New Wood Burning Worry Wart

[zogger]

It is hard to justify insulating a rental, unless you can get the owner to pay for materials and it works out to less effort than cutting the wood. Good luck with getting your own place!

Thanks! I have been working here on the assumption that eventually I'll get to own it. Hopefully next year I will find out. I *think* I'll be able to sell some cords in a few years once I am far enough ahead and use that money for the insulation project. In the meantime I am not pushing asking for stuff here, boss is generous enough, I use his tractor/fuel and trees to get my wood.
He already dropped the coin on getting us a used commercial sized greenhouse which is up and running that we use for veggies, Garden Goddess's flowers and my winter time saw workbench. That involved his nickle on buying it, us running the two big flatbeds over, two additional laborers, dissasembly, hauling it back and rebuilding it. He's pretty generous so I am happy enough. I could have gotten some of that surplus insulation for the attic, but it poofed away. *shrugs*.

 

[zogger]

Zogger, if I didn't own where I live I would probably not do what you have done. I would do a lot more to my home but like everyone else, times are tight. I am the and have always been (20 years) the sole supporter of my family. And now my son is in college. He now has been a very awesome son and bought my stove for me. I burn wood for a few reasons. Most of all I love fire and the warmth it brings. I also love providing for myself in the heating area. And a super great reason to burn wood!!!! Give my CAD a excuse. Have to have a bunch of saws to cut a bunch of wood!

CAD and FAD are great hobbies!

 

[zogger]

bert the turtle,

Ditto on the insulation for me.

I could never figure out guys killing themselves getting huge amounts of wood to heat a poorly insulated place they own.
Having 3 out of every 4 logs you burn heat the great outdoors seems crazy.

For me it was thick insulation in the attic and silicon crack repairs and my wood consumption was 1/2 what it was before i started.
I get to play silicon warrier about every 5 years but always find a few more sneaky air infiltration places i missed on the previous war
I was lucky to have good wall insulation though so not huge amounts of work to tighten my place up.

Back when I was working doing the superinsulation, etc retrofits, we hired a photog who had an infrared camera. That was the berries on finding air leak areas and poor insulation areas. Today cameras with that capability are pretty cheap. We did before and after pics to show the HOs how the work helped.

 

[deye223]

Rule #1....you can never have enough wood.
Rule #2....when the wife feeds the stove all day, a national forrest does not have enough trees in it to cover her usage.
Rule #3....cut split and stack as much as you can to ease tension between you and the aforementioned party from rule #2.

yep with a wife at home all day you are in trouble man over here i see them all over the place when delivering
wood heater wide open and all the bloody doors open unbelievable :amazed:

 

[Hedgerow]

yep with a wife at home all day you are in trouble man over here i see them all over the place when delivering
wood heater wide open and all the bloody doors open unbelievable :amazed:

Good for business...

 

[deye223]

Good for business...

yep

 

[slowp]

Here in the PNW I go thru 4 to 4 1/2 (real) cords during the winter

I too, live in the PNW, on the mild side of the Cascade Range, and I burn 2 cords. I have a new house with 2X6 walls and good insulation. Winter temps are like this morning, 33 degrees outside, it'll warm up to the 40somethings. It is a damp cold.

My woodstove is a small Quadrafire model. If I run it all day, my house gets too warm.

However, we have cool, damp weather for 8 to 9 months a year. That makes for a long burn season.

 

[tbow388]

Came home this avenging and still have some coals mixed in with the ashes after 12 hours.

 

[tbow388]

Evening

 

[Gap Goat]

Worry Indeed

Just keep cutting...there is never enough. I'm with fife...I'll have 2 cords gone by the end of november.

:agree2:

Come to the Dark Side, Luke.... You need MORE WOOD

 

[ft. churchill]

48'x4'x4' is your cubic feet measurement. Now divide by 128 to get cords, and by 1/3 again because 16" is one third of four feet. A cord is 4' x 4' x 8' feet, and 16" inches is a third of the length measurement. I burn about two and a half cords here in Nevada each winter, 1550 sq. foot modular home with a wood stove. Gas heater never comes on at all.

 

[old cookie]

Our house is 1200 ft. or so 12" in sealing 4" in walls small woodstove .If it aint 20 or so we have windows open.We usually use 2 cord.Last year a little less some years a little more.It sure is better to have to much than not enough. Sometimes that woodpile looks pretty small about the middle of March when it starts to turn cold.

 

[qweesdraw]

Your windows will loose alot of heat also.
I had aluminum single pane windows here and built some window plugs.
They are made from 1" Styrofoam framed with a firring strips (1x2's) then hot glue the styro on the wood frame that fit between the window sill and the header.
They are cheap to make and AMAZING how well they work,put them up when the sun goes down,pull them off in the morning.
(if the wife says they are ugly tell her to put wall paper or fabric on them)
I have since put in low E windows but still use them if temp's will get to 15F degrees or less.
(and still see ice on the inside of windows if they are installed)
They work well on summer months to keep the heat out also.
A table saw puts a nice edge on the Styrofoam if you have one if not a razor knife will work.
Mark
I think these would work well in the White House alot of hot air loss there!

