How Much Wood Do You Burn

[pyromaniac guy]

i know that there is no steadfast answer to this question, but how much wood will i burn in an average winter? my wife and i are building a new house in central pennsylvania. it will be 1500 square feet on the main floor and will be heated primarily with a wood stove. i'm looking ahead to next winter. how much wood should i stockpile? i know it depends on winter temps and how warm i want the house, but any guesses?

 

[jokers]

i know it depends on winter temps and how warm i want the house, but any guesses?

Probably no more than a thousand bush cord.

Russ

 

[Banjoec]

I had a house of similar size years ago. We were using a coal stove to burn wood. So it wasn't too efficient. Well the Winter of 94' which was a cold one, we burned 5 full cords. Warmer winters we burned 3-4. We let the stove burn out during the day when at work, and relit it before sunset.

 

[rmihalek]

I have a slightly larger house that is farther north. We run the stove all day during the winter. Typically we'll burn 6-7 full cords (128 cubic feet) per heating season.

 

[ray benson]

Ballpark guess - 4 to 5 cords depending on the stoves efficiency. Here is another thread to read.
http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=5689&highlight=cords+burned

 

[pinus]

For the first winter cut twice as much as you will need/expect.
There is two reasons for this
1. You dont know exact quantity and if you have less than needed you should buy dry firewood in winter at high price
2. Good practice here (Estonia) is to have firewood for two winters. Firewood dryed two summers a much beter than wood dryed only one season

 

[HiOctane]

I burn 5-6 cords each winter.The stove is on duty(not all the time) since 15 days,after we got few inches of snow.

 

[TRUSSMAN]

We burn 3-4 chords per season, slightly smaller house.
Jeff

 

[WESCOMAN]

On average I burn about 5 cords year. Usually 2-1/2 cords of pinion pine, 1-1/2 cords Cedar and 1 cord Mahogany. Everything is well seasoned and burns very well. Usually I'll start the fire with Pine then add Cedar and when I go to bed stock it with a nice piece or pieces of Mahogany. The Mahogany coals last all night and I just throw in a piece of pine to get flames again and stock it with pine and cedar all day as needed. This winter is really wierd as there is no snow yet. Usually we have 5 feet of snow now or close. I guess about 4 cords this winter.

 

[2Coilinveins]

i'm looking ahead to next winter. how much wood should i stockpile? i know it depends on winter temps and how warm i want the house, but any guesses?

As much as you have room to store.

 

[West Texas]

The type, location, size and efficiency are all factors. Insulation and air circulation are very important. I do not heat my bedrooms, only the LR, DR and Kit which are in one large open space, with two ceiling fans. It doesn't take much wood; because I have 2 x 6 construction on all walls and about 12" of insulation in my attic. So do a lot of good planning around space, insulation, air circulation, and buy a nice stove.

By banking the fire at night before I go to bed, its usually around 65 - 68 in the morning, so I put wood on the fire and turn on the furnace for about five or ten minutes, to bring the overall temp up in the house to include bedrooms and bath, then turn it off and let the wood fire maintain the heat from then on.

Buy a couple of cords of wood and see how it goes. Good luck.

 

[whatsnext]

I average around three cords/yr plus about 2.5 tons of wood pellets but it sounds like my home is much larger. Try to use solar for daytime heating and you'll use a lot less wood.

 

[Stihl Crazy]

I burn 4 cords per year. House has 2080 square feet. I have fires from October-April. I went for the most insulation I could put in when I built the house, and got the best stove I could find.

 

[JeffHK454]

Don't know where Millersburg is but I live in Cincinnati and a average winter with a non-cat Buck insert I would burn 3-4 cords of wood along with about a truck load of 4"x4"x6" oak skid scraps. I'm not discriminate and will burn any hardwood I get for free. This is providing about 60% of my heating needs , other 40% from natural gas in a 2K foot ranch. It's also not a very efficient stove and lets about 35% (+/-) go out the flue.

This year I retired the insert and bought a Clayton furnace add on to try and get more heat from my wood and keep those gas bills low! I have the luxury of having two methods of heating my home so if I run low I can burn skids and let my gas furnace kick on .

Jeff

I also forgot to say that my house was kept on the warm side (72-74degrees)
because of a newborn baby.

 

[keith c raymond]

Four to eight is a good figure ,what ever is not used will be really dry for next year.

 

[Al Smith]

I burn around 3 to 4 cords per year,in Northern Ohio.Because of the design of the house,I don't even fire the stove[Lopi glass front insert] until it gets to around 10 degrees f.It will run you out.
I have a geothermal heat pump,otherwise.

 

[TonyM]

I have a really cool Excel program I wrote that allows you to enter all the information about your house, where you live, the type of wood you'll burn, the efficiency of the stove, and even the cost of other energy sources, and it will tell you the number of cords of wood and the cost savings over another heating method. I can either shoot you a copy of the program, with some instructions how to fill it in, or if you want, send me the the information about your house, and I'll enter it in the program. I need things like outside wall area, floor area, ceiling area, glass area, type of foundation (basement, crawl space, or slab), and R-Values for each thing, as well as estimated air changes per hour (I can guess pretty close on that for a new house), and your monthly winter electric bill. My guess though is 4-5 cord.

 

[McC]

I built a 1500 ft ranch house in 2003. I have a cast stove in the basement. It's a Harman Oakwood. There is an open stairway in front of the stove, so the heat goes right up into the middle of the house. I fire up when I get home at 5 and keep it going all night, fire it a 2 AM, and put a med load before I go to work in the morning. I burn 3-4 cord of elm. This time of year I can fire it from 7PM until 3AM and the house stays in the mid 70's. Having the walls in the basement insulated helps a lot. You will loose heat through bare cement walls.
Scott

 

[jayskye2000]

We have a 28x60 modular on a full basement, and I got a Hot Blast stove from TSC. One pipe to the upper level, one to the lower. It heats the whole unit till the temp hits around 15F. Then the oil kicks in. I never laid my wood out in cords, but I can say we use 14-15 one ton truck loads of oak, cherry, and maple in a season. I burn GREEN wood, and throw my empty alum. cans in once a week. No creasote problem that way. For some reason, dry wood doesn't give me the heat, or the burn time of fresh, and it's nice to only use 250 gal of oil every two years. Our weather is about the same as Pitt, or Butler Pa. Hope yours keeps ya warm without payin the gas man!

 

[Gypo Logger]

Three cords is a good average with a well insulated home in the Great Lakes Region.
The efficiency of the heating appliance is a big factor. In other words your best heat comes from bone dry wood starved for air. I have a side loader that I really like with a glass front which gets me by with 2 cords.
John