I love wood heat. In the summer, I can’t wait to light up the wood stove.
Last year we went through 3 cord of birch from September to June. When it’s chilly at night but up to 60 during the day, I light the stove once in the morning to keep the coffee warm. The toughest time is when it’s 30-40 day and night. I may have to light the stove 2-3 times throughout the day. Today the high was 10F. Once I have a bed of coals, one log every 3-4 hours keeps the house at 80F. When it’s-30 to-40, as soon as there’s room in the stove, we stuff a log in there.
This year we’re burning maple. I have birch left over from last year to start the fire and maple all day and night.
The wife hangs the clothes in the house to dry after washing and with a 16% humidity level, the clothes dry quickly.
Does that give you time to steal a nap?
I will jam as much wood as I can in the stove before I go to bed. I usually only sleep 6 hours. The house temp will drop down to 45-50 in the morning. What I did was install a fish house heater and keep it on medium just before bed. Yes, we have a CO detector so I sleep well. Then I can wake up to 70F in the morning and have some time to get the fire going again. Of course I heat up yesterday’s coffee first before anything else.
Describe the fish house heater…what fuel? vented? Electric start?
Thank you for the pictures
That sounds you need a rocket mass heater?
Joep, I’ve thought about that but I just can’t see how a mass rocket heater would be appropriate up here. For one, passively heating a space when the temperature can drop so quickly outside seems like it would take a long time to get the temperatures to a comfortable level inside. Plus it seems I would be a slave to feeding it around the clock by heating it with sticks?
Totally heated with wood for the past 22 years. Of course we don’t get those sub-zero temps and if we do a couple times a year it’s not those double digits but my best friend has been as much thermal mass as I can find a place for. My fire box is built in to a stone wall and the heater itself is encased in concrete. Concrete floors
get hydro heated.
I built a Rocket Mass Heater in my greenhouse with a seventeen foot long by 30 inch wide heat storage bed. I think it would work great in a house but it’s a six inch piped system and too small for a greenhouse. 8 inch piping would have made a world of difference. You are right that it takes some tending too but once you get those tons of mass in the heat storage bed up to a reasonable temp it holds for a long time between firings. Also once it is burning well you can use much larger pieces of wood to fuel it so you don’t have to baby sit it so much. Definitely uses a fraction of the fuel a regular stove does though. Not an easy thing to retrofit into a house though. Cold climates have their challenges but when temps get past 75F you can stick a fork in me.
Good morning Mr. Bill .
I was about to respond to the above but realized there is no way I can comprehend those temps . 
Now here a amusing mass heater. 
You are correct BillS that it is the 40-50F outside woodstoving that is the more difficult. What makes this so is having wood stoves sized for the lower temperature needs.
Tempted to do a small continuous fire will have you dirty burning, chimney clogging and fine splitting too much.
Your 2-4 started up Hot, let go out fires a day is really the best. Hey, with your hardwoods just think of it as charcoal farming.
Just as TomH said adding mass thermal flywheel can help. My 480 pounds wood stove sit s in a corner pocket lined with at least another 500 pound of concrete boards, tile and setting concrete, filling grouts.
Your still 400? 600? square feet occupied is actually difficult to moderate. A Tiny.
My 1300 square feet is, a Small.
Pretty much more area and rooms above that in cold, cold then you do need from a single source forced distribution out like J.O. and TomH are doing.
I too late night/early morning go into cheat with a central electric furnace. It’s base lives 8 feet from my head-in-the-bed. My get-up, and att’em, shake awake’r, when it start cycling too much. I hear the dollars spinning away at the meter head.
The historic old houses I’ve been in had at least three wood fireplaces/stoves. Ugg. Feed that. Needed big families just for the many hands.
I got nearly a full cord of rare, rare mixed yard trees of true birch and beech wood this year. It helps for the carry over nigh fires versus my DougFir. But still . . .
Too long below 10-15F+ and I have plumbing issues. We just are not built for that here.
Ha! Most fear earth warming. Icy-Ball earth for me. I’d have to dig everything down deeper and ground insulate. All of the foundations, plumbing and all.
S.U.
Bill, I am no expert, but if temperature changes so quickly in the house, what about your insulation? Make that thick as possible! The better it is, the less wood you need. If I look at your fireplace, it slaves you now. Like the others said, put mass in it and burn full speed high efficiency in a rocket mass heater. The heat is released slowly on a very comfortable way, instead of a steal fireplace hot/cold in minutes. It gives you time to relax.
Take a look there, he is a fundamentalist whitout being a terrorist. All plans are there
Hello JoepK.
Most of us start firing up in our Thick Plate Steel and heavy cast iron AIRTIGHT MODERN CERTIFIED (for insurance) WOODSTOVES do initially firing up at “rocket stove” velocities and intensities.
