This Vortex is Kicking my insert's azz

[osagebow]

I've been firing up the kero a bit to help out in the basement. Mostly because nobody has heat tape for my pipes. The 20 bucks I'll burn is nothing compared to what id pay with the heat pump going wide open For a week straight.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

58° is what I keep thermostats at. Oil and wood. I laughed when I read your horror.
Just call me a cheap beotch.

Wow mine is 76 ,i guess these old bones just dont appreciate the cold anymore.

 

[red oak]

So much depends on the setup of your house (walls, insulation, passive solar, etc). But this cold is pretty tough to keep the house warm without a backup if everything is not going in you favor. So far I've avoided using the propane but it was 6 below this morning and apparently next week is going to get even colder.

 

[BigBubba-Burn]

Your right Red oak . Right now its -15'F below zero . Burning hard to stay warm . But Have not turned on any back up .. back room was dam cold .

 

[Hickorynut]

My lopi insert cannot keep up with teens or single digits and below zero windchill. Well, it can keep up where the thermostat is but areas of the house away from stove are uncomfortably cold. I have been really disappointed with this insert anything in the teens or below, definitely a space heater. Do have cathedral ceilings and open upstairs that is way warmer than first floor. Lot of patio doors and windows too but house is not too big really. Know guys around me that can keep their house 80 in this cold, but they have wood stoves or furnaces. Oh well.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

My lopi insert cannot keep up with teens or single digits and below zero windchill. Well, it can keep up where the thermostat is but areas of the house away from stove are uncomfortably cold. I have been really disappointed with this insert anything in the teens or below, definitely a space heater. Do have cathedral ceilings and open upstairs that is way warmer than first floor. Lot of patio doors and windows too but house is not too big really. Know guys around me that can keep their house 80 in this cold, but they have wood stoves or furnaces. Oh well.

I cant help but think you could do more with a freestanding stove. Inserts are at the mercy of those blowers. You will only get as much heat as those blowers can wick off your stove.

 

[WiscWoody]

I cant help but think you could do more with a freestanding stove. Inserts are at the mercy of those blowers. You will only get as much heat as those blowers can wick off your stove.

Yes I agree. I could have gone the insert way since I have a tall chase on my home but I opted for a bigger stove and it cost less too which was important with my unemployed budget. I have 10' of double wall stove pipe going into the chase then in there I have another 12' of Selkirk

 

[red oak]

Those dogs have the right idea!

I think most houses that heat with wood, without blowers or fans, will have warm and cold spots. I know that we shut off some rooms in the basement in the winter so that we don't have to heat them. I think that's somewhat typical when the weather gets this cold.

 

[WiscWoody]

The tighter the house the the better as far as keeping the whole house warm. My house it pretty air tight but the bedrooms are cooler than the front of the place but I like it cool in the bedrooms for snoozing. I'm talking 62 or so cool and the front is 68ish.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

One of the reasons i have a wood stove is so i dont need a generator during a power outage. An insert sort of defeats that purpose cuz you need to power those fans.

 

[USMC80]

One of the reasons i have a wood stove is so i dont need a generator during a power outage. An insert sort of defeats that purpose cuz you need to power those fans.

on a lot of inserts i could agree, but not all. Even in this weather I don't have to turn the fan on and still heat the whole place. In fact I bought one of those rheostats so when i do run the fan I can run it as low as possible when i want

 

[HybridFyre]

I'm nearly in the same boat. I have the large FPX flush mount. So it's 3 cubic ft instead of 4.3. I have two large walls filled with sliders, French doors and glass transforms in a great room with a 22 ft ceiling. When it gets this cold I have to augment with oil. When it's above 25-30 the whole 2,500 sq ft stays around 70 with no supplementing assuming someone is around to keep the fire going.

 

[1kzwoman]

Adding insulated curtains, and a better type of floor/thermal mass to store solar might help with future cold fronts . Tile, rock faces or a variety of designs are available. Hope you stay warm. Probably cheaper than going to higher R value glass.

 

[eclecticcottage]

You cant really size a wood stove for this weather, otherwise it will be WAY oversized the rest of the year. If your stove is not keeping up 100% lately, its probably sized about right.
Spot heat with electric,oil, propane, fill in with whatever,in a week or two this will all be just a memory.

This is what I'm afraid of! Once we get all the sealing and tightening done, I only hope we don't overheat in milder weather since our stove IS oversized for the Cottage.

 

[WiscWoody]

This is what I'm afraid of! Once we get all the sealing and tightening done, I only hope we don't overheat in milder weather since our stove IS oversized for the Cottage.

When it's mild out, say.. In the 30's to 50 outside. I will wait until the house has cooled to 62 or so. I like it cool so no big deal. I'll then start the stove and warm it up to whatever suits me. 68 or 69 is good. It takes a long time to cool down in the house if it's mild. Or I will try to have a fire in the stove before bed time and warm it up in the morning again. I go through more kindling then but I sized the stove for our very cold winters up here in the north woods. If propane is cheaper like last year I will run the furnace more when it's warm too. It's 95% efficient like most furnaces now so if the fuel is reasonable I'll run it.

