What Is In Your Stove Right Now?

[stoveliker]

The bit of oak from last night lasted until 3 pm. Added two small splits, and now a half sized reload. Red oak and an odd foot of 3" round maple.

40 now, after having seen 37 earlier this night. Is going to remain 40-ish until it starts dropping tomorrow around 3 pm. A low of 17 tomorrow night. Last time this year, I think.

 

[MMH]

Lows headed for around 30 tonight, started off this evening with more mystery pieces and couple small splits of pine before the night load of pine goes in.

 

[Tar12]

After letting the stove go cold for a couple days I fired her back up this morning with a mix of oak,locust and ash as it 32 out..I will keep her running for the next 24-30 hours and then saturday its supposed to hit 73 ...lol

 

[TheBigIron]

Insert has been idle for the past 3 days, was able to scoop my ashes out leaving that inch bed. Just loaded with some oak and red elm. Temps are currently 28 outside.

 

[zmender]

Living room drifted down to 62F this morning, which means oil boiler did not fire yesterday for non-occupied areas.

Fired up stove this morning an hour ago, living room already back to 66F. Going to be low of 16F tonight with 15mph winds, so gonna keep stove burning hot until stones and masonry heat up to stabilize living room temperature.

 

[stoveliker]

The half-load of oak from last night is still simmering. Has been ~40F outside ever since the reload. Nice and sunny.
I did dial up the thermostat of the stove now though, because it's going to start dropping soon to the overnight low of 18 F. So I need to get my basement from the 72 F it is now up higher so I can pump some heat up the stairs with the fan (that has been off for 2 days or so) once it's needed. The drawback of a basement stove: slow timescales, so looking ahead is needed.

 

[zmender]

The half-load of oak from last night is still simmering.

I gotta gimme a cat stove one of these days.

Temp outside starting to drop down to 16F overnight and living room dropped from 71F to 68F. Morning load of biobricks and locust has lot's of coals and probably an hour of flames too if I stir it, but to make my evening easier I partial load with locust. Next reload will be for the overnight fire around midnight.

 

[Riddlefiddle]

Cherry and maple with a bit of poplar mixed in.

 

[stoveliker]

I gotta gimme a cat stove one of these days.

Temp outside starting to drop down to 16F overnight and living room dropped from 71F to 68F. Morning load of biobricks and locust has lot's of coals and probably an hour of flames too if I stir it, but to make my evening easier I partial load with locust. Next reload will be for the overnight fire around midnight.

The load of last night is still going. Even if I increased the temperature (Tstat) at 2-ish. It's been 80 in the basement half an hour after I did that.
This was half a load, 60% full at most. Red oak.
3 cu ft firebox though.

But, it's not (only) the cat in the stove. Yes, that's needed here, but it's not sufficient. It's the (bimetal coil) thermostat as well. It keeps the heat output constant. If a split falls, often burn rates go up (new surface exposed). That makes things go quicker. Especially when running at low heat output. The Tstat, when it senses a higher temperature, will close the air a bit to keep the same heat output. That (!) is what makes it possible to run low, slow, and thus long.

Note (emphatically) that long burns sound nice, but they do NOT work like that when it's 10 F outside - one needs more heat then. And in the end, the firebox is a certain volume, and thus can contain a certain amount of BTUs. Technology as described can spread that over more hours, but that is always at a lower output. When it's cold, I'm at a 10-12 hour reload schedule.

People often read "long hours" and then are disappointed that they have to reload each 8-12 hours in mid-winter. But that still is the case also for my stove. It's not miracle. Just science/engineering.

 

[Riddlefiddle]

Yes, I agree with the split falling aspect. When a split falls it does reveille a new surface to burn.

 

[Grizzerbear]

Ashes. It's been in the 60s and 70s this whole week. Looks like the stove will be fired back up Sunday night or Monday morning again with a cold front bringing some rain/snow mix and cooler temps again.

 

[stoveliker]

I gotta gimme a cat stove one of these days.

Just added two maple splits to get me to the overnight loading. This is what was left at 6.30 pm from last night 11 pm half full reload (again, with minimal heat "requested" from the stove).

 

[thewoodlands]

We had 10.2 this morning, the basement was 70, the living room and the sleeper were 66 before our first fire.

More ash went in the Liberty before I went out plowing.

 

[stoveliker]

Man, you plow a lot of snow. How big is the area you have set aside for storage? And how high can you pile it? (I see 10-15 ft piles near my local Home Depot - but they do that with big bulldozers.)

 

[thewoodlands]

Man, you plow a lot of snow. How big is the area you have set aside for storage? And how high can you pile it? (I see 10-15 ft piles near my local Home Depot - but they do that with big bulldozers.)

Here's a link to my thread, we have a chit load of storage areas in the woods that aren't even close to full.

Mahindra 4540

Red Maple sounds yummy..lol thanks..clancey We have some pretty good winds going on at the moment, maybe mother nature will put some food down for the deer.

www.hearth.com

 

[stoveliker]

Reloaded with all red oak. 28 F now, 18 predicted low. So a full load.

 

[zmender]

Full reload of locust and oak for overnight. Tomorrow morning living room should be around 66F and lots of coals in stove, next reload around 8AM.

 

[stoveliker]

Nice!

How big do you split?

 

[zmender]

People often read "long hours" and then are disappointed that they have to reload each 8-12 hours in mid-winter. But that still is the case also for my stove. It's not miracle. Just science/engineering.

I definitely get that - 100 BTUs in, at best get 70, 80 BTUs out, regardless of stove tech. 2.5 Cu ft firebox will contain only so much BTUs, and when it's cold outside, heat will only last as long as there's wood to burn.

Where I'm getting at is that from what I read in this forum, cat stoves (especially BKs) have the tech for sustained lower BTUs over longer hours. When it's 40, 50F outside, a cat stove will happily output say 5k BTUs per hour, eating up all the smoke, whereas a non-cat stove will either be operating at 70%+ efficiency at 30k BTUs or smoldering along at 5k spewing smoke.

 

[zmender]

Nice!

How big do you split?

My personal preference is about 4-6in. 6in is about largest I can burn reliably overnight, and anything smaller than 4in I either don't split, or I split down even further for relighting / kindling.

 

[stoveliker]

Yes. (Though I don't know if a stove that can do 5k continuous; mine is 10-11k) So with another stove, people make small and/or intermittent (hot) fires to remain comfortable.

I think it's more a difference in convenience of operation than anything else. And some folks just like flames and making fire. There were no flames in my stove for a few days (apart from a few minutes after adding fuel). Just black. (Only when I open the door can you see that it is glowing.)

Even now, after 20 minutes of flame it's back to glowing, tho not black at this higher setting.

Anyway, enough about the stove. This thread is about what is in it. Lotsa oak in my case.

 

[zmender]

Ultimately this is what I want to avoid. This is with 15%ish wood, I still can’t avoid puffs of smoke when I turn down heat for the night. The fire will burn (mostly) smokeless during day because I want the heat, but stove definitely smokes when intake gets reduced for the overnight burn. (FYI there’s visible secondary when this picture taken)

 

[DonTee]

I see I’m not the only one that looks at the chimney before I go to bed.

I’m burning maple and beech again. This morning when I woke up it was -2 outside and 72 inside.

 

[zmender]

I see I’m not the only one that looks at the chimney before I go to bed.

Clear chimney, clear conscience

Clear chimney means I've fully utilized the wood, maximized the BTUs, and minimized the pollution.

 

[zmender]

16F, 66F living room, full reload for a high of 34 today.