Heating With Wood ?

[logbutcher]

Are you heating your house with wood ?
We're trying for legislation for tax credits for wood heat here in Maine, and need some info on how and why people use wood for heating, or not.

1. What % of your heat is with any kind of wood fuel - stoves, outdoor boilers, furnace ?
   ( Note: if your gas/oil/electric thermostat is kept open, that's not  "heating with wood " 24/7)

2. Where do get wood ?  Cut it. Buy it. Harvest your own from woodlots.

3. Wood species used and %'s of each kind.

4. Kind of wood heater--likes and dislikes.

5. If you don't heat using wood 100%, or for entertainment or supplement, then why ?
   For example: wood is polluting, dirty, too much work, don't have the time, etc....

Thanks. 8)

[SwampDonkey]

1. 90 % by wood with a wood burning furnace, 10 % with stove oil in an oil furnace. Thermostat on the oil furnace kept on 60 F when away.

2. Buy it cut, split and delivered. I rank it up to dry until September.

3. rock maple (60 %), beech (30 %), yellow birch (10 %), sometimes less than 1% white ash mixed in. Depends on the run of wood from supplier.

4. wood furnace by Enterprice/Fawcett in Sackville, NB. They make great stoves, can't complain.

5. Got all the time in the world. Only takes 3 or 4 part days to stow away my winter's wood. Can't beat wood heat. ;D

[OneWithWood]

1. 95+% wood.  Less than 5% LPG.  In the transition months where we only need a little   heat early morning we use the LPG and save the wood for the colder days.

2.  The wood is predominantly from our woodlot.  Occasionally someone close by will have a harvest and want tops removed which I will do for the firewood if I do not have wood to work up from our property.

3.  White oak, red oak, hard maple, beech, hickory.  The percentage depends on what I am working with.

4.  Outdoor wood boiler by Central Boiler.  Just installed a larger unit to replace a CB we had for ten years.  We heat our house, domestic H2O and two greenhouses.  We have been very happy with Central Boiler.

5.  We use wood because we do not like to waste anything and we believe it is environmentaly more friendly than commercial power.

[sawguy21]

OWW, wood burning appliances are banned in homes in many areas here because of smoke particulate in the air. Older ones are grandfathered but they cannot be replaced with another.

[OneWithWood]

They have floated that same idea here but hopefully it won't fly.  I can see restrictions in towns and additions but I live in the sticks with no one to bother.  If you fire the stove properly there is very little particulate and a good deal less pollution than from oil or gas.  The difference is that wood smoke is often more visable, especially when the fire is not maintained properly.  When our stove is up to temp there is no smoke, just a waviness to the air above the stack.

[ohsoloco]

1. I heat 100% with a wood stove.  House is fitted with electric baseboards, but I'm too stubborn to use them, even if it's just to take the chill off.  Never been away from the house long enough to use them.

2. I harvest all of the dead wood out of my woodlot that I can.  There's only about 3-3.5 acres of woods, so in the two years I've been there I have that pretty well cleaned up.  The rest comes from slabs from the sawmill, as well as friends that do tree removals. 

3. A little over half of the wood I burn is oak, and the rest is typically ash, cherry, walnut, and maple. 

4.  Kodiak wood stove.  The only thing I don't care for about my stove is that the wood gets put in the stove sideways.  If the stove is up to temp I usually have to use welding gloves to load wood.  I'm heating an 816 sq. ft. house and full basement....stove is in the basement. 

[KENROD]

1 100% wood heat
2 cut my own wood usually tops or downed trees
3 oak, hickery, black locust, osage orange % varies
4 Outdoor boiler I really like it, fill it once or twice a day depending on temp.

[crtreedude]

Nope, don't heat with wood, don't heat with gas or oil. Don't heat with nothing.

Don't need heat. Just thought you all would like to know  ;D - but I am going to use wood in my smoker!

[thurlow]

Nope, don't heat with wood, don't heat with gas or oil. Don't heat with nothing.
Don't need heat. 

Go ahead and rub it in; that's alright. 8)  Won't be long 'til we'll be just as warm..........if you can believe the former "next president of the United States". ;D

[RSteiner]

We have been heating our house with only wood for the past 32 winters.  We currently do not have any other heating system which has created some problem getting house insurance.  Most insurance companys want to know that your pipes are not going to freeze should the fire go out.

I gather my fire wood from a number of different places.  In the past 5 years 75% is from tops and other stems left from a logging operation on my neighbors land.  The other 25% came from thinning and culling some tof the same neighbors 350 acres.  I do have a 20 acre woodlot that I have not cut on for a while.

