Who's Burning?

[JAG1]

Having my little log home is nice..... I lite a fire in the morning and logs absorb the heat. So when we get home house is still warm to moderate depending on weather it's a windy or calm day. Log homes are nice that way due to the thermal mass that radiates the whole day.

However, if you let it get too cold..... it takes longer to warm up.

[joecool911]

We live in a log home too. Seems that we have a fair amount in common.

[JAG1]

That is cool, I like the look of the logs, but sometimes get tired of maintenance on the outside. Mine is smaller home but ona hillside, so a lot of ladder work on the lower side.

Edited December 18, 2014 by JAG1

[dorkweed]

That's the problem we have here now. With a wood burning stove you have to be at home to keep the house warm. So during the day when I take off for work MoparMom can tend the fire rather easy. But now if we want to leave for Boise for a day or over night that's a problem because there is no other form of heat really. So during the winter time we are confined to the house for the most part. Would be nice to have a thermostat and walk away. But we don't so there is the downside to wood burning as a primary heat. I'm sure I could buy a few oil radiator heaters and place them around the house but that might get expensive fast. I'm sure the inverter won't like that long.

 

With how mild the weather this winter I'm going to be way ahead on firewood too. I'm out splitting up wood last few days being the weather is warm and dry so get the last few rounds split up and stacked. I'm attempting to clean up the wood splitting area.

 

That's where the "CAT" stoves shine.  You can really turn these down, and they burn low and slow at a moderate heat level and they burn clean due to the catalyst the smoke goes thru prior to going up the chimney.  Some folks with the "Blaze King" brand of stoves boast of 20 burn times.  Burn times = usable heat.

[Mopar1973Man]

Use to have a CAT stove. It didn't last long.

 

Then we had one of those reburn stove that used air injection to reburn the smoke before it left the stove. It didn't last long either.

 

Then the "Stove That Jack Built" This beast has no smog BS just heavy gauge steel box with a blower to circulate air. Not quite big enough to hold fire all night but it only requires 3/4 of a turn and the air doors to maintain 75-80*F temps upstairs. 1 full turn can run you out of the house at better than 85*F if your not careful. I've made the mistake a few times and left it at 1 turn and had it roasting hot upstairs in the bedroom till your sweating in the bed. Like right now I've got the blower unplugged and the air at 3/4 of turn nice cozy 77*F here at my desk.

[JAG1]

Yep I had to mod my stove... got rid of all the government do dads at the fab shop. Boy does it behave very well. It used to back pressure smoke thru all the smog stuff right back into the house. I got fed up and loaded in the truck and had it all fixed right so we could breath. I even told the guy down at D.E.Q. and that's what he suggested I do about it.

Edited December 19, 2014 by JAG1

[Killer223]

best thing i ever did was install a fresh air kit on mine. WOW what a difference.

[AH64ID]

best thing i ever did was install a fresh air kit on mine. WOW what a difference.

I want to do this to my pellet stove.

[dorkweed]

best thing i ever did was install a fresh air kit on mine. WOW what a difference.

 

 

Put one on mine also.  Didn't really need it as my house is not real tight;  but I couldn't see using the INSIDE HEATED AIR to burn with.  My outside air kit pulls air from my vented crawl space under the house.  Works well and keeps the humidity level down in the crawl space.

[AH64ID]

My crawl space is also vented, but I was told not to pull from there. I am not sure why???

[Killer223]

Generally you want to keep the warm air under the crawl space, if yours is high humidity then pulling from there would help reduce the humidity. I pull from my crawl space, this year I've used about half the wood as normally used to.

[AH64ID]

On the same token, unless it's super cold, you only want to close most the crawl space vents so that it still circulates some air.

 

Adding a fresh air kit will be a summer project, and I think the crawlspace is a great idea but either crawlspace or external will be equally easy to install.

[dorkweed]

On the same token, unless it's super cold, you only want to close most the crawl space vents so that it still circulates some air.

 

Adding a fresh air kit will be a summer project, and I think the crawlspace is a great idea but either crawlspace or external will be equally easy to install.

 

 

When I first bought this house, the humidity this time of year would be 50-70%+ on my gauge.

 

Then I put down a layer of 5mil visqueen? over the whole floor of the crawl space.  That dropped the average humidity in my house for this time of year to about 45%.

 

First year with my wood stove, the humidity level in my house didn't change much.

 

Second year with wood stove, with an OAK (outside air kit) that was drawing combustion air from my crawl space, the humidity in my house dropped into the mid '20's!!!!

 

Just saying.

[Killer223]

i took a 4" hole saw drilled a hole in the floor. used a dryer duct wrapped a metal screen at both ends and through the insulation it went. works great. my back bed rooms stay worm now not the usual 5-7 deg colder from pulling in cold air.

i'll tell ya it was worth every bit of the 20 min it took me to install it.

[AH64ID]

Well I added a new feature to my pellet stove today... I can now start a fire with my iPad or the wife's iPhone!!

