What Are Your Priorities?

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What Is Most Important To You?

  • Getting the most heat out of your stove (total usable BTUs per hour)

    Votes: 71 79.8%

  • Getting the most efficiency out of your wood (total usable BTUs per pound)

    Votes: 5 5.6%

  • Getting the longest burn time (at the possible expense of efficient, clean burns)

    Votes: 13 14.6%

  • Getting the cleanest burn (because you are a good neighbor)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    89
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Too many variables. Love a long burn to save wood. If the house is cold then I want heat now. Then there is the 30's we are supposed to have this coming week. That will be a long slow burn, but even that will be coals for a few hours before reload, as the Quad does it's job well. Either way the house stays warm.

Tony
 
im into burning clean. heat output is important also. this year we heated without using the furnace and have used about 2 and 3/4 cords so far. should end up somewhere about 3 or 3.5 when its over . i always bring in a bit extra to make sure i dont run out and think this year we have used more than ever due to colder weather and the 2nd stove .
 
Battenkiller said:
Prolly should have specified the main event, meaning the peak burning season. 75% of my wood gets burned Dec thru Feb, so that's where my thinking was.

Even in the shoulder season, though, I'm all about a real hot fire, just with less wood. Cherry and box elder make great shoulder season fires - short and intense. This spring I hope to be digging into some huge pine logs and carving bears and such out of them. My hope is that lots of pine scrap will end up disappearing in the stove in early April.
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We may burn 75% of the wood in December through February, but if I'm not heating the place properly, I can still be just as uncomfortable in the shoulder season as I could be in the winter. If I only base my stove need on the dead of winter then things won't work out for me.
 
I voted for burning clean, but my real priority is being comfortable. For most of our heating season, that means building several small fires, which probably isn't the cleanest.
 
I need another choice. My priority is to keep my home comfortable. I guess if I had to pick, it would be to
burn cleanly. I always try to burn so that there's little to no smoke coming out of the chimney after start-up.
Part of that is because I don't desire to clean the chimney(s) when it's not a dry summer day.
 
BrowningBAR said:
We may burn 75% of the wood in December through February, but if I'm not heating the place properly, I can still be just as uncomfortable in the shoulder season as I could be in the winter. If I only base my stove need on the dead of winter then things won't work out for me.
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To me, opinion polls are like elections. Your ideal choice is usually not on the ballot, but you end up voting anyway. ;-)
 
Battenkiller said:
BrowningBAR said:
We may burn 75% of the wood in December through February, but if I'm not heating the place properly, I can still be just as uncomfortable in the shoulder season as I could be in the winter. If I only base my stove need on the dead of winter then things won't work out for me.
Click to expand...

To me, opinion polls are like elections. Your ideal choice is usually not on the ballot, but you end up voting anyway. ;-)
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Can't vote on this one. None hold true for me. I need long hot burns with the ability to cleanly burn at lower temps for the shoulder season. I am seriously looking at the Defiant and Encore 2-in-1 stoves to replace the Intrepid and Vigilant when the time comes. I would go with a Woodstock, but none fit in either location due to the side door only load features.
 
It time for you to consider a conversion unit that give you heat through the whole house while not costing you an arm and a leg. I took my burner out of the oil boiler and replaced it with a pellet burner. I get all the heat I need plus the hot water I want at the cost of pellets about 2/3 of oil. Mine is a demand unit, that means heat to 70f when I want it but no more and down to 60f at night wihtouut the concern that my fire will go out or that I will be cold in the morning. You guys seem to think that a house between 95f and 55f is heating to the normal. Wake up you desierve better, time for a change. I have converted a oil unit to pellets and just as before I can keep my house at what ever temperature I want day or night, home or gone. This is the greatested thing that I have ever done to find a reasonable cost to heat my house and hot water.
 
Hoval said:
It time for you to consider a conversion unit that give you heat through the whole house while not costing you an arm and a leg. I took my burner out of the oil boiler and replaced it with a pellet burner. I get all the heat I need plus the hot water I want at the cost of pellets about 2/3 of oil. Mine is a demand unit, that means heat to 70f when I want it but no more and down to 60f at night wihtouut the concern that my fire will go out or that I will be cold in the morning. You guys seem to think that a house between 95f and 55f is heating to the normal. Wake up you desierve better, time for a change. I have converted a oil unit to pellets and just as before I can keep my house at what ever temperature I want day or night, home or gone. This is the greatested thing that I have ever done to find a reasonable cost to heat my house and hot water.
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I'll pass on being pellet dependent.
 
I know that you still live on the fourth floor walk up of an apartment building where the landlord pays for the heat but the rest of the world that is trying to get by, with a conforatable life, in a world where the cost are going up and we want to live normal life, think that we can find a different way to make it happen just might want to pay attention to how this works. I know that this may cost you a few beers friday night at the corner garden but if you are really interested in finding a way to cut you heating cost without giving up a conforable life style then talk to me. I am not the guy that thinks 55f is OK and I am not the guy that thinks it's getting a little warm at 95f, but I am the one that wants it to be where I set the thermostat be it 70f or 65f or 60f at night. You better set your priorities for your life as the trades with the devil may not be worth the cost confort.
 
Hoval said:
I know that you still live on the fourth floor walk up of an apartment building where the landlord pays for the heat but the rest of the world that is trying to get by, with a conforatable life, in a world where the cost are going up and we want to live normal life, think that we can find a different way to make it happen just might want to pay attention to how this works. I know that this may cost you a few beers friday night at the corner garden but if you are really interested in finding a way to cut you heating cost without giving up a conforable life style then talk to me. I am not the guy that thinks 55f is OK and I am not the guy that thinks it's getting a little warm at 95f, but I am the one that wants it to be where I set the thermostat be it 70f or 65f or 60f at night. You better set your priorities for your life as the trades with the devil may not be worth the cost confort.
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What the hell are you talking about?
 
I want all of those things, but with a too-small soapstone stove and living in a cold winter climate, getting the most heat I can get out of the stove outweighs everything else by a mile. That does mean sacrificing efficiency and burning shorter, hotter fires most of the time. I work out of a home office (how's 25 feet for a commute to work?), so frequent reloading is doable, if not the way I'd live ideally. I'm way out in the country with next-door neighbors a quarter mile away, so clean burning isn't for their sake but for chimney safety, though my set-up has so far given me no creosote issues at all. Overnight burns are out of the question, so have to use back-up oil heat for that.
 
my priority is keeping the family warm and trying to keep the bills paid. Self employed hubby has ups and downs on the income, so it's usually interesting! It's what you do with what you have.
 
I voted "B", but "B and D" would more accurately describe the fun and challenge of my woodburning interests.
"C" is easy to accomplish with all but the smallest stoves.
And by steadily adding every year to the insulation and solar heating capacity of my home, "A" has become a non-issue, and will become increasingly less of one.

Kudos to BK for a thoughtful poll.
 
I voted for heat cause the wood burner is all I have, now if I can figure out how to get the damn thing up to 700 I will be much happier.
 
I voted for "Getting the most efficiency out of your wood (total usable BTUs per pound)", but now that I see the results I wish I had voted for "Getting the longest burn time (at the possible expense of efficient, clean burns)" because it only has two votes, and I always like to support the underdog.
Is there any way I can change my vote?
 
BrowningBAR said:
What the hell are you talking about?
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Have to +1 that. Reminds me of a guy who asked me what the big deal was at one of the free concerts in the park with Dickey Betts on stage.
 
I am torn now because I do want to have a clean burn with lots of heat.
 
SolarAndWood said:
BrowningBAR said:
What the hell are you talking about?
Click to expand...

Have to +1 that. Reminds me of a guy who asked me what the big deal was at one of the free concerts in the park with Dickey Betts on stage.
Click to expand...
Is he willing to share? :cheese:
 
GAMMA RAY said:
I am torn now because I do want to have a clean burn with lots of heat.
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Vote Row "B". Usually the best choice in an election IMO.

For most stoves, good efficiency = cleaner burn + lotsa heat. 'Cept for those fool cat stoves that get the cleanest and most efficient burns at low heat outputs.
 
Gotta go with "all of the above" . . . figure if I'm burning efficiently and heating the home efficiently than I'm also being friendly to the environment, neighbors and currying favors with Al Gore . . . but sometimes things do not go perfectly well . . . and then in the shoulder season I may not be looking for those long, efficient burns . . .
 
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