It's been around the mid 20's for the most part some nights hit 10. My 12 year old house is about 1500 squar foot. But the main floor is a loft ceiling that peeks at 20'. And I have a home made owb. I Thought I was burning a lot (green oak) so I switched to dry maple. I'm still at about 63 cubic foot a week. Or about 1 full cord every two weeks. Seems like I didn't burn that amount till mid winter last year. Just curious to others areas and situations.
When I first started my owb, I was burning almost 40 cubic feet of pine slabs a day. Now, I don't fill it as often, or as much, and that number is dropping. The couple of warm days we had earlier this week, I was going all day on a charge. Yesterday, I had some ash rounds that I busted up as coarsely as I could, about 18 cubic feet. I put half in about 4:00 pm, and the other half this morning. I'll have to wait until late tonight for them to all burn down so I can prep the ash bed for a big load of pine slabs again. I'm heating a very poorly insulated ~1,200 foot house and a basic two car garage/workshop.
From your location. I wonder if we don't have similar temps? We have an old Taylor, don't remember if its a 400 or 450, heating a questionably insulated 1250 sf, story and a half, 100 year old house. With the long cold winter last year where we saw a stretch of minus 50 degree nights several times, we went thru about 10-12 cords of mixed hard and soft woods, some dry some wet.
We started up the stove in Mid October this year and have been using dry popple during the day and dry oak at night, We've gone thru about 1 to 1 1/2 cord this year and have had only a few short spells below zero so far. My water temp is still set at 160 and the stove is 80 feet from the house. I'll turn it up to 180 when it starts to stay below zero.
Our weather has been pretty crazy here the last month, but I'm at about 1.5 cords on the new H5. That's burning mostly dead ash straight from the woods. I've got some two year old dry stuff in the barn I'm holding on to in case I can't get to the woods.
So if I'm burning 1 cord every two weeks then I'm twice what you guys are😳😳😳
I'm burning, I estimate, somewhere around 2 cords of pine slabs and old boards a week. So that would probably be about a cord of hardwood, so I'm probably double what you are burning. I don't plan on burning too much hardwood, so I won't know exactly what it would take. I suspect that big chunks of hardwood would last longer than the thin pine slabs and boards I'm burning now. I do have a bunch of pine logs that are junk, and I think I'll only process them enough to get them through the door without injuring myself, I bet that will last longer.
I cut up some slabs this afternoon. I cut them all 42" long. This was two loads on the forks, so (42"x48"x36")2=2/3 cord, which should last 3 days, so just over 2 cords for a cold week.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14240/20141128_154311.jpg)
I don't have an OWB at the moment, so we use the "Englander Fireplace" stove, not sure on the volume but today I did comment that we were burning a lot more wood than I would like to see in November.
Dave I'm talking 4'x4'x8' 128 cuft cords. You burnt 2 full cords in one week? That's about a full size pickup load every day!!
That's 2/3 of a cord in front of the boiler. Hoping it will last three days. :D
Maybe 1/3 of a cord here at The Beach in our fireplace heating the living room.
I have been burning 1 1/2-2 full cords a week depending on the cold but my house is 80 times warmer this year then last year my base board runs full time cant shut it off until I unplug the pump and I have new 280,000 btu heat exchanger the old on was 140,000 the new one made a big difference and so far its keeping the wife happy :D
Firewoodjoe, seems like a lot for your sqft house. Whats your cuft firebox???
Are you loosing heat through your lines? Some thing is not adding up. Luke :
I burn about 3-3.5 cords a year to heat my house. 1400 sq ft.
Now the shop, probably burn a cord every 2 weeks or so. Don't really keep track, just load up a dumptruck and dump it in the shop, stack near the stove. Mostly burn cottonwood and the scraps from the processors.
Those boiler setups seem to be crazy hungry for wood. I have a few customers with them and they eat through wood almost quicker than I can deliver. One fellow burns about 30 cords a winter to heat a ~2500 sq ft house and a small hanger for his airplane. (maybe 30x40)
It's not my lines. There about 3 times the insulation size of the ones u buy. I built mine. I know the stove is not effiecient. And my house is small but it heats hard. I'd burn a full cord in three weeks to a month when I had the stove inside. And I usually average 1 1/2 full cords a month in my boiler. But not this year. I don't know if the weather last year and this year is really that much of a factor or something with my stove. I was thinking of checking to see if the insulation got wet at some point. Causing it to loose it's R value. But Im thinking old man winter is hungry 😄
A ranger load lasts 3-5 days burning in an 80's soapstone stove with no oil back up and we know why they wore nite caps to bed in the old days it gets cool in the bed rooms and sometimes the washer freezes which makes a mad Marcia. Gotta love winter!
we use about a wheelbarrow full a day of mixed, dry oak and maple. that would equate to about a cord every 25 days. more when it hangs in the single digits. we have a forced air wood furnace in the basement. about 1800 sq ft. basement and first floor stays 70-75, the 2nd floor about 60. this is in nw wisconsin near duluth mn.
Jeez, and I thought I had bad when the back of the house is only low 60s at -20* outside.
Even if I don't make a fire over a weekend in winter it will still stay 55-60, takes a while for the house to lose heat.
