How many cords?

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belties

Member
Nov 27, 2011
7
Between toasty and warm
Thanks so much for the great info on this site! You folks sure love your wood stoves! Glad to be a member here, this is my first post.

I'm sure this topic has been discussed here before. I apologize if it's redundant, but I am really curious.

I've got a two story 2100 sq ft home, early 1900's, new windows, not too drafty for an old home. Just bought our first indoor woodstove, a VC CAT Defiant. We have an aging outdoor boiler for severe weather if we need to supplement the Defiant. I'm hoping we can get by most of the winter without it.

My question is: with dry, seasoned wood, how many cords will we burn if we run this stove Oct-May?
 
Lots of variables.
Your location, normal winter temps, type of wood etc.
your location is not one that helps : "Between toasty and warm". We are all there :)
State and a nearby city helps. Probably folks here, near your location & could help with wood quantities.
 
I burn 7/24s for 3 months and just enough to keep house warm another 2 months 1200 sq. ft. house 4 cords a season give or take a little.


So 4 to 5 cords would be a ballpark guess.


Good Luck and welcome
 
I usually fall in the 4-5 cord a year range heating nearly 2K from the end of Sept-April/May. This year has been pretty mild to this point so I'm hoping to fall in the 4 cord range.
 
We have supplemental heaters for rooms below the convective flow of the woodstove. ('Hard to make the warm air go downhill!) 'Very open multi-level house. Non cat Firelight heats about 2000 feet. New windows, new stucco, and a "pant-load" of new attic insulation: 3.0 to 3.5 cords. East of Boulder, CO, we get some very cold weather, but only for a few days at a time. Minus 15 is REALLY cold. Often, down-slope winds will heat it to the 50,s, sometimes low 60s during the day in the dead of winter, and it will get down to about 30 on those nights. Average Dec-Feb day: 48 for a high, 22 for a low? Guessing.

Cheers
 
I don't know where you live, but I guess four cords. Is there a prize for the right guess?
 
Wood Duck said:
I don't know where you live, but I guess four cords. Is there a prize for the right guess?

I guess somewhere between where Frostbit and crew live . . . and Hell.

Oh yeah . . . most folks figure on 3-5 cords depending on insulation, house lay out, how often they burn, how they burn, type of stove, etc.
 
We keep over 2200 sqft (2 story) of living space between 63-67* (comfortable for us) burning between late Oct until spring with about 3 1/2 cords. Haven't started burning 24/7 yet this year but expect we will be soon... last year I think that started mid November. Our home is decently insulated, about 10 years old. We burn the central heat (oil) a 3-4 days to boost the temperature in the morning when needed if extremely cold outside and

No way I can guess your burn without knowing your home or how warm you want to keep it either... if we wanted to keep our home at 70* or higher we would burn a lot more wood for example...
 
I'll go with Waulie's estimate.
 
His question made a lot more cents than some
 
cptoneleg said:
His question made a lot more cents than some

Of course it does... I think I even asked it when I started burning.

Then I didn't realize just how many variables there are to figure it out. But then again, when you read the threads on "how many cords did you burn this year" you start to see a trend that it seems a large number of folks fall in the 3-5 cord range with a few folks falling outside of that (both above and below). So I guess of 4 cords is generically 'safe' (especially if you give yourself a +/- 1 cord variance).
 
One cord more than you will ever use again after your first year with the stove.

Pony up. Tell what state you are in. I already know. Nobody can steal your credit card number based on what state you live in. :lol:

Edit: And Wood Duck is right. The OP is in four cord country.
 
With my old insert we would go through 5-5.5 cords, with the Osburn we did about 4 last year. A few weeks ago I blew an additional 10" of insulation in the attic so hopefully this year will be even less.

One thing that makes a difference on how much wood you use is the type of wood you burn. I only burn lodgepole since it is what we have available, if I had 4 cords of that super dense ironwood I would probably be burning a lot less for the same amount of heat.
 
5 - 5 1/2 cord a year to heat about 2000 sq. ft. from the basement to the top floor with an old cast stove in the basement. Basement stays about 80-85º, main and second floor stay about 70-72º day and night (thanks to a massive two-flue interior masonry chimney) except in the coldest months, at which time we wear sweaters and grumble a lot. I refuse to use a single KWH of electric baseboard heat, and our January and February electric bills are the lowest ones of the year. A lot more wood than some, but it is an older stove and basements (even well-insulated ones like mine) are tough to get maximum heat out of.

BTW I live in upstate NY.
 