 

The thermostat that came with the stove was a wireless remote that was not programmable and often wouldn't have the transmit strength to start the stove (generally at night) even with new batteries. It was due for a change. 

 

Recently I bought one of the Honeywell WiFi thermostats for the main furnace and really like the remote app, which means I want to be able to control the pellet stove from my iPad too!!

 

Lowe's recently dropped the price on the 6000 Series WiFi thermostat, so I picked one up today.. along with 50' of 18/5 and a 24VAC transformer.

 

With some help from the wife I routed the thermostat wire from the stove to the wall where the main thermostat is located. I then installed the 24VAC transformer near the 110V plug for the stove (on a switch so I can turn it off in the summer), and finally hooked up the thermostat.

 

I now have a 7-day programmable thermostat that will read the same temp as the main furnace, and I can monitor/control it from anywhere with a cell or WiFi signal.

 

I am pretty excited about it being programmable because I can program it to warm up the house before the propane furnace program, which should save a bit on propane and keep us warm.

 

Since I had to go into the crawl space I looked at what it would take for a OAK in the crawlspace.. it will not be a difficult task and I will tackle it sometime.

[dorkweed]

Twas almost 50*F this morning here, so I swept my chimney.  

 

I figured, "What the hey.........I may not be able to do it again this winter."

 

Took an hour start to finish, most of which was getting the ladder, brush, rods etc. out and put back up.

 

Here's what I found........................

 

 

 

That's just over 2 cups of brown/black, fluffy, soot.  It's been so mild here recently;  I've been doing a lot of "cold starts", as I let the stove go cold because the house is plenty warm..............so I think it would've been less had I kept the stove going more 24/7ish like last year.   Last year I swept after the burning season (over 5 months) and only got just over 5 cups of the same type of stuff out of my chimney.  I'm more than pleased with what I didn't find!!

 

Started with pallet wood early on................then got into the silver maple, ash and box elder.  Still haven't burned 1 full cord yet.

 

[Mopar1973Man]

Aren't you lucky. I've already burned 2.5 cords already. As for my chimney it was swept out at the beginning of the season and like usual it was a mound of black chunky creosote. It typically takes the shop vacuum and suck it out of the wall. Even though I run the pyrometer all the way to 1,600*F with a roaring fire, pipe tinkling, popping noises in the pipe, etc. But still in all plenty of creosote. I bet its the wood we burn out here vs. the hard wood you burn.

[dorkweed]

Aren't you lucky. I've already burned 2.5 cords already. As for my chimney it was swept out at the beginning of the season and like usual it was a mound of black chunky creosote. It typically takes the shop vacuum and suck it out of the wall. Even though I run the pyrometer all the way to 1,600*F with a roaring fire, pipe tinkling, popping noises in the pipe, etc. But still in all plenty of creosote. I bet its the wood we burn out here vs. the hard wood you burn.

 

 

Your wood is still too "wet" Mike!!!

 

The wood I burn is CSS (cut, split, stacked) for at least 1 full year before burning.  Some species like oak, walnut, mulberry, and osage may take 2-3 years to season. That's mainly why I've been scrounging box elder, ash, silver maple et. al.  All these species will season in a year.   And when I talk "SEASONED", I mean wood that is under 20% moisture when tested on a fresh split face  with a moisture meter.

 

You're a "gadget" guy.....................buy a cheap moisture meter and test the wood you're burning on a fresh split face..............which means, take your split, split it again, and then test the moisture on the freshly opened face.  You may be surprised!!

[Mopar1973Man]

LOL. You should see my neighbors then.   They just cut down a tree about one month ago, left the rounds laying in the weather. Then go out spit and haul to the house as needed.

 

My wood is typically split and stack in early spring in the wood shed so all summer long the summer heat is drying my wood. Now the left over wood in the yard now is no going to be burned till next year. But there is a difference out here the soft wood dry really fast. I've fell trees and loaded then on the trailer and hauled them home. Just from the summer heat the wood is splitting open in less than 24 hours its got cracks in it. Local trick is if you can hit a piece of a wood with a splitting maul and it pop the piece right off with a easy hit then the wood is good in dry. But if you need a sledge hammer 2 splitting wedges and pull the pieces apart the wood is still too wet. Even with a wood splitter if the wood is wet you'll see the water squeeze out or the wood is stringy.

 

Now the few bits of hard wood (Birch, Apple, Cherry, and Apsen) I've gotten yeah I will agree it takes a long time to season that stuff. Mostly why I tend to chase the soft wood. I only fall dead and dry trees. I really do hate to load up wet anything because you get less of a load. 3 foot x 16" slice of spruce looks heavy but when I harvest it its rather lighter than you think because its dry.

 

Here is my last load of 2014...

 

[JAG1]

Mike, those are cool pics. Looks like you live way out in the wild country somewhere. How far is that from your home?