We use three wood stoves.  There is an older box type stove in the basement which burns most of the time, a Consolidated Duchwest in the mudroom for when the weather gets real cold, and an old Glenwood Model K kitchen stove that warms us and cooks our food durning the cold months.  I like the stoves we have.

60% of the wood we burn is maple, mostly soft, 30% is red oak, and the rest is a mixture of ash, birch both white and black, a little cherry and some beach.  I like burning wood it has a special warmth and I like cuting and splitting it too.

Randy

[crtreedude]

Now, no one would think that I would be smug down here about our lack of snow - surely not!  :

[SwampDonkey]

Maybe when one of them volcanoes starts grow'n down there for a few thousand years you'll have some snow. After all, Africa has snow and a glacier.  ;D

[OneWithWood]

Keep it up Fred and you may find yourself dodging lava and red hot boulders  :D

[crtreedude]

Arenal Volcano will get Harold before it gets me...

Give ole Arenal another hundred years and it just might have snow!

[rebocardo]

1. 100% with wood heat. I do turn on a fan to circulate it in the house.
2. tree jobs - I cut it.
3. 80% oak, sweetgum, cedar, pretty much anything other then pine.
4. wood stove - all likes

[breederman]

100% with wood,cut from thinnings,tops, and stuff from our 20 acre lot.type varies but probably about equal amounts of soft maple, hard[sugar] maple,cherry,and oak[mostly white but some red] also some thorn apple and other junk in the fall and spring when all we need is a little warm up.
  It is all burned in a Kalamazoo forced hot air wood/oil/coal furnace in the basement. I like the feel of wood heat and I like to cut firewood so it kind of works out! ;D  The furnace may not be as efficiant as some of the fancier ones, but then there has been no maintanence costs in 20 years other than new stove pipes every 2 or 3 years. No heat exchanger to rot etc.
  The only real disadvantage is that if we do need to be away we have to get someone to fix the fire if there is a danger of pipes freezing.  Now that the kids are all out of the house we may need to get the oil burner serviced to give us more flexability in going away but it has not been a problem yet.

[logbutcher]

We have been heating our house with only wood for the past 32 winters.  We currently do not have any other heating system which has created some problem getting house insurance.  Most insurance companys want to know that your pipes are not going to freeze should the fire go out.
60% of the wood we burn is maple, mostly soft, 30% is red oak, and the rest is a mixture of ash, birch both white and black, a little cherry and some beach.  I like burning wood it has a special warmth and I like cuting and splitting it too.
Randy

Randy:
We had the same problem in the early 80's doing a complete renovation from camp to home in northern Massachusetts. Solution: put in a simple thru-the-wall gas heater (call it your "furnace"). Empire brands are around $500. plus the LP tank. Or, what we did, install electric baseboard units around the house since you have power. That's the easiest and least expensive. Then you tell Mr. Insirance that you have "electric heating". We never used it.
Home insurance for us was a needed must: fire, theft, liability. Shop way around for the best deals.
Where are you ?

[Engineer]

Are you heating your house with wood ?
We're trying for legislation for tax credits for wood heat here in Maine, and need some info on how and why people use wood for heating, or not.

1. What % of your heat is with any kind of wood fuel - stoves, outdoor boilers, furnace ?

Current home - maybe 1% wood heat.  We rarely use the fireplace.
New home - 100% wood heat, plus hot water.

2. Where do get wood ?  Cut it. Buy it. Harvest your own from woodlots.

Have about 40 acres on three properties to cut from, plus slabs from sawmill. 

3. Wood species used and %'s of each kind.

Right now, 50% pine and 50% mixed hardwoods.  Likely to stay that way, most hardwoods will be maple, oak or cherry.

4. Kind of wood heater--likes and dislikes.

Central Boiler Dual-Fuel Classic 5648.   I haven't found anything yet that I dislike about it.

5. If you don't heat using wood 100%, or for entertainment or supplement, then why ?

Current house is oil fired, the fireplace is inefficient and dirty and only really gets used on a frosty winter weekend.

[thecfarm]

 
1.  I would guess at 80% of the time we burn wood.

2. I cut it off from my land.Right now I'm clearing an old pasture off.

3. About 80% white maple,rest is ash,oak.I try to leave the oak when I am clearing
    the pasture.The deer like them,but sometimes they are in the way or it's not a
    good one.

4.We have a old cook stove that we keep going all winter and a Asley stove in the
    basement.This is where I burn all my slabs.We only use this on really cold
    days.I've been sawing hemlock and that
    makes for some good coals.Much better than white pine.