I plan on a cord a month.
For us temps get consistant 40s~ for high somewhere thanksgiving to Dec 15th usually.. 3
Meaning I am burn 24/7 from there until sometime in march so I prepare for a cord a month ...
With an extra cord for shoulder season... Which starts usually in Oct and again late march-april...
Soooo I try to have about 5 on hand for a long winter but usually use 3.5-4
 
Last season, 5-1/2 cords (roughly 10 before the new cat stove)
mid Oct thru imid Apr. 24/7
2400 sq ft +/-
How many cord:? varies with the many variables.
 
Man, when I read 4-5 cords I keep thinking to myself, how much time does it take to ccs that!?!?! And.... How many minivan trips do I have to make to scrounge that....
 
I hope it isn't a fancy minivan. Be careful you don't beat it up scrounging!

Also, wood is pretty heavy, especially green wood. Don't bust your suspension overloading it!

-SF
 
Hankjones said:
Man, when I read 4-5 cords I keep thinking to myself, how much time does it take to ccs that!?!?! And.... How many minivan trips do I have to make to scrounge that....

Were I you, I might be scanning local "bargain news" for used pickups.
And researching serious chainsaw and wood-splitting tools/procedures.
And contacting local arborists re using my yard as a log dump. (Highly advised.)
 
SlyFerret said:
I hope it isn't a fancy minivan. Be careful you don't beat it up scrounging!

Also, wood is pretty heavy, especially green wood. Don't bust your suspension overloading it!

-SF

Yep, advise I could have used last year. It's an awful nice minivan and last year was my first year burning. I ran around picking up wood where I could from Craigslist. I thought i hit the mother load with some elm, loaded as much as I could stuff in the minivan. I think I tweaked the suspension a bit cause it didn't feel the same after that.... The sad part was when I haul that home, I couldn't for the life of me hand split that elm.
 
Hankjones said:
SlyFerret said:
I hope it isn't a fancy minivan. Be careful you don't beat it up scrounging!

Also, wood is pretty heavy, especially green wood. Don't bust your suspension overloading it!

-SF

Yep, advise I could have used last year. It's an awful nice minivan and last year was my first year burning. I ran around picking up wood where I could from Craigslist. I thought i hit the mother load with some elm, loaded as much as I could stuff in the minivan. I think I tweaked the suspension a bit cause it didn't feel the same after that.... The sad part was when I haul that home, I couldn't for the life of me hand split that elm.

Time for a trailer?
or
Maybe get a log length load delivered.
Got to get ahead to have time for the wood to dry a year or more.
Hard to do if you just get enough for this season (during the season) & then the wood still needs to season a year.
 
bogydave said:
Hankjones said:
SlyFerret said:
I hope it isn't a fancy minivan. Be careful you don't beat it up scrounging!

Also, wood is pretty heavy, especially green wood. Don't bust your suspension overloading it!

-SF

Yep, advise I could have used last year. It's an awful nice minivan and last year was my first year burning. I ran around picking up wood where I could from Craigslist. I thought i hit the mother load with some elm, loaded as much as I could stuff in the minivan. I think I tweaked the suspension a bit cause it didn't feel the same after that.... The sad part was when I haul that home, I couldn't for the life of me hand split that elm.

Time for a trailer?
or
Maybe get a log length load delivered.
Got to get ahead to have time for the wood to dry a year or more.
Hard to do if you just get enough for this season (during the season) & then the wood still needs to season a year.

I'm in the burbs, not sure how things would look with logs on the lawn :)
I think I'm up to three cords CSS right now, figured I would use a cord a year, we'll see... I got some dry pine, maple and hickory.
 
Thank you all, I've got a much better idea now how much it's gonna take! I really enjoy the discussions here, I've got a lot to learn and look forward learning it.

I'm in Ohio just south of Lake Erie, so I'm "neighbors" to some of you in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

I'm a young homeschooling mom to 6 great kids, and together we've been cutting, splitting and stockpiling as much seasoned wood we can, saving the green stuff for later years. I keep the woodstove humming and the homefires burning while my farmer husband brings the big logs home for the outdoor boiler. Been mild here, and the boiler has yet to be fired up this year.

The woodstove is new to me, and so far it's been a wonderful experience. It's nice to see all the kids gathered in front of it each morning while I fry up breakfast. It's a great place to warm the toes after milking the cow.

Wood Duck- You may have the closest answer, you're possibly the closest neighbor who responded! Hmm, not sure what prize, but I make a wonderful cherry pie! "Course, you'll have to travel westward and pick it up! :)

Waulie- 4.266667? If each log is 6 inches and I split them two ways each, exactly how many splits would it take to equal this many cords??? ;-)

Stay warm!
 
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