Nate ,how many cd you sell up your way a yr.... You have a clean looking operation. Us flatlanders down in ct sell mostly oak, i personally sell 200-300 a yr.
I thought I was using too much wood. E-classic 2400; 1.5 carefully measured cords (192 ft3) of dry ash for month of November. Only 1 real cold snap here in western PA where lows dipped into the 10s, but overall just slightly below avg. for Nov. I'm heating 4200 sq. ft, 68 F and endless DHW.
Quote from: stratton on November 30, 2014, 06:53:29 AM
Nate ,how many cd you sell up your way a yr.... You have a clean looking operation. Us flatlanders down in ct sell mostly oak, i personally sell 200-300 a yr.
We do around 1200 cords a year between the 2 processors plus about that in logs.
Garret I'd say that's darn good for 4200sqft!
I have burned about 1/2 cord so far and I started running the stove mid September :D
200 year old cape, Somewhat insulated 1500 sq/ft and I have burned in the OWB 1 cord since last week October till now and about a 1/2 cord of small round wood in the kitchen Jotul 602. Thats about right for me 1 to 1 1/2 cords a month. Last year was more though with the colder longer winter.
Nothern VT
not quite a wheel barrow full a day to heat 1500 sq keeping in 70 -90+ degrees.... Typically we stay so warm I don't turn on thermostats, and quite often shut off zones completely.
e-classic 2300
Quote from: Dave Shepard on November 28, 2014, 08:03:14 PM
I'm burning, I estimate, somewhere around 2 cords of pine slabs and old boards a week. So that would probably be about a cord of hardwood, so I'm probably double what you are burning. I don't plan on burning too much hardwood, so I won't know exactly what it would take. I suspect that big chunks of hardwood would last longer than the thin pine slabs and boards I'm burning now. I do have a bunch of pine logs that are junk, and I think I'll only process them enough to get them through the door without injuring myself, I bet that will last longer.
I cut up some slabs this afternoon. I cut them all 42" long. This was two loads on the forks, so (42"x48"x36")2=2/3 cord, which should last 3 days, so just over 2 cords for a cold week.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14240/20141128_154311.jpg)
Boards and slabs seem to burn pretty fast for me for sure. I usually try to mix the load in my home built OWB with large and small dia. rounds of whatever species I can come up with. boards are reserved for quick start-ups and making a small bed of coals to get the unsplit larger chunks burning. As for what I'm heating, I'm heating a two story brick farm house with poor insulation, and a milkhouse and parlor milking barn and two water heaters. In warmer weather (30 to 45 degrees) I will go through about one cord every 10 days and when it gets below zero with winds I'll go through about a cord of good dry Oak about every three to four days.
I'm heating 1200 square feet single story house with a ~30 year old Englander free standing wood stove. It has a catalytic converter, I've never replaced the cat just clean it.
This season so far I've burned 1.5 cords , all hardwood. If I ever replaced my windows that would probably be cut in half. These windows were bad when installed and are only getting worse. I can feel a draft as I type this.The house is always warm with a gentle breeze.
I have 1800 Sqft single story. I only have a trailer furnace for emergency (I haven't used it in over ten years). I have a wood cook stove in the kitchen and an old timberline in the living room.
I burn about 1 face cord a week no matter what temp outside.
Other than the cold snap here the past few weeks been mild here burning maybe a cord and half a month. I'm averaging about 10 cord a year, and my house is about 2000 sq ft. Poorly insulated also. My stove will burn forever on green oak and go through seasoned wood like a fat kid with cake
None..... its stinking hot here 86F today (31 c). Cant wait for winter
I've been burning through it. Since the New Year we've been through about six face cord but we've had some fairly cold weather too. It also doesn't help that if it falls below 75 in the house the family complains that it's cold so the average temp is 80 plus. They wouldn't survive a winter of heating with anything other than wood.
I'm burning about a cart and a half per day or 1/2 to 2/3 of a bucket on my tractor (5' long bucket)
Been burning since Oct 1st, and have gone through 10 face (3.33 full cord).
Quote from: upsnake on January 19, 2015, 10:20:22 PM
Been burning since Oct 1st, and have gone through 10 face (3.33 full cord).
That seems pretty good! I think I've been roughly through the same amount and I didn't start burning until November.
So far this winter has been pretty mild, and I have been keeping the house cool, at 63.
I didn't have as good of year wood collecting as I would have liked, and only ended up with 6 full cord, so have been trying to be careful with usage this year.
My wife likes it warm... we are at 72 degrees for the most part. ::)
I cut and split maybe 2/3 of a ric (ric, face cord, 1/3 of a cord, whatever ya wanna call it) on Sunday, was cold when I got home so I turned up the heat, been 78-80f since then and will burn all that I cut in 4 days. Right on track, equates to 10.01 cords......
Have had the boiler lit since beginning of October, 1800 sq ft house kept @ 72, 1400 sq ft shop @ 55 and have burned just shy of 7 cords this year. Mostly oak, some ash & maple. As long as I can keep the wood relatively dry, seems to last pretty good.
This southerner is chiming in and lowering the ante. ;D I burn about 2 rows from my shed.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13036/fire_wood_shed_006.jpg)
That's about 1 cord per row. I stack it 16' long, 6' high and firewood length can vary from 12" to 24".
Bob