Any of you guys burn wood too?

I very much like the idea. We've been considering getting a wood burning device ourselves. Primarily for the noise factor.

As we've gotten older, our tolerance for the noise from things like the fans in the pellet stove has gotten lower.

Our pellet stove has pretty quiet fans considering some other models I've heard, but still...

Have a old Atlanta Stove works wood stove about three feet from the Hestia in the shop. Nice in the early morning to just push a button to get the Hestia going and hour or so latter leisurely get the wood stove going. Have lot of 4 plus year old wood stored in grain bins to burn when the temps get below zero.

Wood stoves are great for someone who doesn't go very far and enjoys constantly feeding it. What appealed most to be about the pellet stove was the ability to just 'let it do it's thing'.

MacGyver said:

Wood stoves are great for someone who doesn't go very far and enjoys constantly feeding it. What appealed most to be about the pellet stove was the ability to just 'let it do it's thing'.

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The ability light and leave for the weekend is great. Just coming home to a warm house after a long day is great instead of the chore of fire building.

I just don't want the mess of cord wood in the house. Been there, done that in another house.

My parents have burned 2 wood stoves in their house for 30 years. One in the basement an one in the main living space. This year, the main living space stove was replaced with a pellet as they are over 70 and it's too much work for 2 wood stoves. Now they love the pellet for it's quick easy heat and the wood stove for it's constant even heat. They use both every day.

Lets see, two saws, a splitter, bench mount chain sharpener, handful wedges, ropes, trailer,chaps, gloves and a thing or to move the piles. $$$$

I do like the smell of Birch burning

I switched from wood to pellets.. One thing I miss is spending my day out in the woods with the farmall H and my saw, just working all day.

We have a vintage Vermont Castings Resolute in the 'back house' section of our connected floor plan New England farmhouse, that is at the far end of the 'middle house' where our pellet stove lives and we mostly hang out.

We usually heat the back house with an electric space heater, but when we get cold snaps like we've had this week we fire up the wood stove, and it keeps that room warm as well as helps the pellet stove keep the rest of the farm house comfy in the low 70's temps. We burn maybe a cord over the winter.

Use to fell / buck / haul / split / stack etc from off our 7 acre wood lot, but now leave that to the young guys who do fire wood for a living ! Like Chrisnow86, a part of me misses working in the woods, as well as the satisfaction of practical self-sufficiency, but my back sure doesn't !

Having the wood stove has saved us over several multi-day winter power outages in the past, like the X-mas before last, being able to cook on it and hang out in a warm place. We have a gen set now, but prior to that it kept the water pipes from freezing during the single digit outside temps, and we had the cats and the fish aquarium in front of it to keep them warm and comfy too !

Back-up heat redundancy is always a good thing, IMO, especially the more rural you live and the more prone to power outages your area is. 'Murphy is with us' too often to 100% count on the genset, or the main furnace, or the pellet stove, or the electric heater, or the...... not to crap out when you most need it.

Harman P38 in basement and a wood burning Valcourt FP10 EPA fireplace in upstairs Great Room. Free wood -- which requires cutting, splitting & seasoning.
I heat 3800 square feet primarily with geothermal.
However when the temps get below 20 the P38 gets fired up keeping the basement (1800 square feet walkout) around 73-75 with minimal run-time on the geo.
When I fire up the FP10 the geo pretty much doesn't run at all - it keeps the upstairs 70-74 degrees - even in single digit temps,
It's nice to have alternatives when it comes to heating,.

For my primary hear I use the Harman pellet stove. When we are home for the day, I also use the Napoleon wood stove. Also have oil hot water finned tube throughout the house in three zones. Also a few electric space heaters. Nice to have diversity in hearing options.

Bioburner said:

Lets see, two saws, a splitter, bench mount chain sharpener, handful wedges, ropes, trailer,chaps, gloves and a thing or to move the piles. $$$$

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Not necessarily. The only thing I have in your list that I use once a year is a thing to move piles, which is a wheelbarrow. I have some of the other things in your list but they are not used for firewood.

mepellet said:

Not necessarily. The only thing I have in your list that I use once a year is a thing to move piles, which is a wheelbarrow. I have some of the other things in your list but they are not used for firewood.

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You have a herd of beavers that cut your wood?

Jason845845 said:

About 10 feet from my pellet stove is my fireplace, which currently is capped off and has electric logs in the firebox.

Sometimes I look at it and think to myself "I need to put a wood stove in that sumbitch."

I have a free source of wood, but would have to haul it.

Am I crazy?

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I have never owned a wood stove only a pellet stove but I would love to try to burn wood but my house is so small it isn't practical. I think it is great to do both, because if pellets get expensive or hard to get, you can do the wood as a backup.

Ironically, I have never liked built-in fireplaces in homes because they only seem to heat that room and also only nearby the fireplace, as if they are so poor designed (just for cosmetics) and not functional-all the heat goes up the flue. Plus, where I live they increase your assessment on a house because they think youre house is more valuable with a fireplace.

I would think it would be worth while to put an insert in the fireplace (with a blower) so you can do wood or even a pellet insert to do more pellets. (why not- you can do whatever you want) Or do a gas insert (propane or natural) for variety or if the electric went out could be used as a backup. Although natural gas is evil and would ring up the bill on a B vent

Bioburner said:

You have a herd of beavers that cut your wood?

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Nope. Firewood seller.

mepellet said:

Nope. Firewood seller.

