What Is In Your Stove Right Now?

[Wildflush]

20x30’ with a 200 sq ft loft. Full basement as well.

Very sweet. Brings back memories of hunting in an old early 1900’s hunting cabin in the Maine Hemlocks many years ago. Yours sounds more modern since only heat we had was wood stove and outhouse outside with bear claw marks in the door 😂. Very rustic.

 

[all night moe]

After my 12:30 load, I went to bed around 1:30. With the bedroom above the lair, I walked in to see the GF half naked with the covers down by the foot of the bed. She was sound asleep. In my mind I hear the lyrics, "It's getting hot in here. Take off all your clothes."

Got up 7:30 for a nice bed of coals and fed breakfast to the dragon. looking forwards to the dragon's hibernation this spring. Bedroom was still warm and the living room was a bit chilly.

 

[Crab]

Very sweet. Brings back memories of hunting in an old early 1900’s hunting cabin in the Maine Hemlocks many years ago. Yours sounds more modern since only heat we had was wood stove and outhouse outside with bear claw marks in the door 😂. Very rustic.

Poor bear didn't get in to go, I guess that's what started the saying "does a bear ...in the woods" guess so, if the out house door is locked.

 

[Ashful]

Close off that newly opened floor for the week?

I debated doing just that last night. My daughter is using the en suite bathroom up there, although she still sleeps down on the second floor. The bathroom has it's own electric baseboard, so with the door closed, the rest of that floor could be left cold.

I normally keep the boiler zone that feeds that floor set at 62F when the door is closed. Last night with the door open, I checked and it was holding about 68F, so I'm definitely sending some of the heat from the stove two floors below up there.

 

[Ashful]

And that’s not even counting windchill which will push it below 0!

It's the one time that living in an old stone house actually works to my benefit. Our windows may be a little drafty, but overall, we don't really feel wind thru 20" - 24" of stone!

I've heard it said that old stone houses can be "tighter" than even modern framed houses. I don't know if that's really true, but it seems reasonable. I can say that friends and neighbors will regularly say things to me like, "did you hear that wind howling last night? Kept me up half the night!" And all I can usually say is, "no, didn't hear a thing."

 

[all night moe]

I debated doing just that last night. My daughter is using the en suite bathroom up there, although she still sleeps down on the second floor. The bathroom has it's own electric baseboard, so with the door closed, the rest of that floor could be left cold.

I normally keep the boiler zone that feeds that floor set at 62F when the door is closed. Last night with the door open, I checked and it was holding about 68F, so I'm definitely sending some of the heat from the stove two floors below up there.

Shut her down. LOL
Those Ashfords are working hard and so are you.

 

[NickW]

-8 with -20 something wind chills. 6 hours after the load of beech & ironwood went in (4 1/2 hours after getting to bed) the Mrs wakes me up saying the house is cold and heaters are kicking on, I fired up the coals and am leaving. Still a pile in there. I stuffed 3 ash and 2 shoulder season pieces in and it's full. Gotta get the temps up and coal down 🙄.

 

[all night moe]

With these temps it makes me think of the peoples of past in this old house. The timber frame section especially. No insulation in the walls. Drafty, with no wind rows to block prevailing winds from the fields, and the little pot belly coal stove room heaters. There is still evidence of their prior existence where they were installed.

Makes me wonder what it was like. Even though I know coal burns HOT, I wonder.

 

[NickW]

Cold weather advisory until midnight tonight, then the extreme cold warning kicks in until noon tomorrow. Considering an alarm tonight for a reload... Hoping to do better with timing tonight and will probably be running a 3 hour shoulder season schedule for today. At least the sun will be out to help during the day.

 

[stoveliker]

I feel bad for y'all, but...

It was 18 this morning, 2.5" onnth ground,.clear sky, and it was windy overnight (even 2" can form snow drifts...)

It was 68 on the living floor.
12 hrs in from last night's load I still have an hour to go or so - which sucks as I have a work meeting (online) at 10 with Switzerland.

Also, my stove quite burns differently than most of yours; the splits don't coal up in split form and then fall apart.
They turn to ashes front to back; the front is all gone and the back is still coals in (now shorty) split form.

 

[Wildflush]

House 76 now and 19 outside. STT 500 and dropping. Won’t load until 250 STT. Nice and sunny outside. House is south facing so get lots of sun. Need to get outside and start snow cleanup. Both of my kids still sleeping with the oldest going back to college later today. Told them they need to pull their weight when they get up!

 

[mpaul]

Woke up at 6 to the house at 67. Threw some bark on the coals and then went out to snow blow the 7-8” of white stuff we got yesterday. Snowblowing in this wind is the worst!! Came back in about 90 minutes later and had a very small bed of coals, scooped a little ash then loaded it up with a mix of ash and oak. House is warming up now with a lot of solar gains helping.

 

[bigealta]

How big is your firebox? I see you were up 2 and a half hours prior that sucks

I'm up a lot in the middle of the night, messed up sleep patterns.
Too many coals left so just got the 2 in and planned to let them burn a little hotter than normal to burn it all down.

The f400 box is not that big (1.77cf i think) so need to get the coals burned down to really get it packed with splits.
These really cold temps have me pushing it hard. Normally i let the stove burn all the way down as with temps above 32F it easily heats the house without even burning 24/7.

