What Is In Your Stove Right Now?

[thewoodlands]

During those super cold periods, was the temperature differential between main and basement? Basically the pellet stove was the "base heat" and the stove was the "peak heat" if I understand correctly

I'm not sure on your first question, I'm pretty sure the high temp in the basement with the wood & pellet stove going overnight hit 89, I'm not sure what the temp was up here but I did shut both off in the morning until more of the heat made its way up here.

When it's really cold the wood stove is used all day and then the pellet stove is used at night for the constant heat it will put out.

The first area I started burning out of holds ten face cord, eight were ready for this year. Five face cord I robbed from what I call our wood dump over two years ago, it looked better when I stacked it but five face should've been burned in the shoulder season but we made it through that chit wood.

We should be set with really nice hardwood for about four or five years depending on how much we burn during the colder months.

 

[thewoodlands]

It's 18.5 tonight with the wood stove burning down coals and the pellet stove providing the heat, the basement was 77 before I turned the pellet stove on, the living room is 68 and the sleeper is 67.

 

[sweedish]

28 tonight. Mix of ash, cherry, boxelder and quaky.

 

[zmender]

27F this morning with good coal bed. Lined back of stove with biobricks and remaining locus splits.. maybe 80% load? Heading out late afternoon / stove will be cold till Saturday.

 

[moresnow]

I'm not sure on your first question, I'm pretty sure the high temp in the basement with the wood & pellet stove going overnight hit 89, I'm not sure what the temp was up here but I did shut both off in the morning until more of the heat made its way up here.

When it's really cold the wood stove is used all day and then the pellet stove is used at night for the constant heat it will put out.

The first area I started burning out of holds ten face cord, eight were ready for this year. Five face cord I robbed from what I call our wood dump over two years ago, it looked better when I stacked it but five face should've been burned in the shoulder season but we made it through that chit wood.

We should be set with really nice hardwood for about four or five years depending on how much we burn during the colder months.

How much of the season did you get through by burning your very abundant supply of Pine? Curious.

 

[stoveliker]

The firebox-clean-out-end-of-season fire.

 

[thewoodlands]

How much of the season did you get through by burning your very abundant supply of Pine? Curious.

I'm not exactly sure but usually we start burning our shoulder season wood the third week of September unless it's real warm. We usually have six face cord up but I only had five face ready, I'm thinking we made the switch over to hardwood in early November.

This coming fall I'll keep track when we start and stop burning our shoulder season wood.

 

[thewoodlands]

We had 6.6 this morning, the basement temp was 75, the living room was 67 and the sleeper was 66.

I ran the pellet stove overnight on the highest area in the low setting, the wood stove still had coals this morning from some ironwood that was burning down before I shut the fan off when the P.S. went into use, I loaded some ash up this morning after stirring up the coals and it took off nice.

Tonight we're suppose to be around 45 degrees, that will feel nice.

 

[Isaac Carlson]

Low 30's here with rain/snow/wind. Used up the last of the maple and threw some locust in the stove.....too warm.
I'll have to get more low btu wood, because all we have left is "good stuff".

 

[NickW]

Low 30's here with rain/snow/wind. Used up the last of the maple and threw some locust in the stove.....too warm.
I'll have to get more low btu wood, because all we have left is "good stuff".

Tough problem to have 🤔. Just make smaller loads, much better situation than only having crap. If you want to do a trade, I'm in North Central WI until next week. I have lots of pine and aspen; although it's not css 😂.

 

[thewoodlands]

It's 35.1 tonight with another load of ash going in the wood stove, the basement is 72 heading up, the living room is 68 and the bedroom is 67.

 

[Jay106n]

Stove is cold but I’m running the open fireplace with maple sticks just for fun

 

[thewoodlands]

We had 35.2 this morning with the basement temp at 72 and everything else up here at 67, more ash is providing the heat.

We're suppose to hit 66 today but we'll see what our high temp actually hits.

 

[thewoodlands]

NOAA is calling for a low of 37 tonight, just another load of ash going in the Lopi.

 

[NickW]

Down to 15 or so tonight, another load of ash, beech and birch. Gotta keep it going during the days too with the windows cracked to allow moisture from the drywall mud to escape.

