When does everyone start their stove.
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Ashful
Minister of Fire
Cleaning and brick replacements happening in the Ashfords today. I like to wait until after first small fire to sweep the chimney, to avoid bringing down any live hornets nests that may be currently residing in the cap. Always better to smoke them out with one small fire, before that fall sweeping.
Here, the days are still warm but the nights and mornings are cool. I flip the switch on the LP fireplace some eve/mornings for an hour or so. It takes the chill off. As some said here, it is all about the humidity. 69 in the house with rain outside feels totally different than 69 and sunny
I flipped a switch and the house got warmer lol
Ashful
Minister of Fire
I emptied the ash out of both stoves today, 3-4 full ashpans out of each from May. Then I removed all of the bricks, replacing those that were broken and flipping the ones that were badly spalded to expose their good backside. After one fire to smoke out any hornets nests, I'll be sweeping the pipes and replacing the cat combustors on each.
Last week I had my stove running all day. Saturday, and Sunday. I just sweep my chimney. I wanted to see how well I was doing and this is what I got out the chimney. Would you say this is good ?
![[Hearth.com] When does everyone start their stove.](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/315/315954-fd012075a16d56ffa683d5fcb1688804.jpg?hash=NW8K6GCCuk "[Hearth.com] When does everyone start their stove.")
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Maybe. I'm not sure I have any sense of what should be in a chimney after 2 days. You seem to be assuming build-up is linear with time, which seems logical. But for all we know, it could be that the very first fire puts a layer onto the bare liner, which only changes very little in the six months of subsequent firings.
When we were in India in the fall they started putting on sweaters and jackets at that temperature.
That’s a fair point. It would be interesting to see an experiment done on this.
Close to 6 inches of rain this week northeast of Seattle; 2.6 inches of it yesterday. More today. Outside temp is not particularly cold (low 50s), but I'm having to run the stove hotter to keep the indoor temp up. Maybe an effect of the humidity?
Shooting for November. i won't turn on the oil fired boiler though, so if we get cold mother nature will be the boss of the first fire.
Cooking a big chicken in the oven and then maybe some cookies can be just enough kick to delay the woodstove starts.
And the dehumidifier in the basement also adds a few degrees with better feeling drier air.
Cooking a big chicken in the oven and then maybe some cookies can be just enough kick to delay the woodstove starts.
And the dehumidifier in the basement also adds a few degrees with better feeling drier air.
![[Hearth.com] When does everyone start their stove.](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/315/315966-fd5b03314ed176732261b5e84429c05e.jpg?hash=1Wf-WXc_wo "[Hearth.com] When does everyone start their stove.")
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Wow, Ontario is warmer than eastern Pennsylvania, this week!
Maybe more an issue of running the stove too low, in warmer weather? You don't list your stove model in your signature, what is it?
Recently installed BK Princess. I'm comparing today with the last week or so. Wood is around 12%-13% MC. Using about a 1/2 load.
During the last 7 days, the outside temps were mostly low to mid 50s. The NG furnace is off overnight; the space (1800 ft^2 with 13' cathedral ceilings) is generally mid-60s in the morning. I've been getting it to mid-70s in a couple of hours with the stove air control on low (about 3:30 to 4 o'clock) after the startup procedure, and then it stays there for 12 hours before starting to drop off. Today I had it at 4:30 and the space was still only 69. Did a small hot reload at around 3 hours, turned the stove to 6, and reached 76 after an hour. Turned the stove back down to 4:30. Lost a couple of degrees.
It isn't a problem. I can get the room temps I'm looking for. Might not be worth using the stove at all at this point, but I'm learning. I'm just curious why today was different from the past week. Could be that I pulled out splits of a different species of wood. Maybe I placed the splits differently. Maybe it's just Thursday. The most blatant difference was the impressive amount of rain in the past 24 hours. No reason to think that it's related, but plenty more to learn about using this stove.
It’s even worse than PA! They’re using centigrade up there! That’s like 159F! I wouldn’t light the stove either!
Well, I relighted it Sunday, so I think you are right bout what you just said. But I feel like thats when it gets a lil dirty when you start a fire, but I had the secondary going great, so it was burning everything. I’m going to light it again in two weeks when the temperature is in the 40’s and I’ll keep y’all posted on it
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Lol... I have to admit, I had been thinking of Islay's chimney sweepings when previously responding to your post, got the two mixed up.
I honestly wouldn't take too much away from having to run the stove a little hotter one day versus another, when the outside temperatures are this warm. You're so close to the heating degree day null (usually 65F?), and suitably shooting for such little heat output, that small factors can make a big change in heating demand and perception. So, you're having fun and learning how to operate the stove, but I think you'll get a much better sense of more consistently dialing it to the weather when it's 40F and below!
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