My furnace is too small

[Whitespider]

I was out'a bed early this morning, 3:00 AM... likely because of the frostbite beginning on the tip of my nose. The three thermometers I could see all agreed at -25° outside, and the thermostat on the dining room wall said 61° in the house. I discovered the furnace had pretty much devoured it's overnight feeding from last night, so I stuffed to the gills... two full armloads of Burr Oak. With that cold air being blown through the air jacket I don't believe the draft blower cycled off once during that first (yeah, I said first) load.

Jump to 5:00 AM, two hours later... -27° outside, 63° in the house and the furnace had all but blown through that first loading. Stuffed it full again with 1½ armloads, and by the time I walked back upstairs the house had jumped one more degree... 64°... Damn‼

6:45 AM, the wife comes walking out with a scowl, complaining about how cold it is in the bedroom. A quick recheck revels it's now -28° outside... but the house is finally starting to pull away from the cold, 67° at the thermostat.

7:30 AM, 69° in the house after my shower and getting dressed. The daughter comes walking out with that "this sucks" look on her face proclaiming it's cold in her room. And the wife answers back, "Yeah, your dad must'a screwed up and forgot to load the firebox last night." Then I get to hear the actual words spew from the daughter's lips, "WELL, THAT REALLY SUCKS DAD‼"

8:00 AM, just before heading into work, 70° in the house... and I shoved another full armload in the firebox for good measure... at least a decent sized coal bed was finally forming. It's been a long time since I can remember actually feeling flat spots on radial tires... but I did this morning.

In just five hours this morning I believe I shoved more firewood in that furnace than I did in the five days prior‼
I can only come to one conclusion... I need a bigger furnace
*

 

[NSMaple1]

Nah, what you really need is ..

....


...uuhhh, never mind....

 

[midwest_170]

Sounds like you need to increase efficiency somewhere...... 2 arm loads of wood in 2 hours and you only gained 2 deg?????? We've been down to below -10 a few times this year and I've never burned wood anywhere near that rate. Unless you have really short arms, I'd say something is wrong.

 

[brewmonster]

I sympathize that you live with ungrateful women who expect you to keep the house tropically warm, nearly a hundred degrees above the outdoor temperature! No wonder you're always spoiling for a fight! (JK)

 

[greendohn]

Maybe yer' farwood is too dry and beyond any good!!
Load it up and bring it over here to Indy,,Burr Oak and sech is a rare find around here,,,
Or maybe pull up some videos of Siberian wimmin' wearing winter coats in the house eating potatoes and have the family watch those,,,LOL..

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

Lotsa ball breaking going on in your house this morning! Sounds like you were mostly on the receiving end . Considering it was -28 that's not doing too bad. I don't think I'd be able to even survive in those Midwest states....

 

[cre10]

Tell the womens they can start helping with cutting and carrying firewood in.

 

[kodiak]

I can only come to one conclusion... I need a bigger furnace

How's your insulation?

 

[Iska3]

Don't feel bad, I think it was one of the coldest nights of the year. The house down the road had a "two stacker" this morning. They have those newer type indoor stoves and it looks as if the one couldn't keep up. I filled out OWB around 8:00 PM and set the aqua stat to 165º and set the thermostat to 66º for the night. At 5:00 am the outside temp was -24.8º at 6:00 am it was -25.6º outside and still 66º in the house. My water temp was 146º so I knew my wood was down to coals and maybe a few logs on the sides. Given any other night, I’d still have half of the wood in the OWB by the morning; I think it was much colder during the day so those colder temps went in to the foundation and carried over so it took much more wood to keep the house warm. Thinking of installing a set-back thermostat and dropping the night temps even more...

I used more wood last night then I do most other nights and I was around -25º below and no or very little winds…

 

[zogger]

I refill a lot, but only a stick or two at a time, except at night. Last night four chunks at 1 AM after my alleged night log burnt up, then complete refill at 3:30, then again around 6 something.

I can technically stick a whopper in there but it won't throw much heat, decided just a medium one then regular splits and chunks. Just for a few days during snowpocalypse 2.

 

[olyman]

Sounds like you need to increase efficiency somewhere...... 2 arm loads of wood in 2 hours and you only gained 2 deg?????? We've been down to below -10 a few times this year and I've never burned wood anywhere near that rate. Unless you have really short arms, I'd say something is wrong.

he has said in previous posts,,the cause...

 

[Whitespider]

Sounds like you need to increase efficiency somewhere...... 2 arm loads of wood in 2 hours and you only gained 2 deg?????? We've been down to below -10 a few times this year and I've never burned wood anywhere near that rate. Unless you have really short arms, I'd say something is wrong.