5. We leave the house all day and will put the oil thomstat up a little.If we didn't have
    oil we would get by just fine with the cook stove.Just would be a little cool when
    we get home.

   

[Paul_H]

1. We burn wood for 70-80% of our heat but get lazy in late Spring and don't use it as much.

2. We cut firewood from mill slabs and pulp logs and other logging waste.I still have about 40 m3 of logs left out back that will get cut and split this winter and burned next Fall.

3. 95% Douglas Fir with a bit of Birch,Alder and Red Cedar thrown in the mix but I'd burn DanG near anything if I had to.

4. We have a Valley Comfort wood/electric forced air.The first one I had bought was an add on to a oil furnace back in 1984.They are efficient and pass BC's enviromental laws.
I wanted forced air so as to keep the mess out in the mud room just in the back door.We like ours.

[sharp edge]

1) 99+%  25yrs. in this 2,000 sqft house. Heating with wood has been a family tradition for the last 10,000 years with us.
2) Woodlot- Been drying the wood standing up(taking a ring of bark off and cutting the center out) using a pickaruine and chainsawhorse to make wood cutting easier.
3)White pine slabs, Pople, White birch, Red maple, Iron wood,& Oak witch smokes the most.
4) Mendota fireplace & a big airduct under the slab of the house witch acts as a heat sink.

In the shop, I use a barrel wood stove.  I'm tring to get wood vingar off the chinmey.
That I will use in the garden next summer as a pesticide & fertilizer

To get wood vingar from China it would cost about $30 a quart.

[beenthere]

"wood vinegar"   
Have not heard of making it off the chimney, but only from charcoal. Do you use the creosote that builds up in the chimney when burning green wood?  And didn't know it was a pesticide or fertilizer. Interesting.

[Paul_H]

What is wood vinegar? I've never heard of it

[sharp edge]

Its new to me too. You would have to look it up with a search engine to fine more about it . Must people think that stuf running down the chimmy is some kind of poison, but the people in the far east realy like it.

[Paul_H]

Pardon my manners,I see it's your 3rd post.

Welcome to the forum sharp edge!

[SwampDonkey]

welcome aboard sharp edge. If you get to make your wood vinegar, maybe you can share pictures of the process and post them on the board. Info on posting photos is on the 'Behind the Forum' board. I've never heard of wood vinegar either, although I take all my ashes and soot to the garden as long as I don't have to wade deep snow.  ;D


cheers 

[sharp edge]

Thanks for the welcome.I'm not to experience on computers, but will do more of it when temp. drops to 20 below this winter.

[Onthesauk]

About 70%   We've got forced air propane heat that will come on in the morning to initially warm the house but otherwise pretty much all wood stove.

Wood comes from our own 40 acres.  Blowdowns, thinning, clearing and cleanup will keep me in wood for the rest of my lifetime.

Lots of alder just because we have more of that then anything else.  Balance is big leaf maple, birch and a little wild cherry and cedar.

Hearthstone, slightly undersized for the house.  Have just started the process of trying to find a slightly larger stove.  This one doesn't quite keep up when the temps get down below freezing.

[thurlow]

Hey sharp edge; glad to see someone else with an M-14;  we're a distinct minority.  All these swingers (my wife's at work, so I can type that; she monitors my computer usage and wouldn't want me hanging out with a bunch of swingers) and band saw guys think they're so DaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnG smart  ;D 8)).

Have a Phoenix Hearthstone, backed up with natural gas forced air furnace.  Only burn wood about 4 months per year; house gets too hot with it the rest of the year.  Burn mostly red oak, although 3 or 4 years ago, the county cleared a right-of-way just down the road.  Land owner asked if I wanted the trees........all black locust;  lasted me the better part of 2 years;  almost no ash; cleanest/hottest  burning wood I've ever used.

[solodan]

1. 95% wood. 5% LPG. We don't keep the thermostat on or even the pilot lit for that matter, but every once in awhile we need to help get the cold parts of the house back up to temp.

2. We use slabs from the sawmill, and buy timber from the USFS for $10/cord, cut it and split it right there in the woods.

3. 80% ponderosa, sugar pine, lodgepole,cedar,and white fir. 20% black oak.

4. Lopi airtight with a blower.

5. Heating with wood is definately more work, but IMHO it is the best heat. There is nothing like coming in from a winter's day and feeling the warmth of the wood heat. 8) Wood is free or almost free, it is a renewable resource and if you use your stove corectly, it burns effeciently and clean.

