days i just ran 1 load a day at about 11PM for overnight (low 20s) On colder cloudy days i ran 2 loads One in the morning and one at night. MOSTLY AT THE LOWEST AIR SETTING. It did take some fans to move the heat around but my stove room 20x18 was 90-95 ,Bar (same floor) 85.Next floor up about 76. 3rd fl Bedrooms about 70. I chit you not fellow burner all stats are accurate and non-embellished. Im not far from you about 35-40 minutes im at 17866 Any time you are by this way stop in for a beer and ill gladly show you the gear. That harman needs no help to cook me out. I really dont even bother with it when its over 40 out.
Cheers
PS i still got about 400 SF of living room walls that are completely uninsulated. Ill get to it eventually. And my basement(where the stove is) is completely uninsulated as well but totally below grade.
Hey, Zip, as Motor7 said, get those bare (?) basement walls insulated. Assuming they are flat-surfaced, the best way is with 2" or more of sheets of rigid foam, attached with either adhesive (such as PL-300) or with powder-driven fasteners with fender washers, over which you'd fasten 2x3 or 2x4 on the flat and then drywall, kept a half inch or so off the floor for ignition/thermal protection. That insulation will go a LONG way toward making that basement comfortable and not suck up most of the heat from the stove. Then provide a BIG path for the warm air to rise up to the living levels, like a basement door left open. The warm air needs to be able to rise up (which it will do all by itself - it's lighter than the cooled air from upstairs), and the cooled air needs to return to the basement, like down the bottom half of the stairwell. A basement-located stove can heat the whole house, provided the basement walls don't suck all the heat out and warm the earth around it, and provided the warmed air can get up where you want it.
My basement (where my stove is) in is completely uninsulated. The stove room (all cindercrete walls and concrete floor) gets about 90-95 degrees already when my stove is running ON LOW. If i insulated that room it would surely be over 100 in there. Im not saying insulation does not help a great deal.it can make a great deal of the difference.Im a builder I know. BUt you are dead on about the fact that a basement located stove can heat the whole house. Im glad mine is in the basement,i wouldn't want my living room 95 degrees.
Well, then kudos to you brother. Just out of curiosity, what are the dimensions of your home?
May take you up on the visit sometime.
Just got a line on a load of pole length, and am having a triaxle load delivered tomorrow. So I'll be busy with that for some time.
Burn on...
ailanthus
Feeling the Heat
Thanks for that point of reference BB - This is my first full year burning, not too far from you geographically & I had really been wondering how this year compared to an 'average' winter. If this is a 'more wood than average' type of winter, I should be sitting pretty. Sorry for getting off track...now back to the OP.
44x24 x 3 stories high. I do get some help on sunny winter days from a closed in sun porch,hence the 1 load on sunny winter days.Cloudy days i get nothin so 2 loads(morning & evening) on those days.Last time i was up your way i had my sportster(quite a few years back)went up to the harley shop there. Also opened er up on the way back ,fastest i ever went on 2 wheels. OLd lady pulled out in front of me,just missed er.
Regards
Holy Gmoly 90 degrees?!? What are your upstairs temps??? What kind of stove? You must have the perfect set up. I have a walk out basement with lots of windows and couldn't get it above 70 with the princess insert (0-10 temps outside) so had to move it upstairs and it works awesome!
MY basement(where the stove is)is mostly below grade so not as cold as cement walls exposed to the winter air,but it is completely UNINSULATED. MY stove room is about 18 x20 and indeed it ranges from 90 to 100 whenever the stove is running. I have to use a commercial carpet dryer fan to blow the heat out into the rest of the basement which stays about 85. Next floor above about 76.
One above that 70.
65 on floor above is way too cold for a basement in the 80s, your problem is air flow. I only have a 1x1 Sf floor vent in the Liv room,but i have a high velocity fan bringing the air up from the basement. Your floor above should be no more than 8-10 deg cooler than the Bsmt.
Did you try blowing air down the stairs to the basement by placing a table fan on the floor pointing down the stairs?
Nope not yet. I installer computer fans on two of the floor vents blowing hot air "up". I agree I now need to push some cold air down. The computer fans did help a bit bit not as much as I hoped. The house is new(I just finished it) and the last thing to go in was the spiral staircase. Basement is open & 10' walls. We ran the stove for almost a month before cutting any holes in the floor. First hole was the 54" round stair case, then last month 5 - 4x14" floor vents, two with fans. All in all there is not a huge difference in the "mix" so I have much work to do.
Computer fans
Yikes.Talk about UNDERpowered. Me thinks you need some real airflow. I use one of those carpet dryer type squirrel cage fans. Like 2000-3000 CFM jobs.I blow the hot air up into the first floor and the cold air goes down all by itself thru floor vents at the other end of the house above the stove.
Did you mean to say 200-300cfm? A 2000-3000 cfm blower would be ridiculously overkill and very noisy. Most whole house furnace blowers are 1000 cfm or under. A pair of properly placed 4" 100cfm fans can move enough air to get the job done in many cases, especially when working with nature and pushing denser cold air down toward the warm stove. A 100cfm fan will exchange a 20'x15' room's air every 24 minutes.
Give me minute to check ,these things vary greatly in the output. OK Yes you are right .I use 2 of these carpet dryer fans One is 350 CFM and the other is larger but i cant find an output rating just 10 AMPS Probably closer to 500 CFM. I checked this earlier(by googling carpet dryer fans) but the 2000-3000 was for a similar but larger fan. Even so my 2nd floor only gets to 76 while the 1St floor is 85 and the stove end is 90-95
10amps? Whoa..mine are .14 amp & 110 CFM, so both together are only drawing .28 amps. They are working fine, & I also run 2 out of 4 ceiling fans on low & in reverse on the main floor. I think the biggest issue is the 22' cathedral ceiling & great room design.....I have to push or pull a lot of heat down off the ceiling.
Here is a link to the fans:
(broken link removed to http://www.ebay.com/itm/230809589581?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649)
All I have to do is plug 'em in since they are already 115v.
Btw I am running 80% LED light bulbs...last month the power bill was $56 so I'm doing something right.
Here is a link to the fans:
(broken link removed to http://www.ebay.com/itm/230809589581?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649)
All I have to do is plug 'em in since they are already 115v.
Btw I am running 80% LED light bulbs...last month the power bill was $56 so I'm doing something right.
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