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Fanman
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# Posted: 12 Jan 2021 06:08pm
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This is probably a stupid question, but the extent of my wood heating experience is the stove that has been in our cabin since we got it 15 years ago. It was built as a summer cabin (drafty, and no insulation), but we enjoy the occasional winter weekend if it's not too cold.
The question is, when you arrive to a cold (say 30°F) cabin and light the wood stove, how long before you feel comfortable hat near the stove, and how long until the entire room is comfortable? I realize there are a lot of variables, of course.
Our stove is in the 18x18 living room, the 18x8 kitchen is through an archway. Two bedrooms off the living room are left closed off in the winter, and our bedroom off the kitchen has its own heat (antique coal stove). The wood stove is an old (I'm guessing 1960s or 70s) "Early Times" brand and probably very inefficient, basically just a steel box.. but I do like the view of the fire through the large glass doors.
It's at least a half hour or an hour before I can warm my feet sitting right in front of the fire, and another hour before the room is comfortable... then it sucks wood, it'll only go for a couple of hours. Fortunately the coal stove in the bedroom keeps us warm all night, just gotta restart the wood stove and let it warm up while we eat breakfast in the bedroom.
I'm thinking something more modern might perform better, though. A decent size window is a must, though, seeing the flames is a big part of the cabin ambience.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 12 Jan 2021 07:24pm - Edited by: gcrank1
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Yep,,that's the way it works.
That interior temp is not only the ambient air but all the stuff...walls, furniture, everything inside. It is all a 'cold-sink'. The stove has to first heat itself up to start passing heat (heat moves hot to cold) into the room. A stove with lots of mass; heavy steel/cast/etc. and/or firebrick will take longer (if the initial fire intensity is similar stove to stove) to reach x temp than a thin bodied stove. Same with stove pipe. If you have sgl wall it will pass heat into the room faster than dbl wall.
So, you have a lot going on to heat a space.
I must use a 2 stage approach to get it warm asap.
The 30K btu LP wall heater gets lit right away, then I futz with the wood stove. That LP heater has been sweet, in the shoulder seasons it is all we use. It is the infrared version with the 'tiles', 5 of them, 6K btu's per.
3 settings, 1 tile on low, 3 on med, all 5 on high. I did not opt for the 'stat I prefer to set where I want not listen to it cycle off/on. Way better, imo, than the 'blue flame' version with heats the air; the IF heats objects like a wood stove does (sit in front of it feels just like sitting at the wood stove).
In my recent post about such I gave outside and inside temps and how long to get 'comfy' in our 16x24 open floorplan, cath ceiling, shoddily built cabin. In short:
At low to mid 20ish*f outside the inside is typically 9-12* warmer, so similar to what you describe.
It takes about 1/2 hr to rise inside by 10ish*, 1hr by 20*, 2hrs had got us to 74-78* (my comfy'). Once the temp is up I shut the LP heater off.
Ive repeated this performance several times now so I totally expect the same when we go tomorrow.
Btw, I use quite a bit of dry Jack Pine initially, then mix in well aged Oak, then switch to straight Oak unless I need to snap the fire up quickly because I let it go too long.
This all with keepin that fire kickin pretty well in the now upright, thin walled, antique (simple Round Oak parlor style). The heavy wall steel bodied/fire brick lined 'box' stove (late 90's vintage airtight?) took about 2x as long! Once up to temp the box held a fire better/longer but that did us NO good for getting comfort for brief visits. It is now sitting outside awaiting the new owner to pick up. Im sure that for actually living in a place and keeping the interior saturation temp up the box/a modern stove would be the thing to use.
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paulz
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# Posted: 12 Jan 2021 07:26pm
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My cabin only hits in the 40s low. First thing I do when I get through the door is light a fire, and leave the stove door open until it gets good and hot, like 15-20 minutes. Then I fill it up and shut the door. And now I have a 30K btu propane wall heater I fire up too. But it still takes an hour before it's near 70. Once all walls and everything inside is warmed up (like overnight), and the stove steel, it reheats much faster. Heating all the cold structure and contents takes time.
