Famous Annual "How Much Wood Heat Do I Use" Poll

[dmlefevre]

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Probably a 2 - We burn about 4 cord a year to heat a 2600sq house. Been burning my whole life, have bought 1 cord in 43 years. Have 20 on the ground now, 8 processed and ready to go. Probably save 1,000 gallons in fuel oil a year. Only use the boiler for hot water and the shoulder season - would love to have a duel fuel burner like a Tarm but wow $$$.

 

[ts39136]

# 1 - my back hurts just saying it.

 

[Nuzzy]

100% wood, all harvested/scrounged.

Propane furnace hasn't worked in years, even though it's an easy fix, because I haven't cared enough to fix it.








Now, if I could just finally get two heating seasons ahead in my supply one of these years. :bang:

 

[Somesawguy]

You must have some pretty decent insulation and windows, and / or a small home. Three cords is a teeny amount for most folks in Maine.

It's a small house, but the windows are old, and the builder barely believed in insulation. It might be a little closer to 4, but I haven't measured. I keep it 65 ish in the winter, but it's a little hard to regulate the temperatures.

I have a single wood stove in the kitchen (my wife hates that) I'm not sure who the maker is, but it was part of a fireplace insert stove. I took the large plate off, and it sits up on larger cinder blocks. It will handle about a 20" piece, and I can get it to burn all night with a full load. It's much better than the little camp stove that was there when I bought the place. :hmm3grin2orange:

Right now, I'm in town, and scrounge wood during the summer, and maybe a little from my parents wood lot. I stack it up on pallets and cover with a tarp to keep the rain and snow off.

I use banana boxes to bring the wood in, and stack them near the stove. It seems to work ok, but I need to make something for this winter, so I can store a little more in the house.

 

[audible fart]

All my firewood is freely obtained and maul split. I do have one of those oil furnaces that blows stinky diesel smelling air in my hallway. I disabled it around 8 years ago and it has not been used since. If i ever get a hankering for severe respiratory irritation and loud droning noises, i'll start using it again. I'd say i go through 3 cords per year, give or take a little. Maryland winters are really mild compared to what many on this site deal with.

 

[kodiak]

I don't know what SWMBO stands for...

She Who Must Be Obeyed


We get 90% of our wood from our property. The rest comes from friends/neighbors that want to get rid of something already on the ground or at least easily dropped with NO possibility of hitting something of value.

Our thermostat stays at 65° and the rest comes from wood heat. We go through about 4-5 cords a year.

 

[morewood]

Cutting for my whole family(3 houses) I am a #1 with my OWB, should be starting it next week, its a bear living on the north slopes with no sun.....or insulation. MY dad turns into a #1 in Dec when it's worth heating full time with his OWB, until then its a small amount of propane. My brother, has fisher stove and not sure what else he runs, maybe his furnace on occasion, but rarely. All told we can run through 9-10 cords a year. I do stay warm though.

Shea

 

[Jaberwky]

Number 2.5

OWB to 2 forced air furnaces. Propane backup set to 50, also used in fall & spring when it’s too warm to keep the OWB going full time. 99% of wood is purchased log length, I cut, split, stack. Amount of harvested/scrounged wood will increase as time goes on. I average about 12 cords (it’s cold here and I have a BIG house). OWB is for home heating only – no garage, shop, outbuildings, etc.

 

[CJ1]

1 basically,
ODWB I will go through about 10-12 full cord a year, propane furnace set at 60deg main set at 68deg, propane does not run at all unless we go on vacation. Heating 4000 SF. CJ

 

[Denny M]

#2
Use about 3.5 cord a year in a free standing wood burner in the basement. Small home 1300 sf.

Use about 200 gallon propane a year in furnace and hot water tank.

I scrounge all my wood and probably do between 5 and 10 cord a year because I enjoy it. I sell some wood and give some away.

 

[war-wagon]

Numero uno

OWB that runs about 6 months out of the year. Haven't had to fire it up yet. Use the indoor fireplace to kick the chill until it's time to let the Woodmaster roar. We have a tankless hot water heater plumbed to be capable of a back-up for the radiant heat, but since we built the house 3 years ago i've never used it. Another thing i've never done is get ahead a season. Just built a 24x40 barn for firewood and tractor. Stacking the wood tall and figuring i'll get 15 full cord in there. If that doesn't get us through the season then I'll be reevaluating come spring time. Harvest all the wood off my property with the very occasional scrounge/score. Something about living on the top of a hill deters tree services from making the trip up to drop off wood. Supposed to get into the 30's tonight, can't wait to light the fire, kick back with a beer and watch the season change. This is a great time of year.

 

[shelbythedog]

2. 99 and xx % wood heat with some minor space heating backup, AND harvest scrounge most of the firewood.

Propane forced air furnace ran 2 days last winter when I was out of town for Christmas gatherings. Of the 15 cord I have c/s/s and ready to burn around half was purchased in log length and processed by myself, and the other half is has been scrounged, mostly from my neighbor's property that I am allowed to cut on.

 

[slowp]

Number two, I guess. Sometimes I'm lazy and turn on the room heat. My house has cadet electric space heaters. This morning I turned them on to take the chill off. A fire would have roasted me out.

Also, most of our electricity comes from hydropower, not fossil fuels. Very few people heat with oil around here. Most of us have wood stoves because we have access to wood and also live in an area that can be cut off during storms and floods or earthquakes etc.

