Why i heat with wood.

[Gabriel1982]

It feels so good to be prepared for (almost) anything, I learned it in cub scouts, "be prepared" it has helped me many times in my life. I have my wood stove, generator, and chainsaw, as well as many tools. My son and I fix almost anything, and we enjoy it. My stove was my best investment ever.

Yeah ,keep the fire burning hot 24/7 have a nice steak and sleep it over!
Like this: and that's "just" hard dry wood around the end of burning! If petroleum coke is used it will glow like this for many more hours, keeping the fire almost continously burning! If there's anyone around to add 1-2 pieces of wood and 3-4 petroleum coke "cookies"
View attachment VID_20221119_182450834.mp4

 

[samaritan]

Wow, Im amazed that people can survive in those places. Hey, my grandpa was from czechoslovakia, does that mean we might be related? I like it cold and sunny, my family says im nuts. Can you burn coke and coal in your woodstove?

 

[Gabriel1982]

Wow, Im amazed that people can survive in those places. Hey, my grandpa was from czechoslovakia, does that mean we might be related? I like it cold and sunny, my family says im nuts. Can you burn coke and coal in your woodstove?

It's not always like this just in some years!
And 35-40 degrees Celcius in summer time...
I got used to either too hot or too cold+mountains of snow ...
We could be related! My grandpa who was a bit of ukrainian+romanian spent some time in Tatra Mountains in WW2 in army . Was a truck driver. That's how it got away from russian bastards military,hidden in woods! Grandma back home near border with Ukraine hid in the barn around cows... It was either that or 1-2 bullets...
GUNS are essential in any country any time or weather! Lots of guns and ammunition!
"Lovely" russian army "memories" ,told by my grandparents... Who are gone now...
Anyway: spring will come, anyone reading this get your chainsaw and axe ready at least you'll be ready for the next winter!

 

[alanbaker]

Dry wood cut,split and dried over the spring-summer period at least 6 months along with at least 2 tons of petroleum coke or just good high grade coal stored in a dry safe place would make you laugh in the face of worse freeze/blizzard you could imagine! This is what romanians do imediately after winter is gone and warm weather comes! It's a habit we inherited from our old parents and grandparents who had to deal with far worse winters then what we get now/last 4-5 years; only REAL winter was in 2012 when snow was as tall as houses here!
Having enough dry wood and high quality coal/petroleum coke and a highly insulated house is the only way out of a hard winter ,if it were to actually happen!
Oh ,and forget about LPG/propane if you can only keep/store it OUTSIDE! it won't work that good in minus 25-30 Celcius! Wood and coal are KING in very low temperatures! Wood burns well/fast and easy ,while coal maintains the high temperature and a nice hot bed of red glowing cinder!
Of course a good reliable generator is a must too but kept in a semi-heated room not outside... You won't make that generator a "favour" starting it at minus 30 Celcius... Gasoline in metal canisters is good too along with a pressurized gasoline burner like Coleman 533 or 442! Good for cooking and melting snow for water if you lose all other energy sources!
A good chainsaw is esential to get all these done,starting with spring time View attachment 1044216View attachment 1044217View attachment 1044218View attachment 1044219View attachment 1044220View attachment 1044221

Now that's snow!!

 

[barebunns]

dffddfd

 

[Smitty Smithsonite]

My dad burned wood for over 30 years. Used to cut all the standing dead out back every fall, so there was no seasoning involved. As he got older, it got tougher and tougher to cut, split, stack, and eventually even start the chainsaw.

When we moved in here 20 years ago, oil was $1.50 a gallon. I worked 50+ hours a week driving trucks, so dealing with wood was not something I ever considered, knowing the work involved growing up with it as a constant heat source. Was easy for me to turn the t-stat. Then in winter of '04-'05, after going through 5 tanks of oil to freeze our asses off in this old, leaky house, I bought a coal stove in fall 2005. Been burning coal since.

We have 2.5 acres, but the property is wide, and doesn't go very far back. I'd burn through every tree on this property in 3 seasons flat, IF I was lucky and we had 3 warmer winters. Plus I'd have to cut it all on a nearly 45° slope. No thanks!!

That first stove was handfired. Ran that until 2008 when I upgraded to a much bigger handfired unit. 5 years after that, I was tiring of dealing with a handfired stove, even if I only had to load it every 24 hours (or sooner in real cold weather). I was running all day long on a city recycling route, so I'd be BEAT every night (plus I about drank myself unconscious every night to deal with this awful hellhole of a city I had to work in). I had a bad batch of coal that season with many rocks, shale, and trash that jammed the grates open on me .. always at midnight when I was exhausted (and drunk). Ended up selling that one and installing a custom built stoker boiler a buddy of mine got for me. Ran that for 8 years, then the unthinkable happened - oil was CHEAP again! At least for a few years.

