Summer burning

[Mac B.]

Does anyone here burn through the summer to heat their hot water? I have still been starting a fire about every 24 hours to heat my water and keep the power bill down. I get all the free pallets from work I want and we also have kiln dried pine that we use at work to build furniture. The pine is 1x4 and 1x6 about 6-8" long but puts off more smoke than the pallets.
Anyway the reason for my post is the breaker to my hot water heater has been cut off since October and my power bill even with the AC was not this cheap last year this same time. I have free wood for short hot fires so I don't mind burning it. The only draw back is the nails in the pallets. Last year this time our bill was at least $180 and this spring/summer the highest one we have had is $115.


Mac

 

[Mac B.]

I guess I must be one of the only ones burning during the summer.

Mac

 

[Dalmatian90]

My step-dad does...just started this year. Landlord's OWB...if you can call it that since it's fully enclosed...feeds the landlord's house plus the one my mom and step-dad rent. Doesn't take much wood this time of year, saves my parents $300/quarter compared to gas before.

Keep waiting for the landlord's wife to figure it out and up their rent The landlord himself couldn't care less.

 

[bowtechmadman]

I've burnt through the summer for my DHW, cost is about the same btw electricity to run the pump/fan compared to just burning oil.

 

[ghitch75]

mine has ran for the last 6 years all winter and summer....summer loads last a little over a week....saves me over 40 buc's a month compared from the electric heater...

 

[Mac B.]

Glad to hear someone else i saving also. It is not costing me anything so I will continue to burn.


Mac

 

[blackdogon57]

i burn all year round. we use lots of hot water . this yaer i turned the owb temp down to 150-160. burns hardly any wood with no smoke. 2-3 day burn times.

 

[tibikedad]

I have an indoor Tarm boiler with an 820 gallon storage tank. In the summer, I burn about once every 6 or 7 days, and that supplies all the hot water I need for the week. Each burn lasts about 4 hours. Last winter, I only used 10 gallons of oil for the entire winter (I went on a business trip, and couldn't feed the boiler when I was gone). My wife is scared of burning wood in the boiler, because a couple of times I was careless, and burned the top inch of my hair off on a fireball. I thought it was kind of fun!

 

[Mac B.]

I am going to try moving my thermostat for the pump and see if I can get some longer time in between burns like you guys. The thermostat for the pump is mounted on the hot water heater where the bottom element is. I am going to move it to the top element and see if my pump will run less.



Mac

 

[Butch(OH)]

We spend about $50 a month to heat water during the summer (Wife is a clean freak) as we shut the OWB down. For the average domestic water heating bill its hard to imagine that it works out to operate an OWB just for hot water, that is if you figure all of the real costs. From what I hear and have read on here about cost of operation it is clear that most are pretty non-informed as to the total cost of the wood sitting in the shed. Appearantly the pick up is free, runs for free, nothing wears out on the saw, truck,splitter or heating system, etc, etc. I have never broken my costs down to the nut either but my gut says that in my situation, at best, heating the domestic only would be a break even deal.

 

[Dalmatian90]

From what I hear and have read on here about cost of operation it is clear that most are pretty non-informed as to the total cost of the wood sitting in the shed.

I think the wood costs can vary wildly from one person's situation to the next.

I figure my cost (operating + capital) is $30/cord by the time that wood is reduced to ashes coming out the stove. Biggest cash outlay was the chimney. Cheap stove. Hand split. Used saws.

Certain items like my truck and the taxes / mortgage on the land I cut on would be present whether I heated with wood or not...compared to 30,000 miles a year on the truck for normal driving the 20 miles I might put on cutting wood is trivial wear and tear. My labor doesn't count because I wouldn't be working for a cash wage when I'm cutting wood...how I chose to spend my leisure time is just that, leisure.

Nice stoves, OWBs, woodsplitters, maintaining taxes & registration on a truck, etc could all drive up dramatically your cost per cord (and thus per BTU).

 

[Butch(OH)]

I think the wood costs can vary wildly from one person's situation to the next.

I figure my cost (operating + capital) is $30/cord by the time that wood is reduced to ashes coming out the stove. Biggest cash outlay was the chimney. Cheap stove. Hand split. Used saws.

Certain items like my truck and the taxes / mortgage on the land I cut on would be present whether I heated with wood or not...compared to 30,000 miles a year on the truck for normal driving the 20 miles I might put on cutting wood is trivial wear and tear. My labor doesn't count because I wouldn't be working for a cash wage when I'm cutting wood...how I chose to spend my leisure time is just that, leisure.

