Vigilant II is just humming along!!!

Hi Folks,

So 'stayed up late to enjoy the sub-zero temps. The dark sky and -18 F combined to show vivid color of the stars. I could easily make out Blue, Yellow and Orange Stars within the
Winter Constellations.

The house is 2400 sq. ft. 1850 "T" shaped structure. The VigII @ 700F provided a temperture @ 60F to the first floor central rooms. -18 F is overwhelmingly cold and this hand-fired stove
kept kicking. Giving the numerous drafts , I'd estimate the stove provides comfortable heat to about 10F (outside Temps). Tonight the expected low temp. willl be only -5F.

Thanks

Update... BTW... at the beginning of the season, I re-cemented the custom raised angle bricks... these are about 2" in height. These allow
easy removal of ash along the side and rear corners, just slice across the tops thru the front and dislodge the ash.

Running the stove at 700 F sometimes requires more shaking and slicing, and recharging, especially when using only nut coal. Pea and Nut
extends the process somewhat, sometimes, but not always. A full range of STOVE, NUT, and PEA makes for a long burn at 700 F.

The STOVE coal burned extremely well, reduced to fine ash, so easy to shake... For very cold snaps (sub-zeros) , I hope to acquire a 4-5 bags of
Stove coal...

The Stove coal takes a little , just a little longer to ignite.

If you can make the trip to Plattsburgh, Hulbert Brothers has Kimmel's stove coal by the bag.

Rob R. wrote:If you can make the trip to Plattsburgh, Hulbert Brothers has Kimmel's stove coal by the bag.

Nah they are sold out... we (my friend and I) just checked... we are going down to Greenfield Center to pick up some (spelling) Tamaqua Bed Stove Coal plus a load to Blaschak Nut....

Must have just run out, a friend bought some there last week.

Are you going to Mulholland? They used to sell coal from South Tamaqua Coal Pockets.

Rob R. wrote:Must have just run out, a friend bought some there last week.

Are you going to Mulholland? They used to sell coal from South Tamaqua Coal Pockets.

Yes Erik and I will be going. Erik needs Stove Coal, Mulholland still has South Tamaqua Coal in that size.

Matt

This Thursday, a cold front will arrive... should last thru Sunday. With the warmer weather... the VigII is burning slow and even and keeping the house warm. By tomorrow the Godin Large-Round will be up and running (in the far rear of the house). The VigII will be restricted to 600F or so,
while the Godin will cruise at say around 500F. This should be more than enough heat to warm the entire house. No more electric space heaters, no more oil, should be fun!

Always good to be warm and safe without electricity for heating, specially when there is No electricity

Last night -5 F, VigII cruised @ o650-700F and the Godin in the rear room belting out 700F just over the lower firedoor. The house was very comfortable.

here's the Godin...no time for cosmetics....

Looks like she's happy & doin nicely. Why would you want to put eyeliner, lipstick or any cosmetics on her for that fact.

freetown fred wrote:Looks like she's happy & doin nicely. Why would you want to put eyeliner, lipstick or any cosmetics on her for that fact.

LOL!!!

Update on log.... COLD WEATHER HERE!!!

Just past midnight... outside temp on side porch is 3F....there's a wind out of the ENE....snowy.... by early AM it will be -9F

The mighty VIG is pumping out the heat nicely... I dropped in a mix of stove and nut... I am recharging the unit about every 8 hours now and opened her up to 650-700F...
she's heating the center-front rooms very well, my aim is to slow her down as much as possible and still keep the house warm...

In the far rear of the house, surprisingly, the Godin Grand Round is belting out 750 F or so with very slight opening of the air-inlet. The MPD is fully closed and the fire door
is air tight (no leaks)...

Now my VigII is connected to double insulated stove pipe, thus there is much less heat eminating off the pipe. Next year I may consider single wall pipe, not sure as the double increases the draft but I could use the extra heat on cold nights....

Starting tomorrow, the high will be around 4 F and the low is predicted to be -11F !!! COLD WEATHER THRU SATURDAY...

You know it will be fun to re-read this entry this coming July!

Very cold -15F... VigII keeps humming along.... two eco fans atop the stove, 700F, excellent batch of Kimmel Nut....the Godin is kicking 700F and the old house is livable.

No back-up fuel oil, no space heaters... just two parlour stoves working the old house.....one and a half more days of sub-zero temps... tomorrow will be very cold but sunny,
the structure need passive solar heat.... if conditions worsen, time to flip on an edenpur IR heater....

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.