We ALL updraft for stove going cold always negative pressurized safety.
AIRTIGHT means exactly that; airtight sealed doors.
I can actually cut off all of the air completely to mine if gone into an overheating run-away situation; or a chimney fire.
Safety first in any wood burning appliance.
Down drafting in a thin metals creations inside occupied spaces can never be safe. Thin metals burn though in minutes in a pitchwood discovery run-away. Burn through by the 2nd, 3rd year of careful “normal” use. Pin holing, cracking when any charred wood goes cold and puts carbon monoxide leaking out into occupied spaces in a downdraft situation. A hippy-killer we would call these back in the 1970’s. Yes. Yes. Theses were tried back then too.
The Russian; and German/Austrian type mass stoves do not downdraft. Rapid batch combust in long horizontal and up flowing labyrinth heat capture and mass storage passages. Theses are fire going out, fail-safe.
These modern downdrafting new Re-discover’s are too highly promoted. They do NOT make all conditions safe processes. They are idiots. Dangerous Idiots.
My topic. Started by me. So here I can speak strongly.
Steve Unruh
Hi Steve , you say you can completely cut off the air to your fire in the event of a chimney fire or over heating situation , is that something you have retrofitted to your fire to allow that ? , i have looked at all my wood stoves and there is no way it can be completely starved of air , in fact i think its law here in Australia that there is always a supply of air into the fire box , shame because i would like to be able to do what you can do with your fire.
I had a run away situation a couple of months ago while burning pine pallet wood to get some heat quickly into the water jacket inside my fire after about 20 mins there was a smokey haze in the house , it came from the heat of the stainless steel flu that was starting to glow cherry red , no amount of damping down the air controls helped at all , in fact what flashed through my head was the sound of my fire when lighting up my fire in the mornings listening to the creaks and bangs as it expands with heat and how once its up to temp it goes nice and quiet until you open the door to put more wood in ,as soon as u open that door you can hear the metal contracting again , so while my fire was roaring away and chimney was red hot i just opened up the door and straight away the fire stopped roaring and the inrush of air brought the colour of the flu back to normal within 20 seconds ,i just allowed the wood to burn down a little more before closing the door again , next time i wont be so greedy filling up my massive fire box with sap filled pine .
Dave
When I talk of big temperature changes, I’m referring to the outside temperatures. It could be 30-40 degrees Fahrenheit. This can be a big deal in sub zero temperatures when trying to stay warm. I built my 400sqft house with 2x6 construction and good insulation. throughout. When it’s -30 or -40F, every little spot where the moisture barrier isn’t sealed, one can feel the cold pushing it’s way in. We have sub zero weather at least 60 days of the year.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, I love it here. Only certain people can handle living this way. For some reason, most of those people are really nice. Others don’t last very long.
I just don’t think a mass rocket heater is a good fit for me. Reasons Steve U. cited are other good reasons. I think a mass rocket heater would be a good option for a greenhouse for the Fall and Spring here.
Haha!
A lot of people feared trains when they first appeared. They said humans wouldn’t be able to cope with speeds above 28 km/h. They would go crazy. Well, maybe we did.
Steve, have you tried a downdraft boiler?
I’ve been downdrafting six cords a year for 25 years now. Updraft before that. I won’t go back.
Dave my cast iron QuadraFire does have always open secondary air supply back openings.
Shhh. Gasifing-in-a-woodstove experimenting when the wife has been out of the area for working I made up two crumped up aluminum foil Plugs. And yes even had to remove the primary air restrictor plate to get enough added air for later 40% moisture wood needs-must using. Have to fire sacrifice all the wood char to do this. Ash door air from under the grate.
So emergency shut down.
Slam the rear plugs in. Slide shut the primary air slide. Insure the factory starting up rear two jets control is OUT closed; the ash door latched tight and it WILL air starve that fire.
Ha! Whistles a bit here, and there. Let’s me know she’s sucking negative.
S.U.
J.O. you are a trained safety professional.
A working proven safety professional.
I’d visit sleep over in your house with confidence anytime.
I’d sleep over in my friend’s Dutch John house with his THICK all welded stainless steel plate self-made down draft stove too.
Any long-haired woo-woo believer selling his Green spin creation? No f’nn way man.
Here Washington State we just this last 18 months had a forced Green-Spin commuter train go off rails amuck. People died. I’ve ridden that rail line. Ridden the older lumpity- bumpety 50 years old one. Ridden the newer Made-in-Spain one. Hey Movies! just like a jet airliner.
Just not the special first run introductory tried too high of speed trips.
S.U.
Haha, I’d better go get a haircut right away 