Then July 2021 came, and I had an opportunity to buy a boiler setup I had been lusting after for years, but never thought I'd find nor afford - an EFM520 Highboy. Another buddy sold that one to me. Only catch was, I had to take a 12 hour drive ONE WAY south to NC to grab it. The massive beast was built in 1951, and restored around 2010. Just last month I finally got that beast set up in my basement. The boiler alone weighs 1,150 pounds, give or take!! It was one of the toughest jobs I've EVER done to get heat in a building! It fell down the stairs from the halfway point and smashed into the fieldstone foundation after ripping a plank right out of the studs! BANG!! Saved us an hour or so of labor anyway.

Now coal is $500 a ton! Double what I paid in 2019, but #2 heating oil would have to be less than $3.60 a gallon to make oil cheaper. Right now it's $4.15 or higher in my area. I've thankfully got enough stockpiled here to get through next season as well, thankfully. Hopefully by then there will be some sanity, not only in heating costs, but in our government as well. I won't hold my breath on either. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

Absolute worst case, I could burn wood pellets, or even wood in this unit with some minor modifications.

 

[Smitty Smithsonite]

Video of the stoker assembly running. Neat engineering! Simple, and it just plain works. 80 year old engineering here!

View attachment IMG_7270.mov

 

[samaritan]

It's not always like this just in some years!
And 35-40 degrees Celcius in summer time...
I got used to either too hot or too cold+mountains of snow ...
We could be related! My grandpa who was a bit of ukrainian+romanian spent some time in Tatra Mountains in WW2 in army . Was a truck driver. That's how it got away from russian bastards military,hidden in woods! Grandma back home near border with Ukraine hid in the barn around cows... It was either that or 1-2 bullets...
GUNS are essential in any country any time or weather! Lots of guns and ammunition!
"Lovely" russian army "memories" ,told by my grandparents... Who are gone now...
Anyway: spring will come, anyone reading this get your chainsaw and axe ready at least you'll be ready for the next winter!

I feel a connection to people in your part of the world, we often eat the foods my grandma made like perogies, haluka (sp?) pigs in blanket, kielbasa, horseradish, etc. I know god will keep russia at bay, and the free countries of the world will too. May god be with you and your family always. Im rebuilding my Stihl ms251c, and it should be running today. Merry Christmas, and Happy new year!

 

[Smitty Smithsonite]

My Lithuanian great grandmother had to run across a field risking getting shot by Russian soldiers in order to escape to America. Apparently they shot at people fleeing for sport. Pure evil. She had to pay a guy everything she had to get her to said field. When she got there, she said, "What the hell are we supposed to do now?" The man said, "RUN!!" She had thought the guy was going to take her right to Germany, not turn them loose to their own fate in a field. By the Grace of God, she made it. Others weren't so lucky.

Sadly, she was never able to reunite with her family again. She never got over this. She got word her mom passed away by letter, from a cousin. Her mom was mostly blind by then, and every person that came into the room she'd cry out my great grandmother's name and say, "I knew you'd return!". Heartbreaking. Wish she was alive to see an independent Lithuania again.

I have pictures of me as a toddler with her, my grandmother, and my mom - 4 generations in one picture.

 

[Gabriel1982]

My dad burned wood for over 30 years. Used to cut all the standing dead out back every fall, so there was no seasoning involved. As he got older, it got tougher and tougher to cut, split, stack, and eventually even start the chainsaw.

When we moved in here 20 years ago, oil was $1.50 a gallon. I worked 50+ hours a week driving trucks, so dealing with wood was not something I ever considered, knowing the work involved growing up with it as a constant heat source. Was easy for me to turn the t-stat. Then in winter of '04-'05, after going through 5 tanks of oil to freeze our asses off in this old, leaky house, I bought a coal stove in fall 2005. Been burning coal since.

We have 2.5 acres, but the property is wide, and doesn't go very far back. I'd burn through every tree on this property in 3 seasons flat, IF I was lucky and we had 3 warmer winters. Plus I'd have to cut it all on a nearly 45° slope. No thanks!!

That first stove was handfired. Ran that until 2008 when I upgraded to a much bigger handfired unit. 5 years after that, I was tiring of dealing with a handfired stove, even if I only had to load it every 24 hours (or sooner in real cold weather). I was running all day long on a city recycling route, so I'd be BEAT every night (plus I about drank myself unconscious every night to deal with this awful hellhole of a city I had to work in). I had a bad batch of coal that season with many rocks, shale, and trash that jammed the grates open on me .. always at midnight when I was exhausted (and drunk). Ended up selling that one and installing a custom built stoker boiler a buddy of mine got for me. Ran that for 8 years, then the unthinkable happened - oil was CHEAP again! At least for a few years.

