Whats heat?

[Festus]

Lots of variables with how much any given stove will heat. It would be nice if manufacturers could help out a little more as far as information about the rated output, but if you think about it, it's really not very simple. I guess you would need to know how many BTU's it takes to maintain a certain temperature in your house compared with outside temperatures. I know with my old house, the wind is another big variable. Our Hearthstone Heritage is rated for the square footage of our house, and it works fine when outside temps are at least 15 degrees F. When it gets down around zero and below it doesn't keep up. On weekends when your home, you can keep the air open and load up every couple hours, it isn't too bad, but that does you little good during the work week. Sure, we could've gotten a bigger stove, but then maybe we'd have too much heat a lot of times. I'm not sure how good it would work choking it down all the time. Average winter temps are ok, last winter sucked, especially with the LP prices last year.

 

[Gypo Logger]

Will somebody please tell me what heat is?
Extended Forecast
Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday
February 4

February 5

February 6

February 7

February 8

February 9

Mainly sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny
High -4°

-9° | -26°

-11° | -35°

-20° | -45°

-18° | -35°

-8° | -26°
these temps are in Fahrenheit.

 

[Gypo Logger]

I think I know what cold is. Last night I decided to get into my homemade pineapple wine.
Anyway, the 5 gallon jug was on the floor and as I poured I noticed it was mostly frozen solid, but there was about a quart that was still liquid.
It must have been pure alcohol because I just woke up now. The inside temp was 25F and minus 32F outside, but the fire was still burning.
Did my new door gasket keep me from freezing to death?
Some may ask why I didnt take the door gasket and hang myself so I would be warm in hell! Lol
John

 

[zogger]

I think I know what cold is. Last night I decided to get into my homemade pineapple wine.
Anyway, the 5 gallon jug was on the floor and as I poured I noticed it was mostly frozen solid, but there was about a quart that was still liquid.
It must have been pure alcohol because I just woke up now. The inside temp was 25F and minus 32F outside, but the fire was still burning.
Did my new door gasket keep me from freezing to death?
Some may ask why I didnt take the door gasket and hang myself so I would be warm in hell! Lol
John

I've found window quilts/old towels/blankets whatever over the windows at night help a bunch.

 

[philoshop]

If it gets too warm you can always damp the stove down or open a window. If the stove is maxed and it's still too cold, you're SOL.

 

[Gypo Logger]

I've found window quilts/old towels/blankets whatever over the windows at night help a bunch.

Ya, I was thinking of doing that, but my cleaning wench said beware of girls hanging drapes.

 

[Fubar]

I think I know what cold is. Last night I decided to get into my homemade pineapple wine.
Anyway, the 5 gallon jug was on the floor and as I poured I noticed it was mostly frozen solid, but there was about a quart that was still liquid.
It must have been pure alcohol because I just woke up now. The inside temp was 25F and minus 32F outside, but the fire was still burning.
Did my new door gasket keep me from freezing to death?
Some may ask why I didnt take the door gasket and hang myself so I would be warm in hell! Lol
John

door gasket ....LOL ..... i just thought Hillbillys were crazy , yeah freezing wine is a old trick to get the pure alcohol off , but seriously i don't think i could stay drunk enough to live in that arctic deep freeze ......

 

[Fubar]

oh sorry for the off topic comment ...but it struck my funny bone ..
i find those btu's and square feet ratings just about useless, every manufacturer has a different way of rating them , i spent one winter in a house with too small of a stove and no insulation and that was not a pleasant winter at all, look at the efficiency ratings and then buy the biggest most efficient stove that company makes and you will be loaded for bear no matter what polar vortex passes through ...

 

[Gypo Logger]

door gasket ....LOL ..... i just thought Hillbillys were crazy , yeah freezing wine is a old trick to get the pure alcohol off , but seriously i don't think i could stay drunk enough to live in that arctic deep freeze ......

I never really thought about, but I guess I am a hillbilly living the way I do, however I'm not shack wacky yet. Lol
Farther south wood burning is largely for aesthetics and taking the chill off or supplementing another heat source.
Here in the north off the grid a stove is more a means of survival.
It's relatively warm here now at minus 22F and 65f inside which is quite liveable. The days are getting longer by about 5 minutes a day and quite sunny, so spring is just around the corner.
John

 

[Whitespider]

Stoves aren't magic...

Yep... there ain't no magic
Been sayin' that for a a few years now...

 

[Locoweed]

I think I know what cold is. Last night I decided to get into my homemade pineapple wine.
Anyway, the 5 gallon jug was on the floor and as I poured I noticed it was mostly frozen solid, but there was about a quart that was still liquid.
It must have been pure alcohol because I just woke up now. The inside temp was 25F and minus 32F outside, but the fire was still burning.
Did my new door gasket keep me from freezing to death?
Some may ask why I didnt take the door gasket and hang myself so I would be warm in hell! Lol
John

It wasn't the door gasket that kept you from freezing. With all that antifreeze in you, you were probably good to twenty below.