[SwampDonkey]

OWW, wood burning appliances are banned in homes in many areas here because of smoke particulate in the air. Older ones are grandfathered but they cannot be replaced with another.

I don't get it. It came from the air or ground to begin with and it's going back where it came from. No net gain or loss. It's renewable. We're just recycling it and using the heat from it. It was a living organism that packaged it and it wasn't buried several hundred or more feet in the earth.  8)

[pigman]

About 80% wood and the rest electric. Cheap rates here in coal country. ;D
Use some slabs from mill and the rest blow downs from farm.
Mostly red oak, white ash, cherry and anything else I find.
Use an old cheap airtight stove that I need to replace.
Wood heat keeps me warm without breaking the bank. When I was in the piggy business, I did not burn any wood because I didn't have time to fool with the wood and I had money to pay the electric bill.

band saw guys ..... they're so DaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnG smart  ;D 8)).

Thank you thurlow, the compliment was not necessary, but was appreciated. ;D



Bob

[tcsmpsi]

Wood is the primary heat source.  I would reasonably speculate that we use 85-90% wood.  We use some propane (coldest times) and have small electrics in the bathrooms.  Been that way for 30 yrs or so.  

The largest percentage of wood is red oak (65-70%) and the rest a mixture of pines and other hardwoods.  Mostly, we burn whatever works out the best at the time.

Cut most of it in various places/circumstances.  Trade (various things/services) for split red oak.  Cut some from our place.  Things will change now that we have a mill.
In the future, we will be burning most our own wood.  Will still barter for firewood from time to time when someone needs a little help.

Been running an old used parlor stove for about the last 20 yrs, and do most cooking on it when it is being used.   Makes the best split pea soup ( I make about 4 gals at a time) and beans (make about 4 gals of them at a time) and cornbread.

I like the stove just fine.  It is not as 'efficient' as some, I reckon.  But, a lot of them you cant cook on either.

We don't have to adhere to any regulations out here with regard to the stove.

[Ianab]

Code Select Expand

I don't get it. It came from the air or ground to begin with and it's going back where it came from. No net gain or loss. It's renewable. We're just recycling it and using the heat from it. It was a living organism that packaged it and it wasn't buried several hundred or more feet in the earth.

Thats true, but in some areas the smoke from house fires gets trapped in the cold temperature inversion in the winter. Christchurch City is one such place, the smog there is one of the worlds worst, mostly because of heating fires on cold calm nights. Yes eventualy the carbon cycle sorts things out, but in some locations it's pretty toxic in the short term.  :-[

Ian

[SwampDonkey]

On real cold mornings here along the river valley I see a haze of wood smoke. I just take a big breath and think of all the warm soles this cold morning enjoying their wood heat.  ;D

[tcsmpsi]

I had never considered clean wood smoke as particularly toxic, Ian.  But then I had not considered the specific situation you describe.  Though, certainly, I know there are certain toxins in most things.

In all honesty, I had not considered NZ has having any smog of any sort.  In fact, candidly, for many years, I had been keeping NZ as kind of an 'ace in the hole' as a possible retreat.   ;)

Now look what you've gone and done.  :(   :D

[Onthesauk]

We've got a problem up our valley when you get an "inversion layer."  Smoke just sits over town, almost like driving into a fog bank sometimes late at night.  But it's a timber town and most everyone has burned wood forever.

Big problem in my mind is the number of people who don't plan ahead.  They're out, starting in September, looking for firewood for this winter.  So with all the green, wet wood being burned, bound to be too much smoke.

[SwampDonkey]

There are some folks that cut wood all the time, not aways firewood, but they'll wait till the last minute to cut firewood for themselves and are always burning green. There was a family who lived up the road from grandfather, and they always went with the hand sled in the snow of winter to cut green wood. Bring it in and put it on the oven door and try the burn the rest. One of them kids grew up and always said there's going to be lots of seasoned wood here from now on. And his yard and sheds are always full of stacked firewood all seasoned. My uncle has kitchen stove wood enough for 2 or 3 years ahead stacked in the garage.

[wolfden]

Hi There!

We heat 100% with wood using a wood stove hooked into what used to be a conventional fireplace.  All wood is harvested from our woodlot in the form of rock maple, 40%, yellow birch, 40% and the balance is some white ash and beech.  We have LPG for hot water and cooking, but use it for heat only when away from home for extended periods or extreme cold.  Hope this helps!

Polly and Jim
at Wolfden

[jgoodhart]

We heat with about 90% with wood. We use some electric in the fall, spring and when it's down right cold out. Wood it consumed in a Mahoning outside boiler. Wood is 75% oak and the rest is maple, poplar and pine. I have 35 acres wood lot that supplies most of the wood.

