permaculture

[John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net>]

Aloha,

Design of stove does matter - some are better than others at burning 
long & slow (so that for example there are coals left in the morning 
instead of having to start fire from scratch again).
Overnight slow burn from a stove loaded and turned down at bedtime is 
not at all unreasonable.  Dunno if 24 hrs is possible.  My experience 
living with wood heat roughly matches this (with a good stove, otherwise 
YMMV for sure!):

> I feed mine about three times a day in the coldest (-10 F) weather.

Quality of draft through stovepipe also matters - a knowledgeable 
woodstove shop and/or chimney sweep can help with this.

Beware of microclimates that negatively impact draft, especially during 
storms (when you most want it to work well... :-).  For example a 
building situated in an area that gets lots of downdraft during windy 
storms may have problems with poor draft and backdraft in high winds, 
that sort of thing.

Look into masonry heaters/thermal mass heaters - they can use "scrap" 
and small/coppice wood, don't necessarily need high quality stove logs. 
 They have a relatively short and very hot burn and slow release of 
heat, maybe that will fit your needs?

cheers,
John S.

--

John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
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