It wouldn't make much sense to base your heating needs on a minus. 25 ambient temperature day if it's a rare occurrence ..If it's doing good most of the time you can always get a kerosene heater to supplement and keep it on standby in a closet for those brutal mornings .A good kerosene heater on high can get a big living room to 90 degrees .. Turn a few ceiling fans on and you can really help that furnace not have to work so hard. The round white caged upright ones put out the most heat and can be had new for 120$..plus I found they are stingy on fuel if you get a new one with a fresh wick
My furnace is too small
- Thread starter Whitespider
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At nearly -30F most heating systems struggle. It seems no matter where I go this winter I walk into someones home to hear the sound of their furnace fan running. The fan will shut off only to restart again within minutes, then repeats this cycle over and over and over I just sit back and think to myself just how much $$$ it's has costing them to heat their home with the furnace cycling constantly.
Exactly. If you design the system for that low of degree heating day then you are grossly oversized and wasting efficiency the other 20 weeks of winter or however long you're heating for.
It would be interesting to see an actual manual J calculation done on your home and a blower door test.
I do the plastic also... but I got lazy this year and didn't cover the south side kitchen, living and dining room windows. The lazy part is really bad lazy... what happened was, my large roll of 6 MIL plastic (that was on it's third year) went empty and I said "screw it" 'cause I didn't feel like driving to town. This was the wrong friggin' year to get lazy‼
Yeah... your right.
But -20° hasn't been all that rare this year... here's to hopin' it's just a rare year.
Hmmmm... I don't have that info.
And like stihly dan said, I'm too "damn lazy"
(and don't have the equipment/tools for the blower door test anyway)*
It might cost you $200 to get that done and save you for the future. For someone that is lazy you sure ***** a lot or do you like the attention?I do the plastic also... but I got lazy this year and didn't cover the south side kitchen, living and dining room windows. The lazy part is really bad lazy... what happened was, my large roll of 6 MIL plastic (that was on it's third year) went empty and I said "screw it" 'cause I didn't feel like driving to town. This was the wrong friggin' year to get lazy‼
Yeah... your right.
But -20° hasn't been all that rare this year... here's to hopin' it's just a rare year.
Hmmmm... I don't have that info.
And like stihly dan said, I'm too "damn lazy"
*
All the complaints take effort.
brenndatomu
Hey you woodchucks, quit chucking my wood!
Good thing you don't still have the ole "stovace" as your home heater...somebody would be payin the gas man!
SWI Don
ArboristSite Guru
Spidey,
All I can say is have someone spray roofdeck spray foam on the underside of the roof. It's the stuff they use in pole buildings. My kitchen, bathroom and utility room are done this way. It's not necessarily cheap though but effective.
All I can say is have someone spray roofdeck spray foam on the underside of the roof. It's the stuff they use in pole buildings. My kitchen, bathroom and utility room are done this way. It's not necessarily cheap though but effective.
OK, I'm quoting myself...
LOL
I don't know where that silly number entered my head, but your question stihly dan got me curious so I checked it out tonight.
60,000 - 65,000 BTU is way friggin' light.
It's a Lennox and the model tag says G20Q5/6-100, and also says 100,000 BTU input... I can't find an efficiency rating anywhere, but it is over 20 years old. It has a 4-inch exhaust outlet if that says anything. I know enough about Lennox model numbers to know that the "G" means gas, the "20" is the series, the "Q5/6" means a 5 to 6 ton drive (in other words, a relatively large blower), and the "-100" means 100,000 BTU/hr fuel input rating.
Not that it matters much, both the gas and electricity has been shut off since last June.
*
laynes69
Addicted to ArboristSite
This is the first year I've used the LP furnace along with the woodfurnace. I could count on one hand the number of times I've ran 1 cycle to bring the house up to temperature then let the woodfurnace take over. One night we had temps of -15 with chills of -40. We see below zero here and there, but his year has been brutal. This morning it was -11 on the way into work. I'm hoping this year won't become the normal either, but then again for the winter we've been having we aren't doing that bad. We choose the right year to add onto our home, which fixed a few bad areas of air infiltration. If we hadn't, I'm afraid we would have been in trouble.
Coldfront
Addicted to ArboristSite
I am on my 4th winter in our house, after the 2nd year I put in a 2nd wood stove, and I am damn glad I did. One at one end of the house and one at the other end of the house. "Normally" anything above zero out and I can keep my house up to 80* if I want to. I have only kicked on the propane forced air furnace a few times all winter so far, and never since I got wind of propane prices sky rocketing. I got home from work today at about 5 pm the house was down to 58* it is about 7 pm now I finally got the house back up to 70* It was minus -31* on my way to work at 7 am. I stoked up both stoves the best I could before I left for work.
stihly dan
Addicted to ArboristSite
So that would be around 85,000 btu's give or take. Most houses around here where it's MUCH warmer in the winter with generally better insulation have larger unit's than that. Just a thought, but what if you put the 2 inch foam board on the floor of the upstairs. Then maybe some carpet remnants or used carpet on top of that. You could store all your "gadgets" on top, and still walk on it as a floor protecting the hardwood floor at the same time. With a form of bulk head door at the top of the stairs.
I would NOT want to be in charge of heating your house.
Johnny Yooper
ArboristSite Operative
yep: new flavor is out: Jim Beam Maple. I haven't been cold all winter.
Maybe a woodstove can be added somewhere to help .here's what I came up with ..I recently bought another wood stove on clearance it's a defender model small EPA unit and will fit in my vacant fireplace inside my hearth . I did this for several reasons : I'd like a backup on very cold days to run with the furnace
Id like to have around for security if a power failure natural or *man made in the future
Id have off grid heat if needed
I got it for so cheap I had to
I figure in spring and fall it can be used and further cut down wood use that would otherwise be a load in the furnace
Id like to have around for security if a power failure natural or *man made in the future
Id have off grid heat if needed
I got it for so cheap I had to
I figure in spring and fall it can be used and further cut down wood use that would otherwise be a load in the furnace
centennial60
ArboristSite Member
Spidey, what you need is a Yukon super jack . My place did good Monday night went to bed at 72° and woke up 7 hours later at 66° what saved me was the lack of wind though. As you've seen I catch a lot of wind!
. My place did good Monday night went to bed at 72° and woke up 7 hours later at 66° what saved me was the lack of wind though. As you've seen I catch a lot of wind!
BRW0525
ArboristSite Lurker
67 degrees with that -27 out side is pretty dang good!
philoshop
Addicted to ArboristSite
A couple of small complaints from the family in the middle of one of the nastiest winters we've seen in recent memory doesn't seem like a 'baby with the bathwater" situation to me. You've got things well under control.
Just gotta remember to feed the burner enough chow.
Just gotta remember to feed the burner enough chow.
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Good friend of mine I used to cut wood with in Bethesda, OH had a wood furnace. Forget the actual name, made in Wisconsin, I believe. Anyway one winter '83/'84 was brutally cold. he ordered a Tempwood from up here in Mass, and put it in his upstairs fireplace opening! Made the wife and kid very happy!! Wood furnace in the basement had a separate flue.
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