 

[rideau]

10AM and we are still -12F. We were -24F at 7AM. I start out, in good times, with a strong draft. With present temps and the air open 1/4 on reload, the wood is flaming before the door is closed, and secondaries are going within minutes, continue until the smoke is all gone and I am down to coals. These temps are eating wood. I'm going through about 3 cubic feet a day. But am holding back my best wood (Ironwood)...am burning mostly sugar maple with some beech, a very few pieces of white birch (which disappeaas compared to the other two). And now our weather forecast has been changed from 5 - 15 cms of snow over the weekend to two blizzards over the weekend with 80 to 100 km winds...up to 60 mph. Snowfall from first system 10-15 cm. They are not saying re the second system. (Chances are really good that a tree will go over on the hydro lines somewhere and we will lose power. It's been so cold that even in still weather I hear tree branches break off in the woods.) The wind is from the south, so the temps will warm somewhat during the storm, but the wind will result in it feeling even colder than it has with our recent relatively windless -24 to -30 F. And, of course, with lots of windows, windy days are much harder days to keep the house warm...more heat loss. I was anticipating a day or two of light snow with easier heating. Going out to get some more wood in before the system hits.

Then, when the storm passes, we go right back to frigid weather. Saw yesterday that we are averaging over 20 degrees colder than average daytime temps and over 25 degree colder than average night temps. It is COLD.

If I load the PH 3/4 full, it keeps things around 74 max in the North half of the house (16 x 46 room), about ten degrees colder on the second floor, and about the same on the third floor. I am sure I could get the upstairs warmer if I loaded the stove full, but I cannot afford to with my wood supply this year.

However, with these close to 100 degree differentials between inside and outside, if I don't reload at least one split when the stovetop temp starts to fall below 400, then the house starts to cool down. As long as I maintain secondaries (or, on the rare occasion when it is warm enough to ,maintain a straight cat burn), then the stove maintains the temps.

Going through too much wood.

I could even the house temps by using a fan, but I'd rather keep the downstairs warmer and the upstairs cooler with these outdoor temps. I'm not prepared to burn more wood to keep the entire house near 70. 2/3 of my living space is upstairs bedrooms etc.

 

[WiscWoody]

Are you in the Toronto area? It sounds by the temps your saying that your above Lake Superior or Minnesota. Those must be some cold, cold places in the winter!

 

[rideau]

No, I'm between Ottawa and Kingston. We had one day we were colder than Antarctica. It has been COLD, and with my siting I am in a microclimate that is even several degrees colder than a half mile away from the Rideau. Outside in the sun (which won't be shining much longer today) temps were still -12F at 10 AM, as posted above.

 

[WiscWoody]

No, I'm between Ottawa and Kingston. We had one day we were colder than Antarctica. It has been COLD, and with my siting I am in a microclimate that is even several degrees colder than a half mile away from the Rideau. Outside in the sun (which won't be shining much longer today) temps were still -12F at 10 AM, as posted above.

Ok. We get real cold here too. I just looked up our heating degree days on Weather Underground from 11/01/2013 to today and it was 4450. But I've always wandered how cold it can get in parts of Canada. The Canadians certainly know how to build a northern home from what I've learned.

 

[jdp1152]

I replaced my Andersen slider with a ProVia (you can select the glass R Value between 2 and 9...obviously price factors in) and noticed a huge difference in heat loss and draft in that area. Wood and glass are terrible insulators. I went with vinyl insulated and the R Value 6 glass. Amazing how much difference it made. For windows, you might look into honeycomb shades with sidetracks. You can get R Values of 4-7 depending on how opaque you want them....not sure if feds are still giving tax credit this year or not....definitely were last year.

Yeah they are Andersons but you can still feel air. I do have the curtains closed and they are thick-ish.

To echo applesister, what is the difference between ZC fireplace and an insert. I have an airtight box and a cat, so I thought that made it an insert.

As for turning on the oil, I have never ever had to do that. It feels like now I am relying on the "system" and not myself to sustain my heating needs.

 

[Oliver Levenson]

I have an FPX 44 with a 4.3 cu foot firebox. It is heating two rooms. The room it is in is 20X30 with two of the walls being pretty much glass door with a glass transoms above the the doors. The other room is a ton of glass as well. Ceiling heights are around 15 feet. I have a ceiling fan running on high in that room. Been mixing locust and black birch that have seasoned for two years. Getting a ton of coals which are useless in this weather. I hate to say it, but this vortex has me feeling a little defeated. It is hard for me to get it past 67 and when I woke up this morning it was 58 in my house. That has never happened before. I was really looking forward to these cold snaps. I might have to do the unthinkable, flip the oil on for backup

I think the glass doors of your room must be replaced , i would say that replace your doors soon for looking forward to cold snaps...

 

[mopar440_6]

Do you need to be able to use all of the glass doors? Could you get some of the shrink film window kits and seal up the doors and windows on the inside behind the curtains? It's not much but it does create a small dead air space that provides at least some level of insulation over the glass.

Something like this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Frost-King-E-O-Indoor-Window-Insulation-Kit-3-per-Pack-V73-3H/100135637

The windows in my house are good double pane windows that aren't leaking but they're so large that all my heat was escaping through the glass. I've sealed them up for the winter and am not having near as much trouble keeping the house up to temp...

 

[begreen]

I admire the quality of insulation and sealing you folks have. Our old house would be an ice cube in those conditions.

 

[skysong]

Yeah they are Andersons but you can still feel air. I do have the curtains closed and they are thick-ish.

To echo applesister, what is the difference between ZC fireplace and an insert. I have an airtight box and a cat, so I thought that made it an insert.

As for turning on the oil, I have never ever had to do that. It feels like now I am relying on the "system" and not myself to sustain my heating needs.

I have a multitude of metal windows/glass sliders with high ceilings and after a year of feeling the chill, I added these to the back of my current curtains. Used the ones at the top of the page...added them to the back of the clips that slide on the rod. Easily removable and price for bundle was reasonable. Ordered online.... http://www.walmart.com/search/?query=thermal curtains

 

[maple1]

Well, stoves are space heaters after all.

(My contribution to a year old thread )