Outdoor Wood Furnace Info

All-Purpose OWF Discussions => General Outdoor Furnace Discussion => Topic started by: racnruss on April 07, 2015, 08:37:45 PM

Title: Gonna miss her
Post by: racnruss on April 07, 2015, 08:37:45 PM
Well, the fire went out due to warm temps. Guess its time to shut it off for the summer.  Kinda sucks turning the water heater back on.
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: AirForcePOL on April 07, 2015, 09:33:05 PM
I'm right behind ya.  Probly gonna burn for another week or so then I'll let it go out.  Isn't it weird always looking forward to the next winter? 
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: coolidge on April 08, 2015, 03:48:23 AM
What are you guys going to do with all your time? Not that keeping the fire going is time consuming, but it does take some time.
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: Roger2561 on April 08, 2015, 04:07:29 AM
With the night time temps still in the 20's I'm not letting mine go out yet.  Perhaps I will in a week or so but right now is too soon.  Roger
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: yotehunter66 on April 08, 2015, 04:08:32 AM
Suppose to be in the lower to mid sixties here next week but wet. Time to get to work on that solar heater. :thumbup:
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: kommandokenny on April 08, 2015, 06:13:36 AM
3 weeks ta go here,, but nobody told my wood pile. :bash:
I'll post a picture in the consumption thread later today
Got about a face cord left.

The reserve shed is thawing out,there's 10-15 days of elm in there. :thumbup:



(http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e212/kommandokenny/P4080001.jpg)


was really buried 2 months ago


(http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e212/kommandokenny/P3080020.jpg)
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: aries9245 on April 08, 2015, 06:27:35 AM
I'm keeping her going about a week more myself ... My wife still likes the floors warm in the morning when I told I was shutting it down I think  she was going to cry ... Lol
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: straincm on April 08, 2015, 07:56:59 AM
Put the last wood in this morning. My pile is gone and I refuse to cut anymore for this year, need to start on next years supply. With highs in the 70's and lows only hitting 50, time to shut down anyway. Will suck as much heat out as possible before turning on the water heater. Will clean her up and get her ready for the summer this weekend.
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: mlappin on April 08, 2015, 08:32:59 AM
Be at a least a few more weeks here, lots of nights into the 40's or even upper 30's. I don't have any Nipsco stock so no need to give em any more of my money than absolutely required.
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: Ched Bull on April 08, 2015, 08:56:00 AM
Highs in the 60s and low 70s this week be shutting her down tomorrow. 8)
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: atvalaska on April 08, 2015, 09:45:20 AM
54 yesterday ...the end is near........
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: GCTerpfan on April 08, 2015, 09:50:34 AM
How many guys burn theirs year round?  This was my first winter and I am still trying to decide if I want to keep it going.  It saves me as much as $75 dollar a month in electricity heating my DHW.  I am leaning towards keeping it going, I filled the firebox 1/4 of the way full yesterday and got a 24 hour burn, so I wont be using that much wood.

Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: mlappin on April 08, 2015, 11:05:52 AM
How many guys burn theirs year round?  This was my first winter and I am still trying to decide if I want to keep it going.  It saves me as much as $75 dollar a month in electricity heating my DHW.  I am leaning towards keeping it going, I filled the firebox 1/4 of the way full yesterday and got a 24 hour burn, so I wont be using that much wood.

Not a real fan of it myself, may not use much, but how much for a month?

A buddy has rotted two boilers out over the years from burning year round, BUT....these were units his brother in law built, may have rotted out anyways regardless of use. Said brother in law plans on taking his chances and to keep on making and selling conventionals and to hell with the EPA regs....
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: kommandokenny on April 08, 2015, 11:33:19 AM
How many guys burn theirs year round?  This was my first winter and I am still trying to decide if I want to keep it going.  It saves me as much as $75 dollar a month in electricity heating my DHW.  I am leaning towards keeping it going, I filled the firebox 1/4 of the way full yesterday and got a 24 hour burn, so I wont be using that much wood.

Factor in the 24-7 boiler pump and the fan,, wood,,, chain gas etc etc
You won't be saving much.

My DHW is a wash, against the hydro for the fans and pump.
But we don't use much hot water.
Something to consider.


kk
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: kommandokenny on April 08, 2015, 11:35:57 AM
don't know which one of you guys tried to sabotaged my post. :o :o
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: GCTerpfan on April 08, 2015, 01:02:02 PM
The more I think about this, based off of the amount of wood I got a 24 hr. burn time from yesterday, I would be using approximately one cord every two months.  I have a guy that delivers a dump trailer load of hardwood already split for $100, his load comes out to just shy of a cord.  So it would cost me $50 a month in wood. 

Once I start factoring in my time to stack wood, load stove daily, additional creosote in stove, not to mention the complaining I would hear from my wife the days the smoke is blowing towards her open house windows, I think I might be shutting it down for the summer.
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: fireman69lfd on April 08, 2015, 01:05:59 PM
I ran my CB 6048 for 7 years in summer also, only problem I had was my wife didn't like the smell of camping because of the smoke some of those hotter nights before the ac units were put in. She didn't like the price of fuel worse, so I switched up how I burned, and fed it. Now this is the first season with my PM 250 and I'm planning to burn year round, I have heard it could be done but it will be a lot different than my old boiler. To date it's been about 9 full cords of wood, which would have been at least 15 with the old one. I absolutely love this site and check in about 4 times a day just to see what's up. Thanks
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: hockeyguy on April 08, 2015, 03:48:02 PM
Prolly burn for about three more weeks then run the oil burner as needed to finish the season off. We just can't seem to shake these high temps in the 30s though it's supposed to jump well into the 50s over the next week.
Could save about $50.00 per month burning all summer to produce dhw, but I can't stand opening the firebox door on a hot humid July day plus the smoke blowing in the house through open windows. :( I'll pay the $50.00 for a break from this thing! ;D
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: kommandokenny on April 08, 2015, 04:26:24 PM
The more I think about this, based off of the amount of wood I got a 24 hr. burn time from yesterday, I would be using approximately one cord every two months.  I have a guy that delivers a dump trailer load of hardwood already split for $100, his load comes out to just shy of a cord.  So it would cost me $50 a month in wood. 

