Comments for blog.limedaley.com/post/wood-burning

Comment #1508

2010-01-18T20:40:03Z

Our wireless thermometer flaked out yesterday, and while I was looking at it, I happened to notice the max/min temperatures (it counts from when the battery was replaced, which I think was this fall)

Outside: -9 to 73

Inside: 48 to 84

I'm not sure when that 84 happened, that's pretty crazy.

Comment #1507

2009-12-27T02:42:15Z

Mom used to use the hot tub every night before bed. I don't think she does it as often any more, though maybe the excitement wore off of having your feet freeze to the deck on the way inside.

Comment #1506

2009-12-26T22:38:24Z

Ah, a warm bath. When I'm cold, a warm bath before bed can make the difference between easy sleep and taking an hour to warm up enough to nod off. It also saves Dad from my cold feet. :) Too bad it also tends to dry the skin.

Comment #1505

2009-12-26T19:36:25Z

I am like you, Mom. When I get cold, I'm cold no matter how warm the room is. If I'm warm, I can take a colder room. I'm not sure what makes me get those cold spells, but not having a place to go warm up is a problem (though there's always a warm bath).

Comment #1504

2009-12-26T10:32:49Z

Our thermometer usually reads around 19°C, or 66-67 °F, so our temperature is similar to yours during daytime, but the nighttime drop is not nearly as bad. I'm suspecting we have better insulation, because I don't think the heating's on at night. Also, we're above other apartments who all heat, which means we heat very little, but I don't know if I can put a number on it.

Comment #1503

2009-12-26T00:38:50Z

I just compare it to the summer time gas usage, which I'm assuming is accurate enough. I'm not sure if that is a good assumption or not.

Comment #1502

2009-12-25T23:52:22Z

Janet may be like me: If I have a source of heat to warm up with, like a fireplace, stove, or electric heater, I can be quite comfortable even when the rest of the house is quite cold, but evenly-distributed heat tends to seem cold to me. I'm tempted to buy a portable electric heater, set the thermostat to 55 degrees, and cart the heater between the bedroom and my office. The only other room I spend significant time in is the kitchen, and when I'm there I'm usually heating it up with the stove.

When you think about how much your gas heating costs, how do you separate it from your cooking and water heating?

Comment #1501

2009-12-25T22:40:28Z

The wikipedia article does say, "The term is also used to refer to the buildup of carbon materials in chimneys from wood-burning fires", but there isn't anything else about it.

So far, all I've seen in our chimney is soot that wipes off easily, but my parents' furnace gets this blacky, goopy stuff that hardens as it cools - I'm not sure what you call it...

It's pretty likely that your apartment is warmer, since we tend to be on the cold side of most of our friends (though the woodstove does tend to make the living room hotter, since some times it gets quite hot (I consider anything over 69 "hot").

When we were using gas, we had it set to 67 degrees during the day, and 60 at night. With the woodstove, we have a larger range, and a larger range throughout the house, where the living room and dining room are around 67 to 72 through the day, and those rooms can drop to 55 at the lowest at night, though usually stay above 58.

The rest of the house is at least a couple degrees colder than the living room, but I haven't measured it to know exactly.

Comment #1500

2009-12-25T08:12:35Z

I wouldn't worry too much about the creosote. According to the all-knowing wikipedia, creosote refers to several things, one of which is unhealthy (see the links at the end of my blog post touching on creosote), but that's not the one you will get from burning wood. I think what the elm will make is just soot buildup in your chimney, requiring more maintenance, but that's it.

Oh, and do post historical temperature charts on the web. I'd love to prove to Janet that our apartment is warmer than y'all's house! ;-)

Comment #1499

2009-12-23T02:49:03Z

I wonder if it would work in the new woodstoves - one thing I've actually missed about burning wood is that we don't have any of the wood smell...

I wouldn't mind having a little smell, though my parents' house sometimes gets too smoky.

Comment #1498

2009-12-23T00:38:07Z

Their is nothing quite like a log fire smell. What makes it better is Sandalwood.

If you place a couple drops on a hard log, let rest for 48 hours or longer, and if you of course like the smell, it results in an amazing aromatic experience.

Make sure to pick up eco-friendly Sandalwood however, as the tree population is depleting (Santalum Album).

Comment #1497

2009-12-22T01:17:53Z

Our current heating costs (for the last two months) per day are:

Wood: $2.6

Gas: $1.9

Electric: I don't have an average, but the maximum possible is $0.19, and probably the average is 75% of that or so.

Its pretty crazy that our daily average is still that high for gas, when we don't use it most days at all, and only a little bit when we do use it. (The woodstove *could* heat the house from the 58 nighttime temperature (if the fire goes out), but it would take it a long time, so it is more pleasant to run the electric space heater (at $0.06/hour) or the gas (at $1.40/hour) though obviously the gas is heating the whole house, vs. one room for the space heater))

Comment #1496

2009-12-22T01:02:22Z

Oh, I think I didn't mention, I have a goal of getting a microcontroller to control the fan, damper and display historical temperature graphs on the web...

Comment #1495

2009-12-22T01:01:41Z

We did think about a pellet stove a little, but decided for a regular wood stove in order to have an easier supply of wood, and the flame is nicer to look at.

Ours doesn't require electricity, though it is much more efficient with the blower running (probably same sort of air compartment like yours to keep the air separate), and also I couldn't burn it as hot if the blower were off.

Comment #1494

2009-12-21T17:48:34Z

We really like our wood pellet stove, which is our main source of heat. I just dump a bag of pellets in the top and it starts up automatically using a thermostat. The pellets are just compressed sawdust. A $5 (40#) bag lasts a day when it's cold or several when it's less cold, so it's a lot cheaper than gas. There's a fan that blows hot air into the room using a heat exchanger so all the smoke goes outside. The stove doesn't get nearly as hot as a conventional wood stove (which is good for safety, if less good for getting warm), and it requires electricity, but it heats the house, gives a nice feeling of having a real fire, and it's pretty easy.

Comment #1493

2009-12-21T02:52:11Z

Yes, we haven't fastened it to the wall as well - it seems pretty sturdy. I do wish it were shorter - and the door wider - I need to see if they make a door piece that is wider - it is in my way when working on the fire, particularly if other people are trying watch/help/stay warm at the same time.

Comment #1492

2009-12-20T22:44:06Z

we have the same gate, and have never regretted it. we didn't even fasten it to the wall; it just stands there, and even when asher was learning to walk and pulled on it to stand up, it never fell over. part of our concern is that our hearth is raised about 12" off the floor, so really easy to crack a noggin on, or trip over.

i don't think it's all that attractive in our living room, but it's fine for this season of life. and it's great for little visitors who aren't as careful with the fireplace as our own children would be.

we heat with wood full-time, only letting the fuel oil furnace come on in the mornings less than a dozen times, and i'm pretty sure we've barely gone through a cord. we do have some insulation, which is nice.

Comment #1491

2009-12-19T21:07:38Z

Love the pictures. Aunt P. is really happy about the gate. :) I see you've started on the Christmas presents....

Comment #1490

2009-12-19T20:18:54Z

And I guess I should mention - the wood stacks are held up by this nifty little devices (though they are plastic - I wonder if they'll crack when it gets cold...). You simply buy some 2x4s, and make the racks whatever size you'd like (I made them 12' by 6' which is longer and taller than the manufacturer recommends, but since most of the additional weight of the wood isn't adding more stress to the plastic pieces, I figured it'd be alright.) The stacks are much more stable than what I could stack on my own, though the firewood guys stacked the far right stack, and his stack is much better than mine, so it probably just takes some practice.