 

[zmender]

Came home this morning to 56F living room. Lit up a full load of locust in stove to help recovery.

 

[zmender]

Temp 40-50s until Friday. Neighbor's latest oil bill was 4.89$/gal and I don't have minisplit... so here we go.

Burning lot's of 20~30%MC shorties and uglies (don't want to burn <18% locust) with air full open and slightly cracked open stove door. Smoke stack is clear, putting out a enough heat to maintain living room / home office in 66F range.

 

[thewoodlands]

Temp 40-50s until Friday. Neighbor's latest oil bill was 4.89$/gal and I don't have minisplit... so here we go.

Burning lot's of 20~30%MC shorties and uglies (don't want to burn <18% locust) with air full open and slightly cracked open stove door. Smoke stack is clear, putting out a enough heat to maintain living room / home office in 66F range.

We've been burning a load of ash at night or in the morning if needed, the house has been 67 to 69.

I did clean the pipe with the Sooteater on Tuesday morning, all was good.

 

[Caw]

Shut'er down for the season. Wife already took over the wood spot with a basket. Nice and clean, ready for fresh paint this summer:

 

[stoveliker]

@Caw, is the top of the insert the hottest part? What does the (magnetic, I presume) thermometer indicate?

(I'm asking because of the whitish discoloring - which seems too vaguely defined to be drool-related )

 

[Caw]

@Caw, is the top of the insert the hottest part? What does the (magnetic, I presume) thermometer indicate?

(I'm asking because of the whitish discoloring - which seems too vaguely defined to be drool-related )

That is a magnetic Condar and it's actually fairly accurate when compared with my IR gun. The hottest part of the stove is about an inch or two behind it but that's inaccessible due to the surround so I just use it as a guide for a quick visual peak. I know that if it reads X it's slightly hotter than that value.

I think the discoloration is a result of a bunch of things:

1. It's the hottest part of the stove. I've zapped it with the IR gun many times all over to confirm. It likes to cruise between 650-750 degrees on a good hot burn which is pretty warm but overfire is listed as 840 degrees by SBI so I'm not too concerned about that standard range. I did have two brief overfire situations this year at about 850 degrees for 10-15 minutes. I think it likely cured/cooked the paint a little bit extra during those events. It's been running fine all year afterwards and I plan to have my sweep give it a good once over too when he's out for the seasonal pipe cleaning.

2. Ashes. Since the finish is rough right now the ash dust adheres to it very easily. I haven't bothered to clean it since I'll be sanding and refinishing it this summer.

3. I repainted (poorly) the forward section of it once so there are different amounts of paint and finish in places. Some has work off as it didn't take well (I didn't prep nearly well enough) so it's not uniform looking. I think when it got too hot it exacerbated the look difference

4. Dust. There is a lot of dust/dander in here from the winter of burning and the dog. We haven't done our big cleaning yet and I'm not bothering to touch the stove until I redo it.

Drool is the reason for all this paint stuff in the first place but not the color changes. Here's a pic I took just now to show what needs to be fixed. Im confident I can do a good job this time. You can see where I ran my finger thru the dust on top. It all looks much more uniform to the naked eye:

 

[stoveliker]

I'm put at ease

 

[Gearhead660]

Spring has been cool so far, still burning but smaller loads. Currently burning apple of the 2018 vintage.

 

[zmender]

More moist shorts and uglies... I collected about 2 wheelbarrows full of them.

If I keep stove throttle maxed out and leave tiny crack on the door, these things burn smokeless (every now and then a whiff of smoke but nothing really visible) and hot enough to keep house close to 70F, as the sole heater in the house (except bedroom). Have to reload is a pain in the ass but wife loves the flames and happily tossing in a few pieces every hour or two. Basically a more efficient fireplace.

Every time I go walk the dog I bring back one or two birch skinnies (about 3~4in across) and I got about a quarter cords this way. I'll dry these out and burn them in fall shoulder season.

 

[thewoodlands]

We had some good rains overnight and this morning with a temp of 42 so the Liberty received another load of ash.

It looks like I'll burn over my 12 face cord but under 13.