It rained quite a bit yesterday, which is good. The problem with rain is that it requires clouds, and clouds block the sun. This makes it pretty chilly up here pretty quick.
Most of yesterday afternoon was about 55 dergees, and at about 5pm I had to resort to bringing the main firebox online.
The main fireplace is quite large, but it has been updated with an equally large boiler-style fire box which is much more efficient.
Fireboxes are interesting critters. There’s several things you can adjust on them ranging from damper angle to air carburation, and the one here will hold abot 30 pounds of wood at a time. So, getting one of these running is a bit like starting a cranky diesel in that it doesn’t run right until it is at the right temperature.
So, for the first 5 minutes or so I had thick white smoke pouring out of the chimney and due to the front that brought the rain the smoke just poured down into the valley like a slow motion waterfall. But one it got to temperature and I got the carburation dialed in, you could smell the fire but nothing was visible.
Ultimately, I put two decent sized logs in the box and heated half the house to 70+ till well after 11pm.
Let’s hear it for caveman tech! 🙂