 

[362Hickory]

#2

We will use the Electric back up while the temp is hot during the day and cold during the night. As soon as it lines out to below 60deg I will fire up the OWB and be 100% wood heat. If we use the OWB on days any hotter the radiant heat from the water lines will run us out of the house:msp_mad:
I harvest/scrounge ALL the firewood.:msp_biggrin:

 

[olyman]

Sounds like a plan, man, retrofit to save energy long term. Just make sure you termite spray around the outside, with that new foam and vinyl siding. Besides that, I bet you will see a dramatic drop in energy use in the winter! What kind of new windows did you put in? And if you saved the old ones, think "cold frame greenhouse thing".

windows were built in grinnell,ia,about 200 miles from here!! argon filled!! hmmm, cold frames.. a thought!! thanks. intend to coat the outside of the foundation with foam next year,,and im digging down 4 ft,,to get the foam right at the frost line...couple people said,"well,you burn wood,,why care how much you burn?" i said, thats that much less i got to cut,split,and haul!!!!!!!!!!

 

[laynes69]

#2. We ran our furnace 3 times last year to test, but the wood furnace did all the heating. We burned 6.5 cords, which is was a pretty cold winter last year. We had about 3" of attic insulation which didn't help. This year the attic is air-sealed and 14" of cellulose is installed. We have seen a huge difference in how the house heats and cools. Hopefully we see around the 5.5 cord mark. In the past we would use a half tank of LP with the old wood furnace, and burn between 8-10 cord a year.

 

[Chris-PA]

Two wood stoves, a fireplace, and a couple of electric space heaters. There's an oil filled space heater in each of the kids rooms (never was any other heat up there), so call it 85% wood heat. The oil tank was getting rusty and I didn't trust it anymore. We disconnected it last year but had not used it for heat in a few anyway (hot water only). Need about 6 cords per winter. I modified the hot air heat ducts and added an additional thermostat and control so we can use the blower to distribute the heat. The only problem is that the blower uses about 800W and it runs most of the day. I'm hoping to add some iron grates to distribute the heat without it. It's typically about 52F in our bedroom on a cold winter morning (I do not get up to refill the stove anymore), but that perfectly normal for us. OTOH, it's often maybe 90 down in the basement on a cold winter evening. The rest of the house is typically low to mid 60s, depending on if we crank up the little stove or not.

 

[TermiteBuffet]

Well ,gas logs not been lit in 4yrs ,water heater set on 100 degrees OWB does all the work, burn year round no furnace for backup ,just the g-logs , so i guess i'm about a 1.5 or 2 ... Termite

 

[1project2many]

2, with Special Case*

I use wood 99.99% for primary heat with an oil fired boiler for backup heat and a separate oil fired water heater. I service and fire the boiler in the fall to ensure it runs, give it one or two heat cycles, then turn the t-stat down to 50 and it won't fire up again unless we leave for a couple of days. The house is an early '80s energy efficient design. It's about 2000 sq ft, single story, concrete slab, earth berm on 3 sides and something like 14" of insulation in the attic space. I throw a few pieces of wood on the fire before leaving for work in the morning and the house is still around 55 when I get home in the evening although the fire's been out for hours.

I started at 5 cord per year when I moved in, down to about 3.5 between switching to a reburning stove and improving insulation. We actually get about as much rain here in central NH as Seattle, most of it in the spring and fall. The first couple of years here, as soon as it got warm I'd be scrambling to scrounge, split, and stack all my wood by July 1 so it'd be plenty dry for winter but that meant working through some pretty miserable weather. Now I've got 2 sheds built and 2 outdoor piles as well which really allows a lot of freedom in sourcing wood. I have considered paying to have log lengths delivered but so far I've been able to find "free" wood every year. FWIW "Free" wood is almost always wood at someone else's location which I need to cut down, cut up, load, haul, dump, split, and stack. I watch the costs and it usually runs between $50 and $75 per cord all said and done.

Not that it was asked, but I've got a homebrew logsplitter with a 4" diameter piston, 2500 psi pump,14 horse B&S powerplant and fits 24" logs. After I went in for back surgery a couple of years ago I had to do something to reduce the workload. I cut to 14" lengths and anything left over goes into the "ends pile" which I use when the heating season begins, probably in a couple of weeks, until maybe mid November. Looks like there's about a cord in the ends pile but I probably won't use it all before I get into the main shed.

I've come to realize I've gotten real serious about wood in just a few short years.

*Special case: I've been making a small amount of biodiesel and mixing it with the heating oil for a few years. This year I'm planning to upscale the biodiesel processing so I can go to 80% BD in the boilers. Hot water uses almost 200 gallons of oil a year and the increasing cost of oil is killing my budget.

 

[Cambium]

Ok boys and girls, here 'tis, the famous annual how much you heat with wood poll.

1. 100% wood heat, NO central furnace or ANY backup, AND I harvest/scrounge ALL the firewood.
2. 99 and xx % wood heat with some minor space heating backup, AND harvest scrounge most of the firewood.
3. Most of heating by wood "up from" a central furnace set at ~ 65 F. Buy all firewood C/S/D.
4. Heat with wood only for weekends, romance, entertainment. Buy it all....
5. Wood is heavy, dirty, inefficient. I'm rich and lazy. I'm here just for laughs.

LOL at #5. I'm at #2..unfortunetly at 10 degrees with wind my furnace kicks on because the stove wont reach the bedrooms on other side of house.

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