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Brettny
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# Posted: 12 Jan 2021 07:50pm
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Is that a window in the front of your stove or a screen? Our shabin is far to small to even bother comparing.
You have no insulation at all? If not I wouldnt bother with a new stove.
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SCSJeff
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# Posted: 12 Jan 2021 08:08pm
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I agree with Brett. If there's no insulation, it may never get especially comfortable.
I remember spending a night at our cabin (grant it, much larger 2 story) before I got it insulated when the temps dropped to around 30F outside. I slept on a couch in my sleeping bag with a kerosene heater running about 4 feet from me. I might as well had a candle lit because I couldn't feel any heat from it. It was just going right up and out of the uninsulated cabin...
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FishHog
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# Posted: 12 Jan 2021 08:35pm
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Looks more like a fireplace than Woodstove. Can you even slow the burn down by shutting doors or closing a damper in the stove pipe?
If not your blowing more heat up the chimney than you will add to the room
Takes me a good 6 hours to make the cabin comfortable when I arrive in cold weather but after that I have to watch I don’t cook myself out of the place
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Fanman
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# Posted: 12 Jan 2021 10:11pm
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No insulation. It does get quite comfortable, though, in a couple of hours. Maybe I'm not doing so bad. Yeah, I guess it's more of a freestanding fireplace than a stove. It's glass doors, it had wire curtains inside but I took them out. I'm guessing they were there so it could be used with the doors open or closed, with the doors open a lot more heat comes out but so does a lot of smoke, it's pretty shallow, so I only open them to poke the fire or add wood. The curtains made it hard to get wood into it quickly and cleanly.
I can slow the burn down some with the flue damper. There is a sliding plate under the doors with small openings, but the door gap is so wide (no seals and no evidence that there ever were any) that the sliding plate really doesn't do much.
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Irrigation Guy
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# Posted: 12 Jan 2021 10:18pm
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I vote for new stove
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Brettny
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# Posted: 13 Jan 2021 05:57am
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A freestanding fireplace or even any fireplace is more of a wood fired AC for the winter. Almost all the heat goes up and out the chimney..it gets sucked in through every crack and hole in the wall.
You could try one of those cheap $10-$20 in stove pipe dampers first.
A tighter stove may help some but I wouldnt go spending big money on one and expect alot.
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gsreimers
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# Posted: 13 Jan 2021 08:35pm
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Thermometer inside the Northern Minnesota cabin said 15 degrees Fahrenheit when we got there around 1:00 last Friday afternoon. By bed time it was up to 55. Next morning we got it up to 65 and kept it there until we left Sunday afternoon.
The cabin is sealed up and insulated but is 24 by 32 and 20' tall to the peak. The wood stove is a good one but my wood is mostly birch, basswood and some maple that we took down to clear to build so it isn't the best and we use a lot of it.
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gsreimers
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# Posted: 13 Jan 2021 08:47pm - Edited by: gsreimers
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Mama wasn't super happy, but it was kind of peaceful and pretty
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toofewweekends
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# Posted: 13 Jan 2021 09:30pm
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In winter, our place (16x20, loft, insulated) will often be in the single digits when we arrive, and often warmer outside than inside. So, the door stays open as we schlep stuff in. Then the Vermont Casting wood stove gets fired up, usually adding 15 to 20 degrees an hour. So, three hours and we're good. By the next morning, it's easy to keep warm with a low fire because all the stuff and walls are 65 degrees or better. A full load of birch in our stove will run 6+ hours with the damper pretty much closed, so usually no refueling during the night.
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willywilly2020
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# Posted: 14 Jan 2021 08:27am
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Woodstove would definitely make a difference, but I think insulation is the bigger issue here.
Takes me about an hour and a half to get my 12x20 cabin comfortable.
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