Wood furnace

[fitzw]

Many years ago, I lived in a small house with a stove that could burn wood or coal, which we used as the main source of heat (not that we could tell the insurance company that; they wouldn't accept that on the house information). It was inconsistent; some nights, the fire would burn slowly and fitfully, and I would have to poke it up every few hours. On some other nights, I would have feed the stove every 3 hours or so. It didn't seem to matter what kind of wood I was using. Either way, it made for some difficulties in getting a good night's sleep during the winter.

This morning, the wood-fired furnace for the farmhouse was dead empty, when I had stocked it fully last night. Not even embers. At least the water was still hot for the radiators.

Here we go again.

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Does wind velocity create a Bernoulli effect that runs the fire faster/hotter?

It was quite windy last night.

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

That's got possibilities -- we were having some trouble earlier with smoke from the furnace blowing down the flue for our woodstove (we had to light the woodstove in self-defense).

Last night, fed the furnace at 9:00 PM (had a really nice ember bed from the morning), checked it a little after 2:00 AM, still fine, and still about a quarter full this morning at 7:00 AM.

Something transient, I guess.

[prince-hring.livejournal.com]

I feel for you.

My favourite wood furnace was a "wood chief" (they're called something else, these days, but I can't seem to remember what): a huge, boxy affair that can hold two big armloads of wood and has a thermostat controlled damper. I could get 18 hours in one burn if it wasn't too cold, out.

Big advantage: when it got down to embers, the damper would clang and wake me up to load in more wood.

Drawback: it threw so much heat that I could easily heat 1800 sq ft of space on a bitterly cold night. Medium cool nights were a problem that required open windows to solve.

Anyway, like I said: I feel for you!

Keep well, keep warm!

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

I refer to our system as a furnace, but it's closer to being a boiler. There's a water jacket around the firebox for a parallel hot water radiator system. There are three circulator pumps: one for circulating the water between the wood burner and the backup oil burner; one to circulate water through the radiators on the second floor; one to circulate water through the radiators on the second floor (and when a particular valve is open, which it currently isn't, to a small room off the attic).

In addition, for really cold nights, there is a wood stove in each kitchen (cook stove on the first floor, space heater on the second).

The cats are friends with the radiators, but really like to be in the kitchen when we have that stove lit.