I already posted about this in coffee, but this fits the topic better so I'll do it again.
I let mine go out Sunday night. Not only because of the forecast, but because the damn grates jammed wide open. Been happening quite a bit these past couple seasons, and I'm getting REAL tired of it. No matter how careful I am in shaking, something gets in there .... then you fight it .... and the grates get wider ... and wider .... and wider .... until the whole fire is sitting in the ashpan!
I left the grates jammed open Sat. night and just piled the coal on. It burned all the coal out of there, so that worked. Was going to relight Monday night, but forecast said it was supposed to be warm! BULLSHIT! Woke up to 34° outside and 59° inside - that REALLY sucks when you get used to a constant 70°. Ended up relighting yesterday at 10 am. That same fire is still burning now. Going to try to let it go until the afternoon - as long as I can, so I get back into the shake/reload cycle at 6pm or later. Works better that way. Whenever I reload in the morning, the best heat is coming out when I least need it ... then it starts tapering down in temperature when I need it most. The evening cycle works best for me. 25 hour + burn so far. We'll see how long this will go for ...
Here's some graphs of the outdoor / indoor temps when I got up Tuesday morning. BRRR! Took all day Tuesday, even with temps in the 50's, to get the house back up to 70°. Once this place is warm, you gotta keep it warm.
Just FYI - the vertical scale is different in both graphs. Indoor one is 1 degree per line, outdoor is 3 per line.

