Fill me in Tim. What is the Jay Leno stove run?

I have been making regular trips, about every 4 hours to the bubblewrap greenhouse which is now packed to capacity. I've been holding off planting in the ground but today I stocked the 30x96' structure with firewood and had drip lines running for a while to wet dry soil. I cannot wait any longer. Our forecast still calls for temps below 20F for a night or 2 next week. I'll probably need propane burners going as well as wood stoves refilled every 2 1/2 hours. Does Leno do that too?

Just can't believe the daytime temperature fluctuations inside the structures. I'm trying to minimally run the exhaust fan during the day but one moment the sun is bright, a few minutes latter it's windy and snowing. I just can't leave the plants unattended for any length of time.

Barry,

If you can pick up a Dayton 6GVX8

It's a line voltage t-stat for your exhaust fan. About $32 and you can set it to 75* and it will close on temperature rise and open on the fall.

Jay leno comes on NBC at 11:30 pm EST
I call it the Leno run b/c's your'e half asleep and you hear leno in the background. Means it's time to load up.

I'll look into the Dayton 6G.... I just rewired the benchtop greenhouse (bubblewraped) and installed a new thermostat in the process. Its an Eventherm unit, $27.50 , and it works fine but I still don't have a power intake louver on that structure as I do with the larger structures. I did replace the old hinged window with a crank type encasement window on the opposite end from the exhaust fan. I'm keeping my eye open for a used powered intake louver and I have a thermostat for it when I find one. Let me know if you know of a cheap unit. For now I watch the remote thermometer reading, main station next to me, for spikes in greenhouse temperature telling me to open up and provide power to the exhaust fan.

Typically I watch the evening weather forecast (11:20) and then stoke up the stoves before bed. I guess I'm missing Leno by minutes. The next few weeks of nights will be chalenging; tomatoes are going in the ground today. I'm 3 weeks behind schedule- some are starting to bloom.

Hoping for warmer weather.

And then the power goes out on the coldest day of the year so far so the heaters don't come on and the heat mats are down. At least the battery back up on the alarms work.

Then it happens again on the hottest day of the year so far so the vents don't open and the fans can't run.

Ain't life fun this time of year?

Dave

I'll even go one better, Dave. How bout when the wood pile set next to the greenhouse wood stove catches fire like it did for me last night. If I hadn't seen the flames on my 2:00 a.m. refiring and acted quickly I could have had a major catastrophe. Fortunately I will only need to replace the driptape header line and splice a few sections of driptape. I'm thankful for the pile of snow still laying between my two larger greenhouses. Even though the greenhouse was thick with smoke until I could vent it, the 270 tomato plants I planted yesterday appear OK. My lungs will take longer to adjust.

Dang! Hope all turns out ok with it all.

Dave

Yea that's good you caught it Barry. I've smoked out plants before by forgetting to turn the exhaust fan off at sunset. Stove heated air past 75* on a warm night and fan kicked on pulling a backdraft through the stove air inlets.

Filled it up w/ thick smoke and when I went over for the leno run, I discovered how my forgetfulness had me in a pickle. I opened up all the doors and let the fan run till most of the smoke was gone.

I was worried about the plants and I can tell you they suffered NO ill effect at all! In fact, I think they looked better after that.

Good thing you caught it in time. Did you have a cherry red stove that flashed the dry wood into a flame?

Just my supidity. 10-12" gap between the stacked wood and a hot burning stove is just not enough distance to stack a woodpile. I imagine the side of the stove was pretty hot although I never noticed a cherry red glow. I'm glad I had largest of the 3 exhaust fans set to override the thermostat so that I could just flip the wall switch because I would never have been able to navigate thru the smoke to where the thermostats are located; I could't even find a bucket of water that I knew was setting near the stove end.

Most plants seem to be OK. Wouldn't you know it that the plants that seem most affected are BeOrange, the most expensive seeds for this year. I still think they will grow out of it. The whole greenhouse has the smell of a burn scene, probably due to some plastic driptape burning. Hopefully the hornet population will be less of an issue this year if the smoky smell lingers. The film above the woodpile appears OK. The flames were only a few feet high when I noticed the fire and the distance to the covering is probably 8-10' at that area.

Just hope others use care with whatever heat source you might use.

Yea...I have beorange too. That's a great one!

Yes, 10-12" is too close for a wood stove. Not too close for a wood furnace or as least the models I'm using. They just get warm to the touch, not hot. You can actually hold your hand on the side or top for a 5 count while it's running full blast.