[Michigan Mike]

We heat about  95% with wood we use a couple of small electric heaters for spot warming.The house faces due south and I built it with lots of glass on that side so we get quite a bit of help from the sun. We have a Consolidated Dutch west stove and I have been pretty happy with its performance. We use  oak cherry  elm and other hardwoods.  I cut and split  it myself some off our property and some from other places usually storm damaged trees.

[Max sawdust]

95 % with wood.  (No thermostat on the main level) 5% LP (Basement with thermostat set to 55F to keep pipes from freezing.  This winter plan on putting a wood burner in the basement, and only using the furnace when we leave town (Rarely)

Use wood from own land or from logging jobs or slabs from the saw mill. 

80% Red Oak/ 15% Paper Birch/ 5% Hard and soft maple.  (Going to try some Aspen)

Consider wood a clean renewable resource with that is carbon neutral 8)  Besides nothing feels better than wood heat, and how else would you dry your boots and coats ;)

Have a high efficiency Hearthstone Mansfield soapstone stove, plan on adding a Jotel box stove.

I think that answers all the questions :
Max

[logbutcher]

 :P THX GUYS !!

[beenthere]

.....................
Consider wood a clean renewable resource with that is carbon neutral 8)  ............

What does this mean?  If wood is kept as wood, carbon is locked up until it either burns or rots.....then the carbon is released. (from what I understand). 
What does carbon neutral mean?  I'd like to learn here....

[Riles]

Wood releases carbon whether it burns or decays. It's neutral in the sense that it's just giving back the carbon it's been storing in tree form. It's renewable because somebody's always growing more. Fossil fuels add carbon to the atmosphere because the assumption is no more is being made.

[beenthere]

That helps 'splain it. Thanks Riles..

[Don_Papenburg]

Somebody is making more 'cause some old dry wells are now producing again . Heard it on a radio station not long ago.

[Max sawdust]

Riles explained what I meant.  ;)   
Hmmmm.
I guess one could look at fossil fuel as just trees and plants that did not release their carbon back into the atmosphere through fire or rot yet. So it just has a real real long carbon cycle.  I would not disagree with Don either, I would think more is being made as marshes decay, it just takes a real long time :D

Not saying the current global warming is solely caused by humans, but we know that carbon in the atmosphere is a factor to global warming, so theoretically if we humans reduce the amount being released it should slow global warming.

Since we have not figured out how to make oil or stop plants from rotting, we might as well burn them and get the benefit of heat, while saving our fossil fuels since they are stored carbon already.

Or we could green treat all the trees so they don't rot and release carbon :D  Dat would be good for the planet hey ???
max

[Weekend_Sawyer]

1. 50% I have an oil furnace and my house has 2 zones. one zone does not get turned on ever. I only turn up the back zone before we go to bed. so mabe a little more than 50%

2. Mostly my back yard. Some from our property in WV.

3. Whatever is dead. Oak, Pine, Gum, Maple. I only use a little Yellow Poplar, not enough bang for your buck.

4. I have a real nice woodstove at the far end of my living room. A fireplace in the middle of the front half of the house, divides the living room and kitchen/dining room, woodstove in the basement and one in the workshop.

I love to cut, split, stack and burn wood. I love the smell of a fresh split log. I love building a fire and the smell of the smoke especally when you throw a chunk of pine on the fire.

Jon

[Riles]

There's supposed to be a guy in MO that has figured out how to make oil. He can take all sorts of things as the input, but it becomes economical (or close, I guess) when it's used to recycle materials. He's using turkey carcasses from the processing plant. I think he still has a few bugs to work out, but the process basically works.

[Riles]

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2004-01-22-kantor_x.htm

[Don_Papenburg]

I read that one of the land grant univercities was working on makeing oil out of pressurizing  pig poop  and heating it.

[pigman]

Don, I bet that process would smell real good. smiley_airfreshener



Bob

[Tom]

Reheated pig poop. .............   Now that's thinking outside of the box.

[pigman]

With this idea I firmly believe that thinking out of the box would be better than sniffing in the box. ;D


Bob

[Tom]

It sounds like something that a new, cityboy, college grad would come up with and the farmer would say, "you wanta do wha-a-a--at?"

[tcsmpsi]

Evidently, them ol' boys (or girls) haven't been up to their knees in pig poop very often.

[Don_Papenburg]

They got to be over their heads in pig poop now.

So if biodiesel smells like fries as it burns , then think what following the pig poop powered pickup .............wheeuhhh