This crap is getting old? REALLY OLD!

[alleyyooper]

My wood furnace is tight real tight. I started the fire about the middle of Oct because the nights were getting cold enough to kick on the electric Money Pit furnace. I chuck it totally full of wood about 8:00 in the morning close up tha damper and draft totaly tight, I reload it in the evening again about 7:00 and close it off totally tight. So far that system has worked well for me as far as not having to start a fire every morning or evening. Of course the furnace will hold coals hot enought to relite if you throw a couple of dry rounds in it after not haveing wood in it for a couple of days.
Draw back to my systyem is the chimmey I need to clean about every 3 weeks as you can see the cap getting cloged, plus the smoke starting to come back in when you open the fire door.

Al

 

[cckemm]

I honestly think if I was not here to throw wood on the fire the family would freeze to death for being stubborn.

I go to bed at midnight and fix the fire. Wife gets up at 3ish for work, too much of a rush to throw 1 piece of wood on the fire. Middle son gets up at 6:30 to be on the bus for 7, too much of a rush to throw 1 piece of wood on the fire. I get up at 7:20ish to get youngest lad ready for school and fire is down to a few coals, scraping around to pull enough together to get it going again.

Process restarts in the afternoon. Wife gets home at 1:30, forgets to put wood on the fire. Middle lad gets home at 3:30 forgets to put wood on the fire. I get home at 5 and get told the house is cold.

Some days you just want to pull your hair out..... :freaked-out:

 

[rmihalek]

I was out yesterday splitting some of the bigger firewood logs into kindling. I had a big load of kindling from an old cedar fence I helped a neighbor take down and I thought that would last all season! My wife normally will load the stove in the day, but the house has been getting too warm, so she lets it go out. When I get home from work, there usually aren't enough coals to get a fire going.

 

[Whitespider]

I don't get it why she won't throw a stick or three in the stove during the day.

Because it will get stifling hot in the house if she does.
We don't like it much above 71-72[sup]o[/sup] in the house... heck, I'm only loading the firebox half to three-quarter full as it is.
Three splits in the furnace at midday would put the house in the high 70's right quick.
I've only burned a bit over a cord and a half so far... and most of that was the junkiest of the standing-dead elm... haven't even touched the Red Elm and only tossed in a few end-cut oak on a couple cold(er) nights.

Oh... and I haven't even bothered to turn on the gas furnace yet this year... heck, I don't even know if it still works!

 

[laynes69]

My wife doesn't have a problem loading while I'm working, but she keeps is much warmer in the house. She tends to burn more wood when she is in charge, but the central furnace is off so it's the only heat she has. In the end no pro-pain so I'm happy.

 

[kemer]

This is a great time to have wood boiler with storage.I have a Garn with 1500 gal.of storage .If i need heat it's there if not it just sits there for when I need it.

 

[benp]

Kinda feels like this sometimes doesn't it....:hmm3grin2orange:

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[greendohn]

OP, hate to say it, but thats the norm around here for this time of year,but I will have to say its been warmer this year than normal. last year the kids had a month long christmas vacation because of all the snow and ice, and this year I spent the day outside yesterday in shirt sleeves pulling weeds in the flower bed because the wife discovered that the tulips have popped out of the ground already. Makes a guy wonder what we are in for in Jan and Feb. The old timers say that this is the perfect example of 1993 when this area got hit by a four foot snow blizzard in Jan.

better get ya' some cover over them tulips, cause when ol' man winter does get around to cooling things off, yer tulips will suffer. my granny used mason jars.


this mild weather is something else. i've been playing with the set points on the owb, and only tossing a few hunks of wood at a time in it. still have to open "windowstats" so the house furnace will pull some heat off owb. had a set point of 170 on owb and the stinking thing was 191 and wasn't cycling, just sittin' and simmering but the house wasn't pulling any heat from it, this is kind of new to me as i installed it back in 07 and in years past i fire it up,,it gets cold, and we burn lots of wood. late spring is usually the only time i've had to fool with the stove so much.

 

[atlarge54]

Would you rather be the guy with the 200 year old 4000 sq ft beautiful victorian house that just can't seem to keep it warm?

What kind of stove/furnace are you running? Sounds like you're ready for a different system.

 

[reaperman]

My routine mirrors yours with one exception. My wife works from our home, and not only wont she add wood to the furnace. She opens windows while I'm gone so the house doesnt get too hot. She blames the hot flashes on being a women. But it pi$$es me off when I get home and find windows open and the furnace out. And of coarse I work outside, so when I do get home it would be kind of nice to walk into a warm house.

 

[Dalmatian90]

I honestly think if I was not here to throw wood on the fire the family would freeze to death for being stubborn.

Yeah...lived at my sister's house for a few years and if not for me and brother-in-law they would most likely have (or rather run $1000 month electric bills).

My niece with the best head on her shoulders could probably manage to get a fire going most times but it wasn't pretty.

My sister and the other two nieces, as a Brooklyn mobster mumbles...fuggadaboutit. The concept of how to properly stack newspaper, kindling, then small logs to get a fire going escaped them. I swear the dog used to look at their attempts and be frustrated she lacked opposable thumbs to do it for them.

 

[J.W Younger]

About average here, maybe 2 cords since switching the heat on . Kinda hard to tell skiming the tops off stacks with all the rain we've had. We'll usually go tru 6 cords oct tru mar with the most usage in jan-feb. I've yet to be able to completely fill the woodshed cause the stacks don't have enough time to dry before more rain.

 

[mtfallsmikey]

I've had my SIL come over the last couple of days to throw a few in the OWB while The Missus recovers from the Christmas gall bladdert removal. She usually tops off the boiler when she leaves for work, after I fill at 0330, so she's good about that, plus running the woodstove in the house during the reallly cold spells.

 

[Steve NW WI]

Spidey, what ARE we gonna do with you?:hmm3grin2orange:

You need a couple operational windowstats if you're gonna keep such a close temp range in the house, mine still has the AC unit in it. The cover can be off the AC in a minute or so if necessary.

Otherwise, acclimate. Start a good fire after the sun goes down, find a far away bedroom to sleep in so ya don't overheat, and let it cool off all day. Repeat until winter eventually shows itself. That's what I'm doing.

 

[Whitespider]

...find a far away bedroom to sleep in so ya don't overheat...

That ain't gonna' work.
It's an old manually regulated wood-fired furnace in the basement and the heat is distributed by forced air throughout the whole house.
If'n it's 80[sup]o[/sup] in one room, them it's 80[sup]o[/sup] in every room.
And if'n all those so-called "experts" hadn't been predicting the mother-off-all-winters (or some such) I'd have left a couple windowstats operational. :bang:

 

[atlarge54]

..................and the wisdom to know the difference.


Did you post on AS looking for sympathy. LOL

Kinda like swimming with sharks and begging for compassion. Your house is too warm or too cold-------call Goldilocks. One of the greatest things about this site is it's lack of political correctness. Enjoy your winter it'll be cold soon enough.

 

[CTYank]

Kinda funny, though, that we're not hearing from Rush or Hannity. Not that either would have much worth listening to. Meanwhile Rupe works his PR magic on Oz also, whipping up deniers.

 

[J.W Younger]

Yeah we'll complain about anything. Found an old post from last year when i was accuseing people of stealing my ashes.
Seems like the more/faster it burns the fewer ashes i dip out.

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

That is one of the pluses I like about a boiler. I start one fire around November and that is it and indoor temp stays the same. I know I use more wood than one in the house but putting wood in once a day is worth it to me. Plus I don't have to drag the wood through the house. I put mine in a building so the years wood is dry along with me when I feed it. Hot water is nice as well.

 

[Chris-PA]

When you say you have to "light a fire" in the morning, I'm assuming you still have lots of hot coals and are not lighting it from scratch?