The wood furnaces have a limit switch like a hot air oil furnace. As soon as the plenum reaches 140*, the blowers kick on and it looses all of the heat. It cools it below 100* and the blower turns off starting the on/off cycle again.

A power outage could cause trouble though. Alarms call me on power outages.

I asked my buddy that studied fire science...

Wood has a flashpoint of 572*

That means, if you heat the surface of a 2x4 to 572*, it will flash into flames.

Stand a piece of sheet metal between the stove and the woodpile, that should do it.

Supposed to drop to 23*F here tomorrow night.

It was supposed to drop to 34*F tonight but its already 31*F so somebody missed the mark. These are the expensive nights for me cause I fired up 2 propane heaters to supplement the woodstove in my planted greenhouse. I threw a bucket of pea coal into the woodstove earlier but I'm not getting more heat as I thought I would. Our forecasts for the next 2 nights were also for mid 20*s so thinks are looking more like Leno, early morning infomercials and possibly the test pattern.

I replanted a few dozen tomatoes from spares I had and if need be I could replace others with younger plants. I'm working on batch #2 ( all heirlooms) to go into the other greenhouse. Got 520 tomato plants in this 30x96' greenhouse and only room left is for a side row of cucumbers and a few plants in the area where I'm now stacking wood - to the front of the stove. I figure that if I must heat it I'm going to fill it up.
If something fails now there is alot at stake.

Timmy, have you had your plants in your greenhouse for awhile? What's the BTU output on your wood furnace?

I have not planted in the bags yet...I wait till the 20th give or take. The plants are about 4-6" now.

The wood furnaces are rated at 112,000 btu/hr on high. That will only last 3hrs or so. I run them on low/med and use big pieces on the leno run. Id estimate 65-70,000 btu/hr on low It lasts till about 6am. They are backed up w/oil. In a 30x96 you would need 2 wood furnaces to keep it at 65* on a cold night like last if you ran it on low.

In hindsight I would have liked to wait 2-3 more days but we have markets starting in 4 weeks so I would like to get inside work accomplished sooner rather than later when I know I'll be swamped. As it is the tomato plants are not basking in 60*s during the night. Last night my inside temps dropped to below 40*F. At that temp they are just hanging in there. I might try to shroud my exhaust fans with plastic for the next few nights to see how that might help.

My old Riteway model 37 woodstove is rated at 160T BTU/hr. but my wood is not the best so I'm not getting half of the output I should. I always reasoned that I could sell the better firewood and use the junk for greenhouse heating but this is the result.

One of these days, I am going to be joining you and put a wood stove in my high tunnels. Right now, I just don't have the time. Once my kids get a bit older, I am sure I will. I am sure my wife will be less than thrilled about it.

Maybe I should just set up a single bed in there too!

Jay

There are Good, Bad and even Ugly sides to the woodstove heating Jay. You don't always need to "Man" the greenhouse woodstove but regular attention is best IMO. I know you've frequented the GH forum and I respect your input. Sometimes I equate greenhouse to tomatoes since that is my primary greenhouse crop. Of all the vegetable crops I find the biggest payback for the early spring hoopla routine seems to come from tomatoes.

So far I've made it through another night of mid-20*s F. I found a slit in the outer plastic at the inflation fan where I was just blowing warm air to the outside so I'm in a better condition with heating than the previous nights. Supplemental heat from propane has not been a financial hardship for me yet but wood is definately cheaper if I could get by with it alone.

I agree, early tomatoes are my biggest payback. I won't be as early as you, probably picking a few by late May- Early June.

I am also doing more succession planting this year. My main planting will be around 250 big tomatoes and 80 Cherry tomatoes. I am succession planting 100-125 more big tomatoes, inside and outside around May1, June 1 and June 15-18th(for fall/winter production). I also am going to plant another 40 cherry tomatoes in Mid June.

I hope to keep the size of my tomatoes up. It seems that once i get people hooked on my tomatoes, they keep buying. However, they always say I wish they were bigger in late summer/early fall. That won't happen this year!

Any pictures of your stove set up?

Jay

Geeze...now there calling for 21* tonight w/wind. Nice.

Jay, I'm having a bit of picture trouble but let me try again:

This the simple way to connect a woodstove that I use in all 3 greenhouses. Framed up section with metal sheet inside & out; then just cut hole for flue pipe and support pipe on outside.