Then July 2021 came, and I had an opportunity to buy a boiler setup I had been lusting after for years, but never thought I'd find nor afford - an EFM520 Highboy. Another buddy sold that one to me. Only catch was, I had to take a 12 hour drive ONE WAY south to NC to grab it. The massive beast was built in 1951, and restored around 2010. Just last month I finally got that beast set up in my basement. The boiler alone weighs 1,150 pounds, give or take!! It was one of the toughest jobs I've EVER done to get heat in a building! It fell down the stairs from the halfway point and smashed into the fieldstone foundation after ripping a plank right out of the studs! BANG!! Saved us an hour or so of labor anyway.

Now coal is $500 a ton! Double what I paid in 2019, but #2 heating oil would have to be less than $3.60 a gallon to make oil cheaper. Right now it's $4.15 or higher in my area. I've thankfully got enough stockpiled here to get through next season as well, thankfully. Hopefully by then there will be some sanity, not only in heating costs, but in our government as well. I won't hold my breath on either. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

Absolute worst case, I could burn wood pellets, or even wood in this unit with some minor modifications.

View attachment 1044361View attachment 1044362View attachment 1044363View attachment 1044364View attachment 1044365View attachment 1044366View attachment 1044367View attachment 1044369View attachment 1044370View attachment 1044371

May I know what is that "awfull hellhole of a city" you worked in? And what does MA stand for?
Yes ,russians are semi-animals,and I will stop there,not to get too "political"! Not one neighbouring country/nation near Russia has much good things to say about Russia! And they plundered land grabbed some land from every one of them! Finland, Japan, Germany ,even from China!
Coal burning stoves like the one you got are worth every penny! Maintain it well, it deserves it! Nice flame and hot cinder!

 

[Mad Professor]

May I know what is that "awfull hellhole of a city" you worked in? And what does MA stand for?
Yes ,russians are semi-animals,and I will stop there,not to get too "political"! Not one neighbouring country/nation near Russia has much good things to say about Russia! And they plundered land grabbed some land from every one of them! Finland, Japan, Germany ,even from China!
Coal burning stoves like the one you got are worth every penny! Maintain it well, it deserves it! Nice flame and hot cinder!

State of mASSachusetts. Where our countries revolution got started in 1775. Now a hellhole of corruption and controlled by liberals/socialists. The cities, all of them, are particularly vile.

The rural areas are still not horrible........

 

[Smitty Smithsonite]

I couldn't have said it better! Thanks, Mad Professor!

Thankfully I'm in a very rural neighborhood in western-central, MA. I wouldn't have lasted as long here otherwise. I can't get my wife to agree to move South, so this is the best possible place I can be right now.

 

[fields_mj]

I use wood heat for a number of reasons. Primary reason is probably the same as why I process my own wild game. I've always been a DIY kind of person. If I can build it, I normally don't buy it. As I get older, there are a few more things that I find that I'm willing to pay someone else to do, but finding someone I trust to do a job right is the hard part.

I also grew up on wood heat, so it was a natural thing for me to do. I also like being in the woods as much as possible, I prefer the feel of wood heat, it's cheaper (even when factoring in the cost of all to tools and equipment I've bought to do it with), it gives me an excuse to buy the afore mentioned tools, I enjoy using said tools, I enjoy the nature of the work, and I need the exercise.

I also get to bug you guys about stuff

 

[jcallahan2]

We live in a 120 year home in Northern Indiana and our only fuel supply is buying unregulated propane that can swing in price from $1.60 gallon to $4.50 a gallon from fill to fill for no good reason , which adds up on a 500lb tank. I know that I need to buy my own tank, but propane really needs regulated like natural gas, water and electricity. I have worked for a water utility for 30 years and we have to prove operating expenses to get a rate increase, where propane suppliers apparently can charge whatever they feel like.

If we didn't burn wood there would be at least an additional $5,000 US dollars per winter in heating costs and the winters have been fairly mild by historical standards, even though at this time last week we were -13 f with a wind chill of -45 f. I know out west the temp swings are much more severe. Even if propane was priced in an orderly fashion and was reasonable to purchase , I would still cut wood.

 

[fields_mj]

If we didn't burn wood there would be at least an additional $5,000 US dollars per winter in heating costs and the winters have been fairly mild by historical standards, even though at this time last week we were -13 f with a wind chill of -45 f. I know out west the temp swings are much more severe. Even if propane was priced in an orderly fashion and was reasonable to purchase , I would still cut wood.

At that price point, solar and wind become some economical choices for heat/power.

I think my favorite thing about wood heat is when it's -10F outside, my house is a nice warm (and comfortable) 73 degrees By contrast, the last few days have been up in the 50s so I'm running my NG furnace with the thermostat set at 70 -72 degrees and the house feels chilly.