Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[woodchip rookie]

I sometimes use a small fan on the floor at the far end of the house. I blow it towards the stove end, moves cooler air to the stove and the heat will push over top.

I modified the house so natural convection carries the air around the house. I was paying for gas AND electric to heat the house before. Now I'm just paying for chainsaws.

 

[woodchip rookie]

Less wood. The air was shut down as low as it would go, AND I had the stove's circulating blower turned off. This was the first real burn for heat and I'm still learning the stove.

I think the piece of walnut (about 3"x3"x16") I threw in was a mistake.

If you cant control the stove with the draft control theres something wrong or something that needs modified. I had the same issue with my NC30 on super cold nights with really dry wood. Mods under way.....this is the "doghouse" air feed circuit that is unregulated. It will have a valve on the end in case I need to throttle down the boost air....the pic is of the stove upside down. I cut the welds off the ashpan box and took it off as well as the outside air kit box.

 

[crowbuster]

Maybe it was just not that cold? House heated up real quick. Mite not be a stove problem.

 

[bigfellascott]

I modified the house so natural convection carries the air around the house. I was paying for gas AND electric to heat the house before. Now I'm just paying for chainsaws.

Tell us more about how you went about it mate if you would.

 

[woodchip rookie]

I am in the process now of having control of the secondary air circuit also. Not for regulation during the burn cycle but being able to close it after the "gas off" cycle. Secondaries just let cool air into the stove after that stage anyway. Figure if I'm here to be able to regulate it I can save some heat. I read somewhere (or I had a dream) about a guy who put some kind of manifold on the secondary then controlled it with a timer relay/solenoid and made it automatically close after like 3hrs. I might get into that next season but for now I need to get this up. I still have to get the chimney down and redone.

 

[bigfellascott]

The ol Lopi 380 I have has both convection and radiant heat setup, I haven't as yet installed it in the new family room (still a bit more building to do) but it will be in for next winter and I'm sure it will keep the place nice and warm and I've also got a ducted system that extracts heat from the family room and pumps it into the rest of the house, that should eliminate the need to run a gas heater which is fine by me as I'd rather burn wood than pay for gas to heat the place.

 

[James Miller]

Maybe it was just not that cold? House heated up real quick. Mite not be a stove problem.

I think this has more to do with it. Never got under 50 here last night. Bobbies less then an hour from me so probly around the same temps. If he loaded it for an all nighter last night no doubt it got toasty in his house.

 

[woodchip rookie]

Tell us more about how you went about it mate if you would.

I'll take pics tomorow.....remind me to write it up

 

[Bobby Kirbos]

I think this has more to do with it. Never got under 50 here last night. Bobbies less then an hour from me so probly around the same temps. If he loaded it for an all nighter last night no doubt it got toasty in his house.

I think it is just too much stove for the shoulder seasons in our house. Either that or I need to do a small, 1 hour burn and leave it at that.

Not an all nighter, but I did feed it smaller pieces from about 7:00 till about 9:00. It was almost 10:00 when the piece of walnut was finally down to all coals. After that, the coals continued to burn down through the night. When I woke up this morning, the whole house was still at 70°F. Nice because the boiler never ran. Sucked because the wife had a crappy night of sleep for being too hot (and she let me know about it).

 

[chipper1]

Yes. A/C fan was running, moving air all around the house, and I had 9" fans blowing air into and out of the family room. That insert just puts out that much heat.

It's my experience that the humidity in the house makes a colossal difference in the ability to transfer heat to other parts of the house. There's a reason why we use liquid to transfer heat in so many applications, it's just more efficient than air, and the dryer the air the worse the efficiency. We have okay windows in our home and I watch how much moisture is on them; none the house is to dry, nice ring around them it's about where I want it, dripping and mold forming there's a bit more than I need lol. I have a pot of water on my wood stove all the time(except when its very moist in the shoulder seasons), and I also put one on the stove, if not the heat will not transfer easily in our home. I only have one fan which I keep running at a low speed 24/7 in the burn season and it goes into the back of our master bedroom suite which is the farthest location in the home from the stove. I would like to tie a fresh air return into our master bath as I fell that would help displace the cool air and allow more of the warm air to fill the room.

