Keeping up?

[blakey]

Feeding the 290 three times a day to do it's best to try and keep up in these temps. Full load in the morning, top it off in the afternoon, and then another full load at night. Burning Ash, Bass, and Beech. The house is well insulated but the three car garage is still unfinished. That's my Achilles heal. The house is at 68F and the hot water is good for a shower but I can't get the furnace temp. above 110. I'm doing allot better this cold spell compared to the last one we had in December.

Can you reduce the heat to the garage somehow? Just let a trickle of water out there to keep pipes from freezing? You must be losing a lot of heat out there., maybe over half if your house is well insulated. The basswood isn't great for btu's but Ash and Beech are good.

 

[LTREES]

I'm ok with the 5036 heating the whole basment floor and upstairs is the base board. The house is @ 2000 sq ft and I'm burning very dead crap and pine.

 

[woodbooga]

Our antique cookstove is holding its own. Last night it was 2*F at bedtime. Set to be colder tonight.

Up to the present cold snap, I've been burning out of the "general supply" but have now broken into the select seasoned red oak and rock maple.

Definitely a big difference. When I load up the firebox with a tighter grained wood like oak, I open up the bottom damper a bit to kindle the new pieces for a couple of minutes and then close it up to slow the burn.

Last night, I stepped away from the stove for a little longer than ususal. When I returned 10 minutes later, the cooktop surface right over the firebox was starting to glow a deep shade of stove-black red.

Opened the oven door to glance at the temp in there. Normally ranges between 325-500. It was a toasty 600 and I was met with a huge rush of hot air that whooshed into the kitchen.

For 100+ years old, that cooker does a good job of keeping our antique (read: not well insulated) 1700sf farmhouse at a tolerable 63-68 degrees. (And honestly, any warmer than that, I get uncomfortable).

 

[ohioburner]

Heatmor

Anybody with a Heatmor having any problems keeping up? I am leaning towards a heatmor OWB for my house and building.

 

[ericjeeper]

Mine is not keeping up -22F last night -15 right now and the wind is blowing. My furnace fan is running non stop and the OWB can't get above 145F. All I know is Eric is right about the windows.

You ready to invest in some triple with Krypton windows?

 

[hypothesis]

You're on the right track blakey. The temp. in the garage finally came up and the circulator pump for it turned off. Now the water temp. in the 290 was able to get back to 155 with just heating the house and domestic H2O. The stock thermostat won't get the water above 155. The factory is supposidly sending me a replacement. I just finished crunching the numbers on what I need to insulate the garage. Gonna have to bite the bullet because I'm just loosing way too much heat through the garage.

 

[ericjeeper]

My garage stays pretty toasty. The only issues I have are winds out of the north., That blows against the overheads and pushes it away from the seals.. Not much one can really do about that.
The garage is attached and is 25x40 with a cathedral ceiling starting at 10'6" and going up to about 14'6 I suppose. But it is all heavily insulated with blown in cellulose 7 inches thick. Only has one window and it is triple pane with krypton.R-10 2 overhead 10x10 doors. But they are 2.5 inches thick well insulated.
I have glycol in my slab. I have to keep the garage warm, I gots a bathroom out there I do not wish to freeze the torlet. LOL

 

[jcappe]

You ready to invest in some triple with Krypton windows?

Yes, you coming out to install them? Actually the big wigs are having a pow wow tomorrow morning from both the builder and the window company. We'll see how we come out, the builder has 7 houses with major problems, same windows. Mine and another one are the worse ones. In all seriousness if nothing gets done by them I will start replacing probably this summer and will get in touch with you on the ordering part of it at least.

 

[John D]

You're on the right track blakey. The temp. in the garage finally came up and the circulator pump for it turned off. Now the water temp. in the 290 was able to get back to 155 with just heating the house and domestic H2O. The stock thermostat won't get the water above 155. The factory is supposidly sending me a replacement. I just finished crunching the numbers on what I need to insulate the garage. Gonna have to bite the bullet because I'm just loosing way too much heat through the garage.