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Decent firewood picked up is now around $140 a cord in this area.

IF I had to pick between one or the other it would be a pellet stove without question at this point in the game and after many years of heating solely with wood. That said, I am a huge fan of heating with wood also. It's the processing and all of the fun involved with that is what makes me favor the 40 lb. bags all day, any day!

It is very nice (and smart) to have another option for heat or many options. No one can argue with that fact. I will argue with the fact that CSS Cut, Stack, Splitting wood is WORK and it IS NOT FREE even if you have standing dead and downed trees laying outside your back door.

I will always burn wood or have the ability to do so. I will state first hand that unless you have years worth of seasoned wood stock piled you are fighting a losing battle and you WILL get your azz kicked big time, every season. You also need to have plenty of time to dedicate to add to and maintain your wood supply. Wood heat is great heat but it requires a lot of WORK, time, and some cash lay out even for the "free wood."

I would look into a nice condition used stove in the spring or summer if interested and give it a shot if you are interested. You are thinking correctly in using it for when you are around and it would save some pellet use and money. Key is I would consider wood heat as a second option unless you can get 12 hour burn times like I can in the old OWB. Throw some in in the AM and some more in in the PM. Otherwise look at that stove with some disdain because that nice little gadget just became your new dog house that you are chained to if you expect to heat 100% with them. Also it is like having a new born child. When that puppy is hungry you WILL get up at all hours of the night cold and pissed off to feed it. Period! At one point I pulled the couch closer and had a quick pile between me and the fire box. Back when I was young, dumb, and single. I went with the OWB so I was only tethered twice a day and could get away for work and not come home to a cold house.

I am all for burning wood as I have said but it's not as wonderful as many would lead you to believe. It is a cheap source of heat even if you buy cord wood but prepared to get screwed there unless you can play the game well. A cord of wood here is $225 if you pick it up. The same price as pellets per ton so that is a wash. Bags are still less work in that scenario too.

Jason845845 said:

Talk me out of burning wood! Please!

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I burned wood for WAAAAAY too long. Built a chimney and put a stove in around 35 years ago.
When wood was 40 a cord, it was great. Years ago, I switched to coal.
Wow. What a difference. I used to go through about 4-5 cord a year.
I would get 4' stuff, cut it in half and split it.
You end picking up that same piece of wood that goes into your stove about a million times.
And then you have all the bark and crap to pick up. then worry about ants...
blah blah blah.... I could put about 2 cord in the basement, that pretty much eats up
a lot of the space. Then... in January you get to go outside, and pick up all that ice cold wood,
and transfer it to the basement... when it's like 12° out.. of course ,most of that time,
you have the basement door open to the outside air....

The coal, is in bags, similar to pellets, I stack up the entire winter's supply against one wall.
I have the whole basement free...

The wood stove, when/if you get up at 4am for a nature call.. you know you have to feed
the wood stove... which goes from 450° when fully stoked, to crap in 6 hours...

The coal stove stays the same temp, 600° all day. Fill it twice a day..
Downside... you empty your ash pan every day (mine anyways).
Coal stoves are just massive heat machines. steady big heat... but dusty/dirty.

A few years ago I got a pellet stove for my shop, to replace a kerosene heater.
LOVE the pellets..
Not as much heat obviously as the coal stove, but not needed out there.
Much cleaner than either wood stove, or coal.

Someone mentioned the firewood being fairly cheap. There, perhaps. Here, not so much..
Seasoned wood, which no one has right now, is ~300. Green in the spring is 240ish.

If you get your wood for free, it's the best deal going.
If you have to buy your wood, and are not particularly excited about doing a lot of work,
then pellets are the way to go...

If you need any more convincing.. read this again....

Dan

I run a 3-legged mix of solid fuel to supplement my oil-fired HW baseboards.

In my living room I have an Avalon fireplace insert with a convection blower. Works well enough but draws room air so you can feel the perimeter of the house get cooler when you run it, particularly if you run it hard. Some yard re-arranging this year left my buying cordwood late in the season - what a mistake that was. The couple of guys with seasoned wood in my area rocketed up to $600/cord - that's right, that number starts with a SIX. Wound up buying semi-seasoned wood that was still more than I expected to pay, but it's here. Due partly to burning less-than-perfectly-dry wood, and also to make best use of what storage I have, I supplemented that cord of hardwood with a ton of giant pellets - this year that's Logik-E Energy logs (3 pounders). Works reasonably well but wish I'd been able to get my preferred Orford Compressed Logs - they light more easily due to the shape and perhaps because of that they seemed to burn much cleaner - the Logik-Es are pretty smoky and require a very low draft/low fire to keep them from going right up the chimney.

Directly below the Avalon I have the Maxx-M in a finished basement, installed last year to replace a very nice enameled stove that would not draft in it's tight room with a 35' chimney. Still angling slowly toward ducting it's output upstairs where I really want it.

I don't mind tending the insert while hanging around upstairs, it runs reasonably through the night if I load up with a large log and a giant pellet. I will continue trying to get some help making it draw from the cleanout in the fireplace instead of the room air, and it is a little loud for watching TV in the same room. I like the pellet stove's nice steady "load and forget, for a while anyway" but the 40lb bags do get a little old bringing in 6 at a time every couple-three days - my pallets live right outside the basement door - gets a little tricky to time the "pellet run" with the weather but that's mostly about how I'm storing them.

Cheers,
- Jeff