The last few years i was cold starting almost every morning.

 

[thewoodlands]

This morning we had a low of 0.5, the basement temp started out at 73 with the temps up here 65 & 66. The first load of the day was all beech.

It will be colder tonight so we'll be burning beech all day and tonight.

 

[Murray01]

IDK how some of you guy live in -20f -40f temps. That's just crazy.

I'm kind of concerned with our low teens and high single digits heading here for the next few days.

Our houses are built differently to some extent. Comparing my daughter’s new build in Katy TX vs our Canadian house 1983 build. We have a basement where the furnace and hot water tank are located, her’s both are in the attic since they don’t have a basement, a disaster waiting to happen when they get a cold snap. Looking at homes under construction they are building with 2” X 6” so the insulation factor should be similar, I’m guessing they insulate to keep the AC cost down vs Canada where we are trying to keep the heating cost down.
Their humidity is crazy making cold temperatures feel colder by a long shot.
The smart Canadians aka Snowbirds leave Canada for southern US or Mexico, the rest of us just make the best of a cold situation. I don’t mind winter personally until the temperatures drop to -25C, at that temperature it isn’t as fun.
An add slogan, “There is no bad weather just poor clothing”
This is the 3rd morning that the thermometer is reading-40C=-40 °F, dam cold for man or beast!

Keep your water running if you’re concerned about pipes freezing, taps don’t need to be wide open just a trickle. Thats what my daughter does when the temperatures drop to below freezing and she hasn’t had a problem so far.

 

[Todd]

Still -16 and the wind is picking up. Feels colder now with the wind blowing . Just loaded up a half load of oak on a lot of coals. After the majority of the off gassing is done I’ll set the air at half to help burn down the coals for the next load mid afternoon. I’ve also found removing most of the ash in the morning helps keep the coals down. I don’t need long burns with this cold weather.

 

[all night moe]

Just came up from the lair. The dragon is an updraft gasifier. It has a vertical chamber at the back of the stove, fed preheated air and all. It doesn't have foundry cement around it but is made from 3/8'' steel. I normally don't push the coals back there. It's a PITA to clean out ashes there behind a big bed of coals. This mornings second reload, I did. They started glowing bright orange and the sound of air grew louder as it washed through the coals, on it's way to the flue. Threw another load of splits in and waited. With the door cracked open on a reload, if a split lands back there, I can see flames in the flue. Just through the hairline cracks in the joints. With 6' of horizontal pipe, this is easy to do. With the fresh splits of sugar, ash, cherry, and apple tossed in, I made sure some were back there. I did not see any fame in the stove pipe. Complete combustion in the dragon.

A gain of efficiency and heat.
Sorry I wrote another book. Didn't want to start another thread so stuck it here, cause I put those fresh splits in the dragon.

 

[NickW]

Massive coals and not nearly enough heat after 3 hours. Going to try a few rounds of 3 pieces of shoulder season wood in the middle with coals pushed to the sides air pretty open every hour or two and see if I can make heat and headway on the coal pile during the sunny daytime...

 

[all night moe]

Massive coals and not nearly enough heat after 3 hours. Going to try a few rounds of 3 pieces of shoulder season wood in the middle with coals pushed to the sides air pretty open every hour or two and see if I can make heat and headway on the coal pile during the sunny daytime...

If you didn't already do this, can you make those 3 splits smaller? Split them again and do a double feed? Now and later?

 

[NickW]

If you didn't already do this, can you make those 3 splits smaller? Split them again and do a double feed? Now and later?

Thanks for the suggestion, but my shoulder season pieces are generally not as big as my good wood. The 3 I put in an hour ago are down to coals already. Just waiting for it to cool down a little more before the next load of 3. That first load got shockingly hot. I did have to choke it down for awhile to not have the Auber alarm go off. The coal pile is a little smaller and I suspect as I keep doing this the new coals from the lower quality woods will burn down faster than the hardwood coals do. I started with a stove 3/4 full of coals. It's down to 1/2 full now. Temps are dropping quickly, so next load is going in shortly.

 

[all night moe]

Another benefit of the dragon's breath, I no longer have to deal with excessive coaling.
Just came up from another 6 split reload. Maple, ash, and cherry again. The coals in the back were gone. Instead of raking them forwards to the incoming air wash, The exiting air wash is hot air and more effective.

 

[Dieselhead]

Oak and hard maple went in around 11am today. I’m working through some short stuff in the stacks so sometimes you have to get creative trying to fill the box to capacity. We have sun and 20s today with single digits tonight. I’ll reload tomorrow am around coffee time. I’m feeling it will be a full boat of spruce then hardwoods overnight.

Enjoy this beautiful day!

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

 

[Wildflush]

Dropping down now. Load of Oak. House 75. Spread loads out at 200-250 STT just enough coals to gets things going.

Surprising wife with Venison stew when she gets home from work!

 

[bigealta]

3 oak sp,its on lots of big coals, left some room for it to run hot.

Gonna be cold so trying to get the heat up inside.

 

[NickW]

Same here. Just loaded a full load of shoulder season wood after using the same to burn down coals all day.