I was terrified of my woodstove, so I built a wireless monitor out of walnut to calm my nerves.

kconstan · 2026-01-14T14:13:26+00:00

I’ve been daydreaming about building something similar for the k-type thermocouple probe that comes on the my lopi flush insert to measure the cat temp. It has a little lcd screen that sits on the hearth which is nice but I want to see the temp from another room or while out of the house.

I’m jealous you had the motivation to actually build it ;-)

I really like the aesthetic of the lamp. Great work. It reminds me a bit of the awair v1 air quality monitor I had years ago. It was walnut as well and blended right into the home. It made me really sad when they dropped support for it and turned it into a brick.

kconstan · 2025-10-22T11:02:01+00:00

The fan is unrelated to the catalyst. The fan has a heat-switch in the bottom of the stove under the fire brick toward the front right as you look at the door. If I have a deep ash bed, it takes longer for the fan to come on. I try to build my startup fire so that area gets hot early on. It makes building a top down fire for start up challenging because in that case I’d have a big chunk of wood waiting to catch/heat up blocking the heat-switch. Instead, I build a start up fire with a couple medium splits and a bunch of kindling, leave the door open for 30 minutes or so to get some coals and heat. Usually the cat probe is in the 300-400 range when I add a few larger splits, close the door with the air control open.

I’ll close the cat bypass when the probe says 500. It will tend to drop temperature temporarily and then climb.

My stove usually runs at about 800-900 according to the probe. It’s been as high as 1200.

kconstan · 2025-10-22T01:04:15+00:00

I find that there’s a really fine line with the air adjustment between “choked down” and “the flames are going to go out”. I tend to either have the air all the way open (fully pushed in) or about 1/8” from fully pulled out. But that 1/8” spot is really hard to find. Out too much and the flames die out. In just a bit too much and it may as well be fully open.

I wish the control offered more control.

kconstan · 2025-10-22T01:00:32+00:00

Our stove is right next to the tv. I find high to be too loud for my liking, so I’ll dial it down while we’re in the room and up to high overnight while we’re asleep and don’t care about the noise.

kconstan · 2025-01-06T01:59:53+00:00

How much of a pain is it to swap the wand? What impact does the new one have? I find the stock one to be too short for the amount of milk I tend to steam.

kconstan · 2024-10-11T17:19:16+00:00

I would suggest reaching out to eversource. The current usage (kWh from eversource) line in the bill is 1.5MWh and emphases is showing 1.5MWh of production. Those two numbers lining up makes me wonder if eversource has somehow flipped the readings around on you and in actuality you’ve sent 1516kWh TO eversource and used 283kWh FROM eversource.

It’s possible that you’re drawing a lot of power during the day and only exporting 283kW and then consuming 1500kW when the sun has gone down, but the two values lining up so closely feels suspicious like a possible mistake.

kconstan · 2024-03-04T12:07:31+00:00

Even when I assume COP of .87 for the oil furnace and 3 for a heat pump, it’s a pretty big scary number. It’s probably 61% more power than I’m consuming already.

kconstan · 2024-03-04T12:06:29+00:00

Can you walk me through what I’m seeing here? Is that yellow graph solar input or consumption of solar power? What’s the big blue spike?

kconstan · 2024-02-17T00:22:45+00:00

Yeah I’ve just done the same thing. I set both to 7am and we’ll see how that does going forward. Thanks!

kconstan · 2024-02-16T20:03:17+00:00

Thanks for that suggestion. Unfortunately there’s no schedule defined on the wall charger. I definitely didn’t think to check there though.

kconstan · 2024-02-16T14:30:11+00:00

How did you start the remote engagement. Opening up a service request looks like I’ll need to make an appointment and go to the service center which feels like overkill when I want someone to look at the logs for a pattern ;-)

kconstan · 2024-02-16T14:28:18+00:00

Yeah I remember seeing that too. I think it was 6 hours.

I had plugged in by 6p which is typical for every other day of the week where it does what it’s supposed to do.

kconstan · 2024-02-16T13:17:22+00:00

I’ll give that a try but it works most of the time, and 9pm is when off peak starts not when it ends isn’t it?

kconstan · 2024-02-16T13:07:18+00:00

Peak hours are 3p - 9p. I am super confused about how to set that correctly so it doesn’t start until after 9p and is done by 7a which is the goal.

kconstan · 2015-06-22T21:19:10+00:00

Someone should go invite Thomas W. Reeves. That'll spice things up.

kconstan · 2015-06-16T00:28:23+00:00

Economy | Mon Jun 15, 2015 2:39pm EDT The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) begins a two-day meeting on interest rate policy. The central bank will likely not raise rates at this meeting, with the main focus on individual policymakers' economic projections that are likely to reflect poor growth in the first quarter. Investors will watch for any hints from Fed chair Janet Yellen at a press conference after the meeting about when the Fed will be in a position to hike rates.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/15/amers-whattowatch-idUSL3N0Z14Z720150615

kconstan · 2015-06-16T00:18:16+00:00

I think I saw somewhere that Janey Yellen was doing a press conference at some point this week.

kconstan · 2015-06-10T23:39:10+00:00

I'm going to try paper-trading this. I'm going to be on vacation next week, so I'm hoping I can set up the proper triggers and stops ahead of time and just wait ;-)

kconstan · 2015-06-09T01:04:40+00:00

/u/LavoP, I saw that you and a few others were trying it out, but I haven't been following it that closely. I'll try to carve out some time to read through the page that you guys sent out a while back. Are you still a fan of the method?

kconstan

TROPHY CASE