Wood Heat: Stoves, Percentage of Heating, Firewood

[logbutcher]

A survey.
What part of your winter heat comes from wood ?
What kind do you use? How much in cords / year?
Harvest your own ?
Kind (s) of wood stoves or boilers/furnaces used ?

Here goes for Downeast coastal Maine near Acadia:
Heat 99% with wood (gas space backup for "pipe heating" when away in winter for more than a couple of days). :greenchainsaw:
Two parts of the house, one closed off--no plumbing-- when away in winter. Two cast iron stoves: Vermont Castings Encore Catalytic 2001. Jotul Oslo non-cat.
Cut 6-7 cords for firewood on our woodlot/year, along with TSI, some pulp, sawlogs.
Trees for firewood: paper birch, red maple, little red oak including 'dead' but burnable, some ash. little yellow locust and apple. Blowdown spruce, fir, cedar used for workshop, hot tub, sauna, odd summer fires.
That's it. Year round fun :monkey: work when the ground is not soaked or snow height over 1 foot or so. Sing, all together : " I'm a lumberjack, and I'm OK, I sleep all night, and I work all day......." Monty Python lyrics.

 

[buckwheat]

I'm guessing 85-90% of our heat comes from firewood. It's usually this time of year and early fall that the stove is too hot to really regulate. We have a 20 y/o stick frame two story, 2800 sq. ft. We heat with a Baker Double Eagle w/ a blower in the family room with the 2nd floor stairwell opening into it. I use ceiling fans to move the air downstairs. We have oil/forced air as our backup. I think we spent $200 on oil last year.

This last winter we used just over 6 cords, most of which was very dry red oak. Other wood used was poplar and cherry.

I often cut for other people and will give wood away as part of a church ministry, so word gets around to folks who need trees downed. I've never had to pay for wood. Currently have four saws, Brave splitter, 1977 Chevy p/u, and alot of PPE/tools and plaid wool shirts.

 

[bellhead]

After my stove was installed last year my heating bill dropped to

January $92
Febuary $76
March $78

Down around $300 per month from last year and gas even went up over 30%. So very little gas, my usage on the gas company's web site was the same as summer. I have a gas heated hotwater tank.

 

[twbuild]

We burn about 95% wood the furnace only comes on when I am out of town. Stove is in the basement furnace blower runs 24/7 365 days a year only use a small window air conditioner for my bedroom. I have no idea how much wood I burn but the stove is not very efficient. Need to get a better one but this one was a freebie. I burn anything I get. 2 friends own tree company's I call them they bring it. Sometimes it is 8' logs one load was split ash. First load I got was a doozy 36" logs 8' long dumped on the front lawn 6 neighbors called the city I got a call at work I did not know anything about the wood I called my buddy he called his foreman then reminded me that I told him to dump a load when they were in the area. I could not believe the size of the stuff. All I had was a little Echo with a 16" bar. The next day he dropped off a Husky with a 36" bar & a ASV to move the stuff with.

 

[SmokinDodge]

99.9 %. We have two little electric heaters to keep the toilet seat warm other than that all wood.

Red Oak, White Oak mainly with a little Elm, Hack berry and Silver Maple to round it out.

We burn about 5 cord a year.

All wood is taken form our 80 acre wood lot.

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

100%

Doug fir, maple, alder, hemlock. Cut/buck/split my own.

 

[clearance]

I often cut for other people and will give wood away as part of a church ministry, so word gets around to folks who need trees downed. I've never had to pay for wood. Currently have four saws, Brave splitter, 1977 Chevy p/u, and alot of PPE/tools and plaid wool shirts.

Good man, and an old Chevy pu too. Comes around goes around.

 

[danrclem]

I probably burn at least 90% wood. The only reason I don't burn 100% is that the house will get too hot when the temperature outside gets up around 55 or 60. I have an old Fisher Woodstove in my basement. My house is about 1300 sq. ft. plus another 1300 sq. ft. in a finished basement. I've got sycamore, oak, maple and ash in the barn. I don't buy any wood and I get it any place I can. I should finish splitting all of my wood today. I got a huge sycamore that was mostly cut up and given to me. All I had to do was haul it home and split. I know some of you wouldn't burn sycamore and I wouldn't either if I didn't have a gas splitter and besides it was free. Beggers can't be choosers.

I came back to edit; I have all of my wood split. As soon as it dries some more I'll put it all in the barn. I now have about two years supply and I'll be looking for some more trees to cut so that I can split them about this time next year. I'll be a little pickier on the wood that I get now since I have quite a bit.

 

[RoosterBoy]

i have a 1350sqft ranch type home this is my first year cutting and splitting my own wood i use to heat with wood for part time and bought 1-2 cords of wood per year in 2 old 1977 Vermont casting wood stoves.

this year i am only going to heat 1/2 the house and i now have r38 in the attic.
i also put new 2x4 along the inside walls and put new Anderson windows and r15 insulation so this should save on the heating.

i am also taking out the old Vermont casting and putting in a Avalon rainier wood stove. i will only be heating 864sqft of the house 100% with wood and hope to only use 2 cords a year. use oil only for hotwater.

