Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[bigfellascott]

Ok,

So do you have a blower? Dont judge me. The blower made a HUGE difference for me with heat circulation.


House insulation?

Is the room the stove in like 80 degrees and it wont move about the house well?



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It defiinitely makes a difference alright, I'm going to use a pedastill fan for my needs (I can move it to a few different spots in the room where the heater is) I will position it near the different doorways and force the air into the other parts of the house. The other thing that you can do is put a ducted system in whereby it sucks the warm out of your room where the wood heater is and pumps it into say other living rooms and bedrooms and is all controlable in each room so everyone can control the amount of warmth they want.

 

[al-k]

When it's here we are happy.

 

[JustJeff]

I use a small fan on the floor and blow cool air out of the hallway at the opposite end of the house back towards the stove. It doesn't take much to help the heat push its way to the bedrooms. Usually only have to do this for a short time when the house is cooler when we have been out.

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[woodchip rookie]

1) So do you have a blower? Dont judge me. The blower made a HUGE difference for me with heat circulation. Is the room the stove in like 80 degrees and it wont move about the house well?
2)House insulation?

1) I do not have a blower. Heat circulation is not the issue. My house runs W/E. The stove is in the basement at the west end under the living/dining room. Big hole in the floor for heat to go up, big hole in floor at the east end of the house for cold air to return. I basically made a gravity system, and air flows very well. The nc30 is rated for 2,400sq/ft. My house is 1,500ish upstairs and 1,500ish in the basement (single story ranch), so I'm passing 3,000sq/ft of air past the stove. The first issue is the house is too big for the stove, but I really only have issues when its zero.

2) I do not believe there is any insulation in the walls. Vinyl siding on top of the original wood siding then plaster board (not lath and plaster) on the inside. There is insulation in the attic but not in the walls. The biggest improvements I have found were getting rid of gaps and cracks. I still have more to work on but I'm not spending 10K to put insulation in all the walls.

 

[square1]

1) I do not have a blower. Heat circulation is not the issue. My house runs W/E. The stove is in the basement at the west end under the living/dining room. Big hole in the floor for heat to go up, big hole in floor at the east end of the house for cold air to return. I basically made a gravity system, and air flows very well. The nc30 is rated for 2,400sq/ft. My house is 1,500ish upstairs and 1,500ish in the basement (single story ranch), so I'm passing 3,000sq/ft of air past the stove. The first issue is the house is too big for the stove, but I really only have issues when its zero.

2) I do not believe there is any insulation in the walls. Vinyl siding on top of the original wood siding then plaster board (not lath and plaster) on the inside. There is insulation in the attic but not in the walls. The biggest improvements I have found were getting rid of gaps and cracks. I still have more to work on but I'm not spending 10K to put insulation in all the walls.

Good call. In the average house much more energy is lost to air exchange than to heat transfer.

 

[Deleted member 150358]

Yep. It was harder yesterday with high winds to heat our old farm house than the day before when it was 15-20° colder and little to no wind. Definetly need to look at cost effective weatherization. But its a money pit so probably be focusing on maintaining rather then updating for now.

 

[farmer steve]

Since it warmed up (18*) I went on a little scrounge . This was a mulberry limb I cut off last year when it was still green. There was another small limb hanging and bone dry. It's in the stove now.

 

[muddstopper]

I dont know if I am right about this, but going to say it anyays. I think most folks with a wood stove do have a problem with uneven heating in all parts of the house. It just makes sense, its going to be hotter next to the stove than it is at the other end of the house. Many, including yself have tried using fans to blow the hot air toward the opposite end of the house from the stove. I am begining to think this is the opposite of what they should be doing. Instead of trying to blow hot air into a cold room, I think it will work better to place the fan in the cold room and blow the cold air toward the hot stove. Fans create drafts and if you are in the room that is already cold, even warm air will feel cooler if its blowing directly on you. A fan pulling cold air from the room doesnt have the same effect.The cold air is replaced by the warmer air that has stagnated next to the ceilings. Air blowing in the direction of the stove should move the hot air from around and directly above the stove, out toward the rest of the house, and do so without causeing those cold feeling drafts associated with cold air blowing off a fan. Im interesting inhearing others opinionson this subject

 

[LondonNeil]

550C, .1100F. that is over hot surely. Steel starts to glow dark red about there. My flue thermometer says above about 270C I'm wasting energy up the flue.

 

[svk]

Hey guys, I am still alive.

Was sick as hell for a couple days on the antibiotics. The spot where I was bitten by the damn tick seems to be more red now, so I do not know if it is the antibiotics getting rid of it of the disease or if they have just pissed it off....

Seems as though my fatigue is going down. I am no longer crashing at 7pm at night. Still have muscle soreness that does not go away.

We had -40 for two nights in a row up here. Warmer and snowing today then supposed to have highs below zero for a week straight.

Keep on scrounging. Will catch you guys another day.

 

[MustangMike]

Hot air always rises, Cold air always falls. Depending on your layout, you can often install vents or ducts to take advantage of this, and air will circulate w/o any fans. The flow speed will increase with time and thermal divergence.

When I ran my wood stove in the basement of my raised ranch, I installed a vent above the stove, next to the flue, that opened into the bottom of the upstairs hallway. After running the stove for a few hours, you could feel the cold air rushing down the stairwell.

Adding fans/blowers, in either directions, will help to facilitate the process more quickly and efficiently.

 

[MustangMike]

Hey guys, I am still alive.

Was sick as hell for a couple days on the antibiotics. The spot where I was bitten by the damn tick seems to be more red now, so I do not know if it is the antibiotics getting rid of it of the disease or if they have just pissed it off....

Seems as though my fatigue is going down. I am no longer crashing at 7pm at night. Still have muscle soreness that does not go away.

We had -40 for two nights in a row up here. Warmer and snowing today then supposed to have highs below zero for a week straight.

Keep on scrounging. Will catch you guys another day.

Good to hear from you Steve, thanks for posting, I was starting to get worried!

Also, best of luck with your recovery, sounds like it is working.

Here, we went < 0*F two days in a row, and I'm running a little heater in the garage to keep my outside water pipe from freezing! Temp in garage went into the low 30s this AM, so I'm glad I did it.

Think I have to get a new pipe heater, if the old one is working, the light on it is not!

Good Luck dealing with that cold stuff, sounds serious!

 

[farmer steve]

@svk take care buddy. Hope the antibiotics kick the sh!t of of that lyme.

 

[Deleted member 150358]

For me its only an issue on days with a high of 10°F or less and or windy. The fan I use most is just the ceiling fan reversed to push warm air to the cold drafty walls.

The wood stove was originally only a replacement for a Monarch combination cook stove that heated 3 rooms kitchen, utility and bathroom. So it is challenged to heat the entire lower level approx 1,100 sq ft. If that wasn't the case your return air would make perfect sense.

The only real solution here would be radiant heat. Just no real hurry and will continue to have some kitchen wood heat for the times its needed.

Am budget strapped and struggling with putting resources into the house or build a much needed shop/garage. Selling off some assets to do both is likely where it will end up.

Life span of OWB's is one of the turn offs. See a lot of people screaming about leaks and burnt out fire boxes but ya gotta question WTF got burned in em. Railroad ties, tires, plastic and telephone poles I would suspect.

At any rate I seldom see anyone bragging up a 30 yr old outdoor boiler. My cousin just put in a crown royal multi pass and am looking forward to seeing how that looks internally and performs after a couple of seasons.

 

[Deleted member 150358]

The 445 Husky lives. Still haven't torn it down for inspection and doubt I will. Not sure if it was starting to heat seize or just frozen beneath the flywheel.

I pulled the plug and pickled it with panther piss for a week-ish ago. Then finally brought it in last night to thaw out and 45 mins later it was free!

Put it upside down in a pail to drain the panther piss out overnight. Cleaned the plug put fresh mix in after putting the bar, chain and cover back on. Pumped the purge plunger a dozen times to get fresh mix flowing.

Took some pulls to pop but it was still fairly packed with panther piss. Let it warm up until most of the oil burnt off then made 4 cuts and called it good for the day.

 

[panolo]

Can always pull the muffler quick and see if you have any scarring on your piston.

 

[woodchip rookie]

Im interesting inhearing others opinionson this subject

My opinion is I'm not going to use any fans. My electric bills are $22/mo for the house and $30/mo just for the block heater on my truck.

 

[tdiguy]

Another trick to reducing coals to make room for full reloads is to pile your coal bed towards the front of the firebox at the tail end of the burn cycle. Add one small dry split op top of the coal pile, close the stove up and leave the primary air control wide open until the split/coal pile is burnt down. The aggressively burning single split really melts down the coal pile. This works well in many cases. The split must be dry. Supposedly a compressed wood brick/ecobrick works well also. Ive never tried the bricks. Mostly do this when its been very cold and the stove has been pushed/reloaded more frequently.

I do this exact same thing, a lot less coals this way. Well unless i'm burning maple...

My opinion is I'm not going to use any fans. My electric bills are $22/mo for the house and $30/mo just for the block heater on my truck.

A long time ago i was without power for close to a week. Without the fan on my stove, i had to close the air down pretty tight to not see crazy high temps, and it made lots of coals.

 

[al-k]

Hey guys, I am still alive.

Was sick as hell for a couple days on the antibiotics. The spot where I was bitten by the damn tick seems to be more red now, so I do not know if it is the antibiotics getting rid of it of the disease or if they have just pissed it off....

Seems as though my fatigue is going down. I am no longer crashing at 7pm at night. Still have muscle soreness that does not go away.

We had -40 for two nights in a row up here. Warmer and snowing today then supposed to have highs below zero for a week straight.

Keep on scrounging. Will catch you guys another day.

Sorry to here your not feeling well, wish you the best

 

[JustJeff]

Lots of 100 year old farmhouses around here heating 2 levels with wood. Most have a big grate to let heat upstairs. I had considered that when I was switching to wood but my wood tech guy said it's against code to do that. Can't even have a cold air return within 10ft of a stove, I had to move one. Hard to heat a more modern house on both levels with one stove. I just heat my upstairs with wood (bungalow, 2300 sqft one level) basement is floor heat on propane. If I had it to do all over again, I'd be taking a good look at a froling boiler.

Woodchip, the Englander gets a lot of good reviews but I think you need a larger stove.

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