Love this furnace, I loaded the furnace about 3/4 full last night at 11:00 temps in the mid 20’s ( Stacking the pieces as tight as I could) and as of this posting the house is still 69 with outside temps at 36. While the temps are not extreme it’s quite impressive to me considering I am heating a large mid 1860’s Victorian with 9ft. ceilings. Heading down now to load on a nice bed of coals. 1/1/21
I am heating a circa 1865 Victorian , 2700 sq ft and 1200 sq ft of basement .The house is built on a slight grade with 2 doors exiting from the basement at ground level leaving about 1/3 of the basement above grade. The basement is warmed by radiant heat from the furnace and ducts. Insulating the rim joists is on my list of things to do. I let the coals do their thing and don’t reload until about a shovel full of coals are left unless the outside temps are extremely cold. Both the Kuuma and a new propane unit were installed in the fall of 2016. With my set up the warm air ducts exit from the Kuuma with a 12×18 X22″ duct run between the 2 plenums along with a damper. My cold air return for both units is fed by ducting from the first floor of the home with another damper just outside of the cold air return bonnet of the Kuuma. The thermostats for both units are wired into a relay switch at the Kuuma (both high and low) with the propane wired as the main furnace which allows it to kick in and disable the blower on the wood furnace ( if I am not home in time to load the wood on before the temp on the propane hits desired set temp), usually set at67. I don’t weigh my wood but I am pretty good at gauging the amount I need before the next load by the weight of the pieces as I load. I got a good deal this summer on 5 face cord of(16″) seasoned wood which is ideal for this milder winter as I am loading these shorter pieces on 3 at a time and saving the longer ones for night and the colder temps sure to arrive. I also shut off the computer at the coaling stage on the milder days. I rarely use the high side of the blower on the wood furnace as I like the more constant heat from the lower. 1/4/21
Similar to my first post on this thread. Going on year 7 with the Kuuma and I have only filled it to the max a couple of times. Last night at 10:40 I filled it fully with five 19” splits and two 16” on the top, and set the computer slightly above the low setting. Temperature at 22 with gusty winds.
This morning at 7 a lot of large coals, blower on and 70 in the house. Blower ran constantly until around 11 (26 outside)
at which time I pulled the coals forward, adjusted the BD to increase the draft to the furnace and didn’t need to reload until 12:20 PM. The old house holding steady at 69. As stated in my original post “ very impressive for what I’m heating “!!” 1/26/23
Woodey
St. Lawrence Valley, NY
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/kuuma-vf-100-burn-time.184971/