How cold is too cold?

[Happy]

[kenya]

Poor blue bird

[WLLady]

woodstoves have a pan underneath (at least anything built the last 10 years) for the ashes, and a cleanout port inside.....i don't know how anyone could dump hot ashes or embers on the floor! i would say the added bonus of a new furnace is it has a humidifier built in, so we aren't zapping the cat every time we touch one....lol. we also put pots of water on the stove to boil to keep the humidity up. however, with this cold outside any humidity just hits the windows (which are being replaced, because they leak!) and freezes....so. humid house = ice on the inside of the windows. not humid house = see outside, zap the cats.....hmmmmmm
that blue bird should have migrated. a long long time ago.....ours did! now we just have snow buntings, owls, sparrows, chickadees and juncos. everyone else left i think. oh, and a pair of bald eagles.....nesting somewhere close.....

[Jaye]

I have a layer of sweet pdz (zeolite) on my board (it's actually a drawer, like a litter box), so ordinarily, it's easy peasy to clean with kitty litter scoops. The problem is that my old girl has been having runny s lately, so it seeps right through to the board and freezes hard and fast in these temps.

I want to try boards in the new coop (to be built in the spring). Where do you get the sweet pdz? I've looked online and it's much more expensive in Canada than it is in the US (like so many things )

I wonder if the board could be lined with plastic, and then old newspaper could be placed on top for more abosrbency.

Linda

I buy my Sweet PDZ at Tractor Supply in Ogdensburg, US. I go there a number of times a year for any poultry supplies I can't buy here. With the exchange it's a bit pricier than what I would like, but still worth it to me because it's less dusty than the alternative you can buy here, absorbs moisture and controls odour better than anything else I've tried, and I throw it in the compost pile when it's spent because it makes good soil amendment.
My board had plastic shelf liner at one point, but I removed it to clean it and forgot to put it back in. I won't forget again.

[labradors]

Thanks Jaye. Guess I'll have to nip over the border and get some, although the last time hubby went to Clayton, NY customs gave him quite the lecture for bringing back 4 pounds of Cabot Cheddar

Linda

[Skinny rooster]

As someone who has been actively trying to keep blue birds from going extinct, I just want to point out, if that is actually a blue bird, then it's a western blue bird as our blue birds have a red throat and breast. If you live in eastern Canada and see an all blue bird, then it's actually an Indigo Bunting and not a blue bird. Both however leave long before the snow comes so it's not looking good for that little guy. This nerd moment in nature has been brought to you by Skinny rooster.

[Shnookie]

Hot ashes dropped on floors and starting fires can be a problem with wood stoves, but not so much with pellet stoves: our pellet stove ashes are collected in a contained metal ash pan underneath the burn pot and stove liner. The stove needs to be cooled off before every cleanout, and we empty the ash pan as part of the cleanout. I think one common denominator woodstoves and pellet stoves have that may influence insurance rates is the potential for chimney fires if they aren't properly maintained.

I thought is was more because of chimney fires.
There's a letter included with my insurance policy (a farm policy) every year that says

"You must tell us if you have a solid fuel heating appliance (eg. wood, coal, grain) in your dwelling or detached outbuilding or elsewhere on your premises. Fireplaces do not need to be reported unless located in a mobile home. A fireplace insert is not considered a built in fireplace and must be reported. Failure to do so may affect the coverage provided."

They also say you have to tell them if you have oil heat in any building. They used to say that all fireplaces needed to be reported and that solid fuel heating appliances had to be professionally installed in order to have coverage. I wonder if they forgot to put it on the letter, or if it doesn't matter any more. Either way, having told their customer this it gives the insurance company an easy out if there is a fire.

[kenya]

Well if I saw that bluebird and could catch I'd bring him into the house to overwinter. Maybe next year he'll catch and leave when everyone else does. LOL

[baronrenfrew]

Schnookie: if I were to start over I'd get a Kimberly wood stove or a real Norwegian wood stove.

Burning wood gives off methane gas (= flame), particulates (smoke) and coal. Most stoves and furnaces are inefficient creating pollution and lost energy. The Kimberly stove will burn 8 hours on one load of wood and is rated for use in a RV and is cheap to install (the stove itself is not cheap) as it needs only a small pipe and can be vented out a side wall like a pellet stove.

https://www.unforgettablefirellc.com/ki ... ood-stove/

[baronrenfrew]

http://jotul.com/ca/products/wood-stove ... l-rangeley

Built in Maine, Norwegian company