Get that stock stat out of there! its the biggest problem with the Shaver. $60 is the best money you will spend on a Ranco stat! Trust me, Fletcher did it,I did it as well,and I would never go back.I set my high cutoff at 179,and turn on at 174.

 

[farmking]

I'm easily getting 12 hour burn times with my Heatmor. I keep my 2 story farm house between 75 and 80 degrees and also heat my domestic hot water. I Love my Heatmor!

 

[John D]

I posted in the cold weather thread also,but we are -4 here now,and its keeping up so far.I am loading 3x a day,but its keeping up.

 

[Adiredneck]

We had -25 last night. Of all the times for wood to "bridge" in the boiler, it did last night. Woke up at 4:30 & went outside. One quick jab at the wood & it blazed back to life.

If I could just get my wife to stop turning up the tstat in the house when the boiler is trying to climb 80 degrees! Kind of like when she gets in the car & puts the fan to max when it isn't warm yet...!

 

[Penguins87]

Our Woodmaster 3300 is keeping us toasty at 74*. I'm set at 160* on and 170* off. Getting 12 to 14 hrs burn times ( hickory and cherry ). This morning it was -7 at 7:00 am. here ( NE Penn.) Firebox is nice and clean now.

 

[ktm250rider]

woodmaster 5500 is doing fine. Its my heat exchanger thats tanking. Ive got 170-180 coming in but im only pulling 150 out of the HX. If we get a warm up, Im pulling that thing out and re-plumbing to get a good 170-180 to the boiler and then out to my air handlers.

 

[ericjeeper]

We had -25 last night. Of all the times for wood to "bridge" in the boiler, it did last night. Woke up at 4:30 & went outside. One quick jab at the wood & it blazed back to life.

If I could just get my wife to stop turning up the tstat in the house when the boiler is trying to climb 80 degrees! Kind of like when she gets in the car & puts the fan to max when it isn't warm yet...!

Do yourself a favor.. Providing you can see the boiler from a window at your house. Wire into the circuit that energizes the draft inducing door or fan with a small 120 volt indicator light..This way you can tell at a glance from the house if it is calling for heat.. Notice it on ,when you think it should not be.. Time to run out and have a look before it gets to far behind.

 

[beerman6]

Thats a good idea,I've had the pilot light for about 2 months...

 

[Scootermsp]

We had -25 last night. Of all the times for wood to "bridge" in the boiler, it did last night. Woke up at 4:30 & went outside. One quick jab at the wood & it blazed back to life.

If I could just get my wife to stop turning up the tstat in the house when the boiler is trying to climb 80 degrees! Kind of like when she gets in the car & puts the fan to max when it isn't warm yet...!

I flippin hate that when the wood "bridges" or "pyramids" inside. I try to put a BIG round at the bottom in the middle and it usually prevents this... -1F here now just loaded up at 9:30PM

 

[mimilkman1]

We had -25 last night. Of all the times for wood to "bridge" in the boiler, it did last night. Woke up at 4:30 & went outside. One quick jab at the wood & it blazed back to life.

If I could just get my wife to stop turning up the tstat in the house when the boiler is trying to climb 80 degrees! Kind of like when she gets in the car & puts the fan to max when it isn't warm yet...!

Mine did that the night before last. Went out at 6:30 and the temp was 131 . A quick jab and poof back in business.

Kyle

 

[John D]

Do yourself a favor.. Providing you can see the boiler from a window at your house. Wire into the circuit that energizes the draft inducing door or fan with a small 120 volt indicator light..This way you can tell at a glance from the house if it is calling for heat.. Notice it on ,when you think it should not be.. Time to run out and have a look before it gets to far behind.

With my Shaver,you can easily tell if its idling or the blower is on,even at night.Just look at the stack,if its idling,there is a wisp of smoke trickling out.When its on the blower,the smoke or hue/haze blows right up with force.Even at night,I can easily see it looking out the window.Once you get to know your OWB,its easy to see when its idling or rock-n- rolling.

 

[aokpops]

-15 outside 76 inside . this old furnance works good .it,s little hard to get the ashes out . wish it had a shacker grate . works great if you kept the ashes cleaned out . keeping up so fare.