Hey Thomas,Thomas12980 wrote:I'm in Saint Regis Falls. I just looked outside at the thermometer on my porch. I'm seeing minus 23 degrees. Where I'm at in the house [circa 1910] my room temperature is around 76-78 degrees. Only thing running is my pot bellied stove. I put fire brick inside the thing yesterday - 6 bricks along the lower ledge. This way, should I poke around inside around the edges, the burnt coal disintegrates and falls below where I can shake it out, instead of just gathering on that lip inside. My procedure before shaking is to add coal in a heap in the middle. let it get going with blue flames. then I open the damper wide open, pull my modified shaker grate out all the way, and poke around with a half inch rod all the way around the outside edges. then push the shaker grate in and out quite vigorously until I see an orange glow. then shove it all the way in, close up the manual damper almost closed and regular the burn rate with the ashpan damper. after a while I empty the ashpan.
-23F! Sounds like you have a ncie set-up. It was -18F in the early AM here.... had to turn on a space heater for the ladies
this morning....