 

[Naked Arborist]

Your windows will loose alot of heat also.
I had aluminum single pane windows here and built some window plugs.
They are made from 1" Styrofoam framed with a firring strips (1x2's) then hot glue the styro on the wood frame that fit between the window sill and the header.
They are cheap to make and AMAZING how well they work,put them up when the sun goes down,pull them off in the morning.
(if the wife says they are ugly tell her to put wall paper or fabric on them)
I have since put in low E windows but still use them if temp's will get to 15F degrees or less.
(and still see ice on the inside of windows if they are installed)
They work well on summer months to keep the heat out also.
A table saw puts a nice edge on the Styrofoam if you have one if not a razor knife will work.
Mark
I think these would work well in the White House alot of hot air loss there!

All the hot air in there would heat the projects of DC. If they did not have a place for all the hot air to escape they might drop from heat exhaustion!!!

My place at 1,000 sq ft was built around 40 years ago and the windows are the crappy single pane wood Andersons of the seventies with aluminum storm windows witch are worthless! Window plugs get used here and boy do they make a huge difference. I've had ice on the insides many a cold mornings. The attic is insulated and walls to. I did find that all of my gable walls were not insulated in the tops (ie: attice ends) and the bottoms were left open in the crawl space. This needs to get done soon. It will keep the end wall plates much warmer I'm sure of that.

 

[MRNDAD]

It gets cold in Mississippi??? Cold enough to run a wood stove?? WOW!! You learn something new every day I suppose.... Does it ever snow there??

:msp_ohmy::msp_ohmy::msp_ohmy::msp_ohmy:

 

[Joe Homeowner]

It gets cold in Mississippi??? Cold enough to run a wood stove?? WOW!! You learn something new every day I suppose.... Does it ever snow there??
:msp_ohmy::msp_ohmy::msp_ohmy::msp_ohmy:

Is the Pope German ? :hmm3grin2orange: :msp_confused:

 

[darkbyrd]

It gets cold in Mississippi??? Cold enough to run a wood stove?? WOW!! You learn something new every day I suppose.... Does it ever snow there??

:msp_ohmy::msp_ohmy::msp_ohmy::msp_ohmy:

If you have no other form of heat, yeah, it gets cold enough almost everywhere to burn in the lower 48, even if it is a short season.

 

[ShaneLogs]

Just keep cutting, U can never have enough wood! :msp_biggrin:

 

[Fred Wright]

This thread reminds me of the house we grew up in. Early '50s construction, little insulation and those steel casement windows that frosted inside overnight during winter. Our father had aluminum siding installed on the place in the early '70s but no storm glass or added insulation. Go figure.

Well, anyhow... we live in a 1940-ish bungalow that's been upgraded over the years. Insulation is so-so. Got a stove and prefab chimney installed and started burning wood last year. I got the saw and other assorted accoutrements around the same time and started laying in wood but we had to buy a load of firewood for the first winter.

We paid for 3 cord of what we were led to believe was fully seasoned, got a little over 2 cord of half-assed seasoned that barely burned, clogged the flue cap screen every month and ran out in February. Started burning what we'd laid in over the summer. The SheWolf was not pleased.

In the interest of self-preservation (and to appease Her Majesty) I carried my arse out to the woodlot and started felling, bucking, splittin' and stackin' for the following winter. Laid in 3 cord, covered it on top and left it to season.

She's happy now; she's got her Fire Channel reception tuned in loud and clear and we're a year ahead on firewood. We're gonna be two years ahead before the winter's over. It's all down, I just gotta finish bucking, get this last cord or so up to the yard and get it all busted and stacked.

Guess what I'm thinkin' is... you can never have too much firewood laid in. If it ain't used this season, save it for next season.

Your first year will give you an idea of how much you'll need, taking into account the average winter temperature.

Hope it helps.

 

[ponyexpress976]

Your windows will loose alot of heat also.
I had aluminum single pane windows here and built some window plugs.
They are made from 1" Styrofoam framed with a firring strips (1x2's) then hot glue the styro on the wood frame that fit between the window sill and the header.
They are cheap to make and AMAZING how well they work,put them up when the sun goes down,pull them off in the morning.
(if the wife says they are ugly tell her to put wall paper or fabric on them)
I have since put in low E windows but still use them if temp's will get to 15F degrees or less.
(and still see ice on the inside of windows if they are installed)
They work well on summer months to keep the heat out also.
A table saw puts a nice edge on the Styrofoam if you have one if not a razor knife will work.
Mark
I think these would work well in the White House alot of hot air loss there!

Saw a post a while back where you use bubble wrap. Squirt the window with some water and press the flat side to the glass. Supposed the be like +5 insulation rating.