Nice stoves, OWBs, woodsplitters, maintaining taxes & registration on a truck, etc could all drive up dramatically your cost per cord (and thus per BTU).

I agree on the labor part, why is it some think the can apply some arbitrary dollar amount to our time when working like cutting firewood but suddenly those same minutes drop to worthless when watching TY or messen with the ole lady?? Heck I cant offord to sleep given some of the prices I have seen on here, LOL.

Sounds like you have some pretty cheap wood even by the time its in the stack ready to burn, that isnt the case for most as you pointed out.

 

[Can8ianTimber]

I thought about getting an OWB for heating my shop and powering my kiln. I am afraid of starting a fire in the summer though? My area is fairly wooded. Do you guys think that would be an issue in the heat of the summer???

 

[ghitch75]

i just burn softwoods in summer.....save the good stuff for cold time.....i got plenty of wood so it's better for me to burn in the summer than not....

 

[Mac B.]

My wood is free also so I have nothing to lose but a little time.


Can8ian Timber, I would think it is safer to burn in the summer bcause of the woods being green and not dry like it is in the winter.

Mac

 

[J.W Younger]

I am a summer burner, it helps to keep the processing area and the yard clean or at least a little less of a mess.

 

[giXXer]

We keep ours going as long as we can stand to be without the A/C. Since I have the HX in the furnace plenum next to the A/C coils I can't run the OWB and the A/C at the same time. Last year we went until June 15 and this year we shut it down last week when it hit 89 degrees for a couple of days.

I wouldn't use my "good" winter wood to heat just my DHW either. I seem to always end up with quite a few "orphans" laying around in the wood lot and around the boiler in the spring. I mix those in with whatever other junk type wood and cast-offs that I end up with. I have a few great contacts that give me wood so to keep them happy when they have wood they need to get rid of I take the good with the bad. I stack and save the really nice wood in one area and stack the junk wood to dry in another area. I've also grown attached to my wood boxes made out of old pallets that can be moved to the boiler with the tractor. This way, as I build more of the boxes, I have a spot to chuck all of the little chunks and real knotty, nasty wood and burn it in the spring/early summer. My yard also looks a lot more presentable with nice, neat 4 X 8 X 16" stacks of really nice wood and instead of having the cast-offs in piles laying around they are hidden in these stackable wood boxes that air can pass through for drying.

 

[J.W Younger]

My set up uses the same wall thermostat for heat and a/c but a switch on the unit toggles from heat too a/c and when on a/c the pump on the boiler does'nt run.
The hot water has no pump , its just plumbed into the hot side from the well.There is a lag, but by the time I shave and brush my teeth its good to go.
Maybe some day I will install a hot water heater for storage if nothing else, but after 20+ years of doing it this way I'm used to it.
If I use good wood 1 good loading will last 2 weeks in the hotest summer mos but I usually just keep it partially loaded with junk and whatever falls out of the trees
Living in the sticks ani't all bad.

 

[Jon E]

This year will be the first year I'm going to try to burn all summer. My OWB is a dual-fuel (propane/wood) model, and I've switched to propane the last couple of summers because I really didn't want to feed it with wood all summer, and the thing sits there and smolders all the time. For some reason it smells good in the winter but is horrible in the summertime.

Last couple of summers, though, I used up way too much propane heating DHW all summer. 500 gallons a year total including cooking. The propane is just too expensive to keep burning up in a terribly inefficient OWB. If I had an indoor water heater or a small high-efficiency gas boiler inside, I might consider shutting the OWB down for the summer. Money is very tight and I have a surplus of "junk wood" - pallets, pine, branch wood, lumber scraps, knotty stuff and general forest litter. It will all get burned during the summer and my woodshed, filled with clean dry split hardwood, will stay untouched until November. I'm hoping that by doing this, I can cut my propane consumption by 75% or more, or have a full 500 gallon tank last me 3-4 years.

 

[Rodbuster22]

I fired a boiler I made that was we modeled after the Central Boiler design. I fired the boiler, coincidentally, on the first day of the REMC billing cycle and shut off the electric water heater. I calculated a savings of $30 for the first month. That number met my threshold for a high enough saving to burn all summer for DHW.

The wood I burn is hardwood 3" X4" that structural steel is shipped to jobsites on. If I don't take the stuff home it goes to the landfill. Does that make me an eco-warrior, or just a tight wad looking for cheap heat?

I make no apologies for burning wood for DHW. Until the wood I bring home is ground up and composted, burning it is the best way to recycle it. Let me tell you another thing, some people want to complain about the air pollution associated with burning wood. The wood we burn only puts into the air the same stuff the tree took out while it was growing, no more, no less.