By: spiker On: Fri Apr 23, 2010 9:59 am
With temps ranging between 40 and 60's, I basically have been re-lighting my hand fired during the days that it is cloudy and rainy. Then I idle it after lighting down to 250-350. Below that I might loose the fire with the weak draft in these warmish outside temps. When the days are sunny and 60's, I get enough solar warmth to have the house range between 63 morning and 68 evening with no other source of heat. I have not run the propane furnace for weeks now. I find that so long as I have a few hours to periodically tend the fire, it is not that hard to get a fire started right on top of the unused coal left over from when I last let it burn out. Keeping the load door cracked slightly keeps the smoke from dirtying up the glass while the wood burns down into coals. A wood fire in my coal stove runs hot really quickly. Within 15 minutes the stove top is at 600, and all that heat helps to get the coal up to temp for burning.
I thought I would be burning wood in the shoulder season, so I capped off the T in place of the baro once I stopped running coal full time. Did not want the creosote gumming up the flapper, and I think it is a safer arrangement with wood. I think that was the right move, although it turns out that I am only using the wood to relight the coal. With warmer outside temps, the draft has eased off, so I only loose the control over windy days that the baro provided.
Last edited by
spiker on Fri Apr 23, 2010 10:08 am, edited 1 time in total.