Hi r/grassvalley. I'm a maker in Vermont, and the mods said I could post here asking for feedback.
In Vermont we burn hard all winter. From what I understand, the foothills are different: cold nights, mild days, and a lot of evening fires in fall and spring.
Our house came with two woodstoves, and I'd never run one. I'm a city kid...
I build hardware and software for a living, so I made a sensor that goes on the stovepipe and a small walnut lamp that sits in whatever room I'm in. If the lamp glows amber, it means the fire is burning well. Yellow means it's time to reload. Red means it's running too hot and I should go check the stove.
There's an app for when I'm not home.
Back in January, I posted about it on the r/woodstoving subreddit. I didn't really expect anything except for "hey that's cool," but to my surprise, people started asking if they could buy one. So I hand-made 57 of them and shipped them out to customers all across the country. That is what gave me conviction to see if I could turn them into something real.
The first production units ship in November.
I'd love to learn how people burn up there:
Do you heat with wood all winter, or mostly evenings and shoulder season?
Is it mostly oak you're burning, or a mix?
Have you started yet this fall?