So we had a serious cold snap over the past few weeks. Many nights were in the teens or twenties, and many days hardly got into the thirties. Over this time, I kept the boiler stoked up and running for about 12 days straight. Overall, I am happy, but I feel like things could be tweaked to make it work even better.

From Fall 2008

The boiler water temperature on the coldest of nights was about 155-165 degrees F, while gassifying for many hours on end. Meanwhile, my house maintained about 65-70 degrees F day and night even though the boiler never reached full operating temperature. I was typically loading small loads of wood, about 8 or 10 medium sized pieces, every six to eight hours. I found I needed to tend to the fire every couple of hours if I wanted to keep a hot gassification flame. Therefore, I needed to keep the wood from bridging up, so I would gently move the wood around until it settled in place against the refractory stone. However, on some days I left the house, and the fire burned well without tending for eight or so hours. It just seemed like the boiler was hotter, and gasifying better when I kept the fire tended to. I feel sort of like an old railroad fireman...