 

[farmer steve]

i know it never happens here but a little off topic. took the bow for a walk Monday morning to check out some of my treestands and this guy walked up to me in the cornfield. about a 10 yard shot. Now i can get back to scrounging firewood the rest of the winter.

 

[James Miller]

i know it never happens here but a little off topic. took the bow for a walk Monday morning to check out some of my treestands and this guy walked up to me in the cornfield. about a 10 yard shot. Now i can get back to scrounging firewood the rest of the winter.
View attachment 680039 View attachment 680040

So it's time to go clean up the mulberry?

 

[farmer steve]

So it's time to go clean up the mulberry?

Yep. maybe work on it next week.

 

[bigfellascott]

I think it is just too much stove for the shoulder seasons in our house. Either that or I need to do a small, 1 hour burn and leave it at that.

Not an all nighter, but I did feed it smaller pieces from about 7:00 till about 9:00. It was almost 10:00 when the piece of walnut was finally down to all coals. After that, the coals continued to burn down through the night. When I woke up this morning, the whole house was still at 70°F. Nice because the boiler never ran. Sucked because the wife had a crappy night of sleep for being too hot (and she let me know about it).

What about opening a window or 2? I reckon I might be in the same boat once I put the Lopi in the new room, if its the case I will be cracking a window or sliding door open to help moderate the heat or like you suggested making it a small fire and damping it right down.

 

[bigfellascott]

It's my experience that the humidity in the house makes a colossal difference in the ability to transfer heat to other parts of the house. There's a reason why we use liquid to transfer heat in so many applications, it's just more efficient than air, and the dryer the air the worse the efficiency. We have okay windows in our home and I watch how much moisture is on them; none the house is to dry, nice ring around them it's about where I want it, dripping and mold forming there's a bit more than I need lol. I have a pot of water on my wood stove all the time(except when its very moist in the shoulder seasons), and I also put one on the stove, if not the heat will not transfer easily in our home. I only have one fan which I keep running at a low speed 24/7 in the burn season and it goes into the back of our master bedroom suite which is the farthest location in the home from the stove. I would like to tie a fresh air return into our master bath as I fell that would help displace the cool air and allow more of the warm air to fill the room.

Yep moisture in the air makes a place feel a lot warmer, our gas heater has a built in water tank and you can definitely notice the difference in the warmth feel from when it's empty to when it's got water in it, water and the fan really makes the whole house feel warmer instead of just one or two rooms nearest the heat source and the rest cold.

 

[Jeffkrib]

No it’s all private woods around here but lots of farmers are happy to have help cleaning out fencelines. We are fairly temperate due to our proximity to the Great Lakes.

BTW Jeff I’m not stalking you.
As for the topic of spreading heat from the fire I too duct it from above the stove to the furthest part of the house and it works well. If your going to do it get the biggest thickest “R” rating ducting you can find just in case your fire goes out and the ducting run becomes a intercooler.
BUT as some have said on here doing a duct run from the fire could be against building code in you area.

 

[Jeffkrib]

Jeffkrib, Jeff lives about an hour north of me. I'm about 7 miles from Lake Huron so it plays a big part on our weather. It's common around here to have the heat on in the morning, AC on at noon and the heat on again at night. I lit the OWB last weekend. Google my address and you can see my famous fence line from Space. 35645 Zion Road, Lucknow, Ontario. My wife loves it...

I would have thought in your part of the world the houses would have excellent insulation and plenty of thermal mass to buffer the heat changes.
I can see your splitting area from space too.
I do have to say your town planners were not very imaginative when they were marking out the roads.... with the exception of along the lake, not a single bend in any road within miles.

 

[JustJeff]

Nice score Steve!

 

[JustJeff]

We are living in the checkerboard. And as for insulation, it’s 4C outside with a mean wind. Wife cooked using the oven last night so we didn’t need a fire. I lit a small one this morning mostly to keep her from complaining. A one hour burn will see us through till I get home from work.

 

[Bobby Kirbos]

So I built a small fire this morning (after the wife left for work). I ran some small chunks from the shorts and uglies box. Burn time was about 1.5 hours.

It brought the family room from 66°F to 73°F. The rest of the house came up from 66°F to 68°F. This is with the stove damper wide open and the A/C fan running like I had it the other night; moving air around the entire house.

Lesson learned: This thing throws off WAY more heat than the fireplace. Add fuel slowly.