 

[Marshy]

"True efficiency for a wood stove is the number published by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its web site. When comparing efficiencies of different brands you should always compare the EPA “Actual Measured Efficiency” and not the Optimum or Low Heat Value (LHV) number quoted by most manufacturers on their brochures. The LHV is not representative of how a stove performs in your home. The EPA actual measured efficiency number is a true reading of how your stove performs in the real world."

http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2013-08/documents/certifiedwood.pdf


Here is the Canadian performance test that manufactures use to determine HHV.
http://mha-net.org/docs/CSA-B451b.PDF

 

[Oldman47]

Have a close look at that list Marshy. Very few of the stoves even have a measured efficiency. Most just show the EPA default value for a cat or a non-cat. There are exactly 2 such values.

 

[Marshy]

Have a close look at that list Marshy. Very few of the stoves even have a measured efficiency. Most just show the EPA default value for a cat or a non-cat. There are exactly 2 such values.

Yup, you are right. The EPA doesn't measure nor concern them selves with the efficiency or the heat output of stoves only their emissions for particulate. That allows the manufacture to determine how much heat they generate. Obviously this is a big disadvantage to consumers because there is no mandated standard method that allows someone to compare two different manufactures. The best you can hope for is that the manufactures use something like the HHV method. Seems silly but its the way it is and the unfortunate thing about it is the tax incentives for buying "high efficiency" stoves are based on what the manufacture reports out for efficiency which doesn't have a standard test method.

 

[Idahonative]

Yup, you are right. The EPA doesn't measure nor concern them selves with the efficiency or the heat output of stoves only their emissions for particulate. That allows the manufacture to determine how much heat they generate. Obviously this is a big disadvantage to consumers because there is no mandated standard method that allows someone to compare two different manufactures. The best you can hope for is that the manufactures use something like the HHV method. Seems silly but its the way it is and the unfortunate thing about it is the tax incentives for buying "high efficiency" stoves are based on what the manufacture reports out for efficiency which doesn't have a standard test method.

Marshy, you hit the nail square on the head. This is one of the things I was referring to on another thread today concerning a certain stove. I said I didn't believe the companies efficiency claims. What I should have said is the company is using a flawed system for measuring wood stove efficiencies to fool the public into thinking they should buy their stoves rather than someone else's. On their website, they claim efficiency at "82% per EPA tests" while the Blaze King rates the Princess at 81% HHV (88% LHV). They can pick and choose which percentage makes their stove look better. The general public would falsely assume the Princess is not as efficient as the other stove using the HHV percentage. This would help to explain my statement on the other thread:

"A 3.2 cf firebox is a large firebox and this stove is supposed to have "record woodstove efficiency" but yet they advertise 12 hour burns? There are many BK Princess owners out there with their 2.85 cf firebox that consistently heat their homes for 20-30 hours per loading. How is that possible with a stove that has a smaller firebox and supposedly not as efficient as the IS? I do not believe the IS is in the same league as the Princess when it comes to real world efficiency."

This would help to explain why, in the real world, the BK products are in a different league when it comes to burn time performance.

 

[Marine5068]

Yes i forgot the insulation factor and windows . This though was brought on by the Blaze King long burn times and sqft rating. When they got the 40 hr burn on the King on low setting I wonder what wood they had in it? Also how many of yall actually get yer wood down to 13% mc like they say to do? but I do agree on having wood css for 2 years min. I have red oak 2in thick board in the pole barn that read 10-11% mc and they have been in there 11 years just saying.

My wood regularly and easily gets to 4-6% all the time. If it gets under 17% outdoors after a year or two, when it's brought in and put on my indoor firewood rack, then it quickly gets to 5% in a matter of days.
The moisture meter tells me what's what.(ring in Whitespidey...lol)
Nothing gets burned if it's not under 17%. The dryer the better of course.
Red Oak and a few other woods need a couple or three years seasoning outdoors first.
It's why most of us here are one or two(or more) years ahead in our firewood processing.

 

[Marine5068]

Will somebody please tell me what heat is?
Extended Forecast
Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday
February 4

February 5

February 6

February 7

February 8

February 9

Mainly sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny
High -4°

-9° | -26°

-11° | -35°

-20° | -45°

-18° | -35°

-8° | -26°
these temps are in Fahrenheit.

Looks like the same temps we got here in Southern Ontario the last two weeks running. Add a foot of snow over two storms and and other 6-12 inches on the way for the weekend and I'd say that our climates are the same as yours lately.