Jason

 

[Bad E]

80% wood heat. Over 200 year old home , not very well insulated. I burn about 7-8 cord a year. I have a Pacific Energy Summit woodstove w/ a blower on the chimney pipe. I burn mostly soft maple..with some poplar and some black cherry and a ocaisoinal red pine.All off my own lot.

 

[buckwheat]

Comes around goes around.

Very true. With the fuel prices going up, I noticed a lot of competition this last winter to get wood, and I started worrying about my supply for this coming winter. I even went so far as to price pellet stoves. Then out of the blue I get a call from a guy who had heard about me dropping off some wood last year who needed several trees taken down that were overhanging the lane on his mother's property. Managed to get 4+ easy cords out of it, much of it already dry. Runnin saws and helping out others - life is good.

 

[ray benson]

Wood heat over 90% of the time. Burn 4 to 5 cords of mostly maple, oak, elm. A few days in the spring and fall the gas furnace is used to take the chill out of the house. The gas furnace does have a pilot light that burns from october to may.

 

[Minn-Pax]

We heat with wood about 90% of the time.

90 year old Minnesota farm house. Vermont Castings stove. 4-5 cords per year. Good wood-red elm, red and burr oak, hickory(we are getting lots of die-off the last few years). I split it by hand.

We have forced air-oil heat and use it in the warm fall and spring weather when it is too much trouble to start fires. I also might fire up the furnace when it gets down into the minus 20's to keep the corners warm and the pipes thawed. We used about 40 gallons of oil this year. Pretty warm winter though.

 

[NORTHERN NYer]

I heat mostly with wood 98%. I have a Monitor we use only if we go away for the weekend during the cold months. My kitchen being on its own foundation, and my wood heater being in the basement under the main house I also use a propane space heater in the kitchen for when its really cold.
My stove in the basement is a Atlanta Homesteader wood circulator with a plenum and duct work hooked to it.
We burn 6 to 7, maybe 8 cords if its a really cold year. Preferably Maple and Beech, some cherry, ash, yellow birch, and I like to go cut a little white birch at my dads place because I love the smell of it burning.
I usually get my wood delivered log length and cut and split it myself, which I really look forward to doing every year. Glad I found a place where people don't think I am freak for one of my favorite hobbies being cutting wood.

 

[laynes69]

I burn about 6 to 7 cords of wood a year. I have a 2400 square foot victorian about 150+ years old and we have a wood furnace in the basement tied to the ductwork. House stays around 78 all winter. Here we burn osage orange, locust, walnut and some oak. We have used about 125.00 worth of propane this winter. Which includes cooking and a propane dryer.

 

[Locoweed]

99%

Regency stove burning 1-2 cords of oak

 

[turnkey4099]

Like a lot of you others. Near 100% using the oil for quick warmups when it is really cold or when we are gone

Never really measured it but 5-6 cord at a guess.

Mostly Willow as anything else other than a luck-out on a suburban take-down means a long trip. Just finishing up a clear cut this year of firekilled big trees (30" and up DBH). Have to find another source for next year. The price of gas plus a gas-hog of a PU (89 F150) mean 'close by or forget it'. Got offered cutting rights yesterday but it is over 35 miles away.

Ashley box stove knock off (King) in the great room, the bedrooms get by on whatever makes its way down the hall (we both like cold bedrooms).

Harry K

 

[-Jan-]

-100% wood all year around for both heat and warmwater.
-Birch/pine, estimate to use ~6-7cords/year
-Harvest it myself
Installed a new gasification boiler(91% efficiency) last winter together with 2 big heatstorage tanks. It's a Baxi Solo Innova boiler, with ceramic combustion chamber and fluegas fan that is located just before the chimney(no smoke whatsoever in the basement). Burns very clean, at wintertime you notice white smoke that dissolves 1-2 meters above the chimney and at summertime it's impossible to see that I have a fire going. Together with the 2 insulated storagetanks it's enough to make one fire a day in the wintertime and in the summer I only have to make a fire ever 5-7 days, depending on how long showers the wife takes.

/Jan

 

[enjoys cutting]

80 to 90%,mostly spruce and maple. cut split block myself. lucked into about 4 cord of cherry last summer,really hard wood and lasts well in stove we burn about 4 or 5 cord a year, keep the house as hot as my frozen wife can stand it.lol

 

[Pcoz88]

95% - 100% wood heat.Wood stock Soap stone stove new last fall.Really like this stove.2,000 sf log home.Stove in basement.Have propane forced air furance for back up.Burn what ever I can get .Alot of Hakberry,C. elm,maple,oak.5 to 6 cords to guess.:greenchainsaw: Love cutting and splitting wood.:hmm3grin2orange: