How Much Wood Will I Need This Winter???

Hard to say for sure but most people burn anywhere from 3-5 cord. If I were you I'd get at least 4 cord, any left overs can be burned the following year. It will also be a challenge finding a firewood dealer that sells dry wood so buyer beware.

I burn 24/7 from Oct-Apr heating 2000 sq ft home that is insulated pretty well and has new windows, last 6 years I averaged a little over 3 cords per year.

Agree take a good hard look at what your buyong bring an axe and split one open to get the best idea.
Figure your going to need more than you think, trust me on that. Learning curve, big stove, next year you can put a number on it. And again i agree, if you dont burn it this year, it only gets better for the next. (to a point anyways) good luck, from what i hear your going to love that stove.

Also will depend on how you plan to heat the house in the "shoulder season" months of Oct, Nov, April and May. We like keeping the house toasty in those milder months, and that adds a cord or two to the tab.

It is like judging how much wood you need for a campfire. Collect what you think you will need, then collect three times more. It never hurts to have more than you will need, as long as you have the space to store. As long as you store it well, the wood won't spoil.

I would say Todd's estimate is on the money -- most folks seem to burn between 3-5 cords. I think in my two-story, 1,800 square foot Cape I burn 5-6 cords of wood, but I burn from September/October to April/May as I start and end in the shoulder season since I have a problem burning oil when it's $3 and change per gallon. As Sisu said though . . . get more than you think you need . . . I see far more people in March or April complaining about running out of firewood than I see people complaining that they have too much wood . . . hell . . . I can't think of a single person who has complained that they have too much wood left over at the end of the heating season -- it's just the start of next year's stash.

Gotta think too, that if the wood you're burning isn't dry, you'll possibly use more than you would if it were dry.
If you can't get dry wood for this season, use the stuff you have already, and keep the new stuff for next year. Then, get more for the following year, if you have room to store it.
You'll be a much happier camper. :coolsmile:
Oh, and ditto on the 3-5 cord average. Some use quite a bit more than that.

Sorry, but I'm here to say you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of heating that home 75% with only that 30. You are going to need an additional stove. Period. And that steam heating system ain't gonna contribute one blessed BTU until the temp inside the house drops to 55º. How could it? It won't even be running until then.

I'm currently heating a ~1650-1700 sqft 2 story brick house built in the late 1940's (only insulation is in our attic and a recently remodeled kitchen). I am using a Quadrafire 4100i and can heat our entire house. There is only 1 room upstairs that requires a small heater to keep it at 70 degrees - this is on the other side of the house which is also our newborns room - so we want to keep steady heat in there.

The rest of the house stays between 68-70 with only wood heat. We use around 4 cord per year (most of it is oak and cherry)...I try to get 5 cord per year and have some left over.

Hope that helps!

Burnit, I have a simular situation here, an 1886 colonial farmhouse with 2,000 sq ft, no insulated walls on the 2nd floor and two layers of r-15 in the attic. I heat 90% with wood and supplement with the gas furnace when it dips below 58 overnight. I do have a drafty home, or I should say less drafty than when I got here 4 years ago. I heat with an Jotul Oslo, house temps hover around 66- 72 in prime heating season (24 hr burns) Last year I burned a mixture of Ash, Maple and Red Oak. I used 4.5 cords of primary wood and maybe just under 1 cord of crap wood in the two shoulder seasons. The wood was 2 yr old seasoned (just a dash of salt and pepper). Good luck!

I burn from late September to early May and typically burn around 5 full cords. This year I think I burned a little more but I shuffled a bunch of wood around during the season so I lost track. The upcoming season I plan to track a little closer.

House is just shy of 2k(2 story) with newer windows and average insulation.

One of the things I used to calculate my first year's wood supply was to look at my annual oil consumption and compare it with what other people had burned, pre-wood stove, and how much wood it took to supplant that. If you get those figures, and can work out a reasonable facsimile of yours, and multiply that by .75, you'll have a rough number to shoot for. I can understand your not wanting to overinvest in seasoned wood that you won't need for this year, and I think this approach will get you in the ball park.

I kept my thermostat (before the boiler died--remind me to bore you w/the details sometime) in the hearth room set at about 62, and that worked out very well. When the house gets much below that, I pass some sort of critical-mass number past which it is a slow and annoying process to try to get the house out of the chill-zone. Above that, it is a relatively quick process to get the heat back up. As you become a more efficient burner, you'll find ways to keep it up there with just the stove most of the time.

BB is, as as he so tediously often is, correct. That learning curve is expensive, wood-wise. I cringe to think how much prime wood I went through trying to burn by the manual. Noobie dues.

Get six cords. If you have a newborn then your wife is going to want the house warm. You will go through a lot of wood, especially if your structure is not insulated. If there is any way you can blow in insulation, it would be well worth it. Use the tax credits to offset the cost. Any wood you don't use, save for next year and it will be well seasoned.

You can (almost) never have enough wood, even if it's just for peace of mind knowing you have more than enough. It doesn't spoil, so you can carry over to next year. I have enough wood for at least the next 3 years because you never know what kind of a winter it will be.

BurnIt13 said:

So my Englander 30 is finally up and running thanks to this forum! My wood for next year is seasoning in my back yard so I'll have to buy some firewood for this upcoming season.

I have a 1600 square foot two-story colonial that was built in 1900. Suprisingly, its not that drafty at all..probably due to the new doors and windows. The attic has r-38 insulation. I'm finding many of the rooms don't have insulation on the exterior walls, maybe 20% actually do. The house holds its heat fairly well. At 0 degree temps it will lose about 1.5-2 degrees per hour if left unheated. I live in central Massachusetts and temps are usually in the low teens at night and 30ish during the day.

Okay, now that all the science is out of the way....how much do you expect me to go through? I plan to heat 75+ percent with wood and supplement the rest with the existing steam system. The existing system will probably just be set at 55 or so. I aim to keep the house temp at 70 degrees or a tad warmer (we'll have a newborn).

Thanks!

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Good luck on your first year of burning wood. I expect you will learn fast and with the added insulation, new doors and new windows you may very well be surprised that you can heat more of that house than you expect to.

One thing that concerns me is your statement of your wood drying out back now but that you'll have to buy some firewood yet. I would not expect any wood you buy will be any drier than the wood you already have seasoning out back! If you do have to buy wood then I'd suggest buying it ASAP because it no doubt will not be dry, no matter what the wood seller says.

A newborn! Congratulations! I don't think you'll have problems keeping that young one really warm. 1600 sq ft is not that big of a space to heat and the size of your firebox should set you up really nice. I agree with others to have 3-5 cord on hand and you may burn more in your first year. But burning more in your first year is only a possibility and not a certain thing. It all depends upon you and how good your wood is. If it is good hardwood to give lots of heat you will be fine. If it is oak then it very well may not be dry enough to burn good.

Whatever you do, please check your chimney monthly in your first year of burning. It only takes a few minutes to check and not much longer to clean. It pays to keep close watch of things like this if only for peace of mind.

BurnIt13 said:

Battenkiller said:

Sorry, but I'm here to say you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of heating that home 75% with only that 30. You are going to need an additional stove. Period. And that steam heating system ain't gonna contribute one blessed BTU until the temp inside the house drops to 55º. How could it? It won't even be running until then.

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Think so? With a 3.5 cubic foot firebox rated to heat more than 2200sq.ft. I would think it would do the job. Plus its not like I'm expecting the furthest room to be 78 degrees while its -20 out. During average temperatures I expect it will heat my home just fine. The steam system wont kick on unless we're away too long and can't feed the fire, that way it will at least keep the house at a minimum temp. Or maybe I'll program it to run at 68 or so when we wake up, then turn off. I expect 75% of my heating costs will be from wood.

My parents have a Quadrafire 4000i at the furthest end of thier 2000sq.ft. 90ft long ranch. It heats it just fine. Its only 2.5 cubic feet.

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Sorry, I didn't mean to word that so strongly. You'll find out soon enough. I hope I'm wrong for your sake. I'm just going on the difficultly of heating two floors, and the lack of insulation in most of the house. Radiant heaters heat the walls that they are exposed to. Without insulation, that heat radiates across the space inside the wall and gets conducted to the outside where the wind simply whisks it away. I found my basement got much warmer after I put in 2x4 walls and 3 1/2" of glass. Now the stove (smaller than yours) does heat the whole place up, but my upstairs is also well insulated. Regardless, I have to keep the basement in the upper 80s to get the upstairs to stay stable at about 72º. I couldn't live down there with that kind of heat, but some (older farts like Dennis) love it. Makes his women folk disrobe, so I can't blame him. ;-P

Whatever, it is surely worth doing and you will save a bundle. I'd aim for six cord to start. Nothing in the world worse than having to quit in March because you ran out.

I like the get 6 cords idea.Also many folks complain that when the dealer says seasoned it's turns out to be not seasoned enough.So if you can afford it get 1or 2 pallets of bio-bricks to mix in with the not so seasoned enough wood.The mixture will make for a good burn since the bio-bricks burn extra hot.