Once I start factoring in my time to stack wood, load stove daily, additional creosote in stove, not to mention the complaining I would hear from my wife the days the smoke is blowing towards her open house windows, I think I might be shutting it down for the summer.

If yer buying,, forget it,,you won't save a dime, against just the hot water.
Also ya gotta shut it down,,, to clean it thoroughly.
Factor in the hydro to run the boiler fans pumps etc
If you were running a laundromat,, go for it,,, but to save 10 bucks a month..............



Ya must love the thing eh... :thumbup: :thumbup:

kk
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: kommandokenny on April 08, 2015, 04:31:38 PM
l I absolutely love this site and check in about 4 times a day just to see what's up. Thanks

Ya it gets addictive alright. :thumbup:
What happens in the summer ??
SLOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW??
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: atvalaska on April 08, 2015, 06:23:45 PM
everybody's a brother from another mother around here!
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: fraizer1 on April 08, 2015, 06:34:59 PM
shut mine off when i got home from work monday. fire was out just ashes in the firebox. have to wait an see how the weather holds up. i have had to relight it after a couple of weeks if the night temperature goes in the low 30's.
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: kommandokenny on April 09, 2015, 06:10:23 AM
everybody's a brother from another mother around here!

Yup population goes up X 100 around here in the summer.
The tourist and cottagers pay the bills for us.
So two months of line ups to get gas and check out, at Walmart in town.
Worth it,,,,,,,,,
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: GCTerpfan on April 09, 2015, 06:28:53 AM
Quote
If yer buying,, forget it,,you won't save a dime, against just the hot water.
Also ya gotta shut it down,,, to clean it thoroughly.
Factor in the hydro to run the boiler fans pumps etc
If you were running a laundromat,, go for it,,, but to save 10 bucks a month

I think you may be underestimating the amount of electricity it takes to heat your DHW, or you have one really efficient hot water heater. 

Everything I have read says an electric DHW tank amounts to 40%-50% of you electric bill.  In my experience, this is pretty accurate.  My electric bills go from $175-$200 a month to $100-$125 a month when I am burning my stove.  Even my 80 year old grandfather, who lived alone saw his bill drop from $60 a month to $$35 a month when he was heating his DHW. 

So even though I am buying wood, I would still save at least $25 dollar a month heating my DHW.  I had decided this wasn't enough to mess with the aggravation of keeping the stove going but, when I told my wife and teenage daughter last night that I was going to be shutting the boiler down soon, they both said  "Do you have to? We really like that everyone can get showers, and do laundry at the same time and we never run out of hot water" 

So I might keep burning it for a while to see how it works out.
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: mlappin on April 09, 2015, 07:04:32 AM
Put the last wood in this morning. My pile is gone and I refuse to cut anymore for this year, need to start on next years supply. With highs in the 70's and lows only hitting 50, time to shut down anyway. Will suck as much heat out as possible before turning on the water heater. Will clean her up and get her ready for the summer this weekend.

Have plenty of wood here, just hard to keep the insides of the stove clean and dry when it barely burns over a 24 hour period.

I have plenty of wood though.


(http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t167/Marty_Lappin/IMG_1226_zpskp4811jm.jpg)
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: kommandokenny on April 09, 2015, 07:11:31 AM

I think you may be underestimating the amount of electricity it takes to heat your DHW, or you have one really efficient hot water heater.





I know it uses more power than a kettle .
I get that part.
All I meant was, when you originaly posted your factors, there was no mention of the juice to run the pumps and fans.

My bill is -10/15 bucks from summer to winter. [not equal billed ]
[We do have a fresh air exchanger on line in winter]
We don;t use the hot water that you do, so it may be a  small plus for you,,, all things considered.
If it works and your using lots of hot water,, than go for it.
Just saying you missed one of the factors, is all ;)

kk
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: kommandokenny on April 09, 2015, 08:05:17 AM
GC.
I guess I use my situation, to annalize your hydro usage.
There both totally different.
My hydro bill goes up in the winter with the stove on.
Weird,, but there are other factors, as I indicated .
Anyway,, in your situation with the family using unlimited hot water,, keep er going for a while and see. :thumbup:
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: Marktk on April 10, 2015, 07:24:20 AM
I burn all year. I use up a lot of smaller stuff. Why would that cause the stove to rot sooner?
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: mlappin on April 10, 2015, 10:31:47 AM
I burn all year. I use up a lot of smaller stuff. Why would that cause the stove to rot sooner?

Depends on the stove though, you're not working it that hard so when it does burn it's not long enough to drive the condensation out of the stove. Would depend on the stove to, mines natural draft and being a natural draft on warm days it doesn't burn as hot as the draft isn't as strong.
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: real bill on April 11, 2015, 06:30:16 PM
Let mine go out today.  I'll use the monitor when it gets too cool in the house.  Been cutting wood for next winter though.
Title: Re: Gonna miss her
Post by: Fourced on April 19, 2015, 09:27:46 AM
I burn all year, but I have 3 teenage girls plus my wife using hot water, propane vs free wood.... Not a hard decision in my case.