This year/Last year

[spike60]

How are you guys fairing this year vs last year?

26 degrees here right now, about as cold as it's been for the last 10 days. Here in the Northeast it has been a much more mild winter, (so far), than last year. Last December, I had already been into the teens and lower 12 times. This December, I've only seen the teens once and no single digits yet this year.

Wood usage is down, but not as dramatically as the temps might lead you to believe. Still cold enough that I'm keeping the stove going and there's a certain amount of wood that you'll go through if you stay lit. It's when I get down to the single digits and I let the thing rip that I see a noticeable jump in the wood consumption. Last year at the coldest point I'd go through a face cord rack in just 10 days. In this mild weather though I only need to let the stove coast along and it easily handles the entire house. A face cord rack in these temps will last me 3 weeks or better.

 

[Deleted member 83629]

it isn't that bad but wait till January - February that is when winter can get ugly but im hoping for a better burning season compared to last year where i ran out of wood twice and nearly froze my can off. hoping for the better.

 

[zogger]

Mild here, but that isn't that unusual. Cool enough for fires in the evenings and mornings. January-March are traditionally when it gets actual cold, ground freezes a little, etc.

Thing is, you need *some* fire so the stack keeps going down.

Building a small fire and keeping it going well without smouldering is the trick.

 

[lapeer20m]

The weather has been very pleasant this December. We started burning early in michigan, I certainly had a fire going by October 1 which is unusual. We had a colder than usual November, but a glorious above average snowless December.

I agree with the above poster. When it's around the freezing mark I burn 1/3 of the firewood as I do when it's zero degrees.

We saw -20 a couple times last year, which is about the coldest it's ever been during my lifetime. The owb vaporizes hundred pounds of wood per day at that temperature.

 

[MechanicMatt]

Yeah much nicer winter this year. Speaking of running out of wood last year.......... I cut a pickup truck load of dead ash at my buddies farm last year, on my lunch break, pulled in the garage at the dealership where I work. All the guys came over wondering how I lifted the pieces in the bed, my reply was something along the lines of, my kids and wife need to be warm tonight......the wood was gonna get in there. I wish I had taken a pic, I'm a lil guy, but when properly motivated.......

 

[Deleted member 83629]

i burned 13 cord last year maybe i can burn only 9-10 this time but i cut 15 this time.

 

[MechanicMatt]

Yeah I cut about two cord extra this year. Last year it was beyond cold. I imagine my wife was throwing wood into the stove like a engineer shoveling coal into a old steam locomotive. She went threw a ton of wood, but the house was always above 70* even when it was -10* outside.

 

[Deleted member 83629]

my house stayed warm some what because i stacked bales around the house. i got two vent less lp heaters and half a tank of propane in case of emergency and it saved me.
my house last year was only 60% insulated and this year i finished it with blown in stuff so it should be a little warmer.

 

[spike60]

Matt, I didn't know you got close to empty last year. That sure adds some extra motivation, huh?

Another thing about this mild weather is that it's OK to let the fire burn down without losing much temp in the house. If I don't feel like going downstairs in the middle of the night to add some wood it's no big deal. There will still be enough coals to re-ignite in the morning. Same with being away all day. Coals that would be losing ground in single digit temps still throw enough heat in this weather to maintain a decent temp.

 

[MechanicMatt]

Yeah, that's a good point. My wife hasn't had to go near the stove this year at all. I load it when I get home, top it off before bed, then load it before going to work. Then repeat. Some how when its cold outside she can't help hesrelf from "topping it off" all day. I think its mainly my fault, I showed here how its warmer with the damper at 1/4 throttle insread of 1/8 open.

 

[MustangMike]

When I used to heat my house with the Sotz air tight 55 gal drum stove, I never had to feed it more than once in 8 hrs, and it would usually put out good heat for about 12 hours. I had a device on it that automatically restricted the air going in when it was hot, and opened it back up as it got cool (and U could adjust the temp on it). I also did not have a large house at the time, so I did not need to run it full tilt, it would blow you out of the place!

In addition, U can fit a lot of wood in a 55 gal drum!

 

[svk]

At this time last year we had a week at -20 or more including three nights at -38. We've only hit minus teens a couple times this year and most were around thanksgiving.

 

[steved]

We would have had snow on the ground by now, and temps well below freezing. By this time last year, I was moving a lot of snow (a lot for this area anyway).

I'm in about a cord and a half at this venture...actually burning more because I'm home during the day to stoke the fire. I'm guessing we will hit about four cords by winter's end...I have about double that cut and stacked.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G730A using Tapatalk

 

[sunfish]

Last month was the coldest November in 100 years here. This month above average...

 

[Odog]

It's been pretty mild here until this week. We got some snow Monday and -6 this morning. Got the stove going to keep the house warm. My black lab is just positive my girls are not warm enough so he sleeps in their bed with them. HA!!

 

[woodfarmer]

at this time last year we were just getting back to normal after a freezing rain storm on dec 20 knocked out power out until Christmas eve.
everything was coated in a couple inches of ice. with my genny and indoor boiler i was comfy.
its down around 10* today but windy as hell, i think winter is coming.

 

[flashhole]

Better than last winter for sure here in NY. Our ground was bare of snow until yesterday, today is single digits with the wind chill and will stay that way for the next several days. I hope we get a mild warming back to seasonal temps but even more I hope the snow goes away so I can keep harvesting firewood.

 

[Ronaldo]

The month of November was colder, like in other areas, and now December was warmer and quite nice. The last few days of this year were colder......we'll see what 2015 brings.
One thing I'm sure of is that wood heat is GREAT.

 

[El Quachito]

Warm rains and cloudy days mostly. Have had a lot of frost this past week but otherwise its been easy on the woodpile. Last year was dry (no rain till January) and it was colder.