L-O-L
I don't think you understand the amount of space I was trying to raise the temperature of... coupled with the home's massive heat loss at -28°.
It ain't like a stove warming the room it sits in. I was sucking 60° air from three bedrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen and bathroom, pulling it through cold, metal return air ducts in a (likely) 50-55° basement and forcing it into the air jacket around the firebox. From there it travels through cold, metal heat ducts in 50-55° basement before exiting into the rooms above. Starting with 60° air, no coal bed in the firebox, and outside temps running -25° to -28°, I don't think two armloads, two hours and 2 degrees is out'a line at all. It takes a lot more BTU's to raise the temperature of a whole house than it does to maintain temperature... and the colder the starting temp, the more BTU's required for each degree raised.

Ya' gotta' remember... starting with a 60° house and a 50° basement, the heated air coming from the vents would likely be at least 25° cooler (if not more) than if ya' started at 70°... and that air has to warm everything in the house up also (furniture, walls, floors, ceilings, all the ducting, etc.). I thought it was pretty damn good I was able to bring the house up 9° in five hours, while it was actually getting colder outside. Think of the amount of BTU's that furnace had to pump out just to keep up with heat loss at -28° in nighttime darkness... let alone warm the whole place up.

Given any other night, I’d still have half of the wood in the OWB by the morning; I think it was much colder during the day so those colder temps went in to the foundation and carried over so it took much more wood to keep the house warm.
I used more wood last night then I do most other nights and I was around -25º below and no or very little winds…

Yeah... no doubt it took some firewood last night.
Like you said, most any other night the furnace wouldn't have lost that much ground to the cold, everything just worked against it the last few days. Except for a couple hours late Sunday afternoon (hit 2°) we hadn't been out'a negatives number since sometime Saturday. Dropped to -21° Sunday morning, -19° yesterday morning, and then we were already -15° at 8:30 last night heading for -28° by morning... LOL ...I'm thinkin' that was just a bit much for the poor furnace. Heck, I'm not so sure the gas furnace would've kept up... it likely would've lost ground until the sun came up this morning.
*

 

[Whitespider]

How's your insulation?

It's fine... thanks for askin'.
I believe I may have added a pound or two since October.
*

 

[ray benson]

- 27° -28°F outside and able to increase inside temp is pretty dang good in my book.

 

[KindredSpiritzz]

if i recall correctly you have a Daka smoke dragon? I know my Norseman takes forever to catch up once it gets behind but once i get it up there it'll maintain 80 no problem. Course it eats wood like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Thats ok for you cause you LOVE cutting da wood

 

[Whitespider]

It must suck not having a high efficiency EPA rated radiant wood stove that provides a nice toasty spot for warming up in the morning!

Who needs that?? A three-finger whiskey eye-opener warms me faster than any wood stove ever could.
*

 

[midwest_170]

Wasn't trying to start a fight, just pointing out that seems to be an extremely high heat demand even at those temps. Assuming 2 arm loads of wood would be about 1/30th of a cord you were probably throwing out over 400K btu per hour in that time frame. Going to go through a lot of wood at that rate.

 

[Coldfront]

Now you know why a lot of us were running out of wood. It was also minus -27f at my house this am, and the house was down to 61f. On my way to work I hit pockets of minus -31f I got up 3 times last night feeding the beast, and it was still only 61* in the house when I got up, and I do have 2 newer stoves Pacific Energy epa with secondary burn.

 

[kodiak]

10:00pm last night - House was at 70°, loaded fireplace with 4 splits and closed down the air intake for the night
3:00am - got up to pee, house was at 68°, loaded fireplace with 3 splits
6:00am - got up for work, house was at 67°, threw a few more splits in to get temps up to target of 70°

Is my fireplace special? No.

Do I wish we had more of a whole-house wood burning appliance? Sometimes.

The point of all this? Even with a less-than-awesome wood burning appliance, the house remained somewhere near our comfort zone even with the temps waaayyyy below zero last night. Reading about the struggles some others are having keeping temps up I can only attribute our results to being fortunate to have a house that is well insulated and with high efficiency windows.

 

[NSMaple1]

I lit my fire yesterday at 4:30pm. I got sidetracked & didn't reload until it was almost dead again at around 8pm. Then I put another small armload in on the way to bed about 10pm.

Today I'll light after I get home from picking the kid up, around 5pm. Fire will likely be out again by 10-11pm. Will repeat the next day.

20 year old 2700 sq.ft. two storey on an open hilltop. It was -20c out when I got up this morning. The longest my fire will burn in the winter is 12 hours/day, that's in the very coldest of our conditions - last few days it's been cold but calm (relatively) & sunny, so I've been about 6 hours/day of burning lately. House is very comfy.