Half-way home? Pile status?

I am curious what everyone considers the mid point of the heating season here in the North. Ground Hog Day (speakin' of Hotties, houw 'bout that Andie McDowell %-P ) Super Sunday? And have you used more or less wood than you anticipated?

I started with 5 rows of 18" 28' X 6' or -10 cord. I am half gone :wow: but I think that is partly OE pushing too much wood through.

How's everyone else stackin' up?

My pile is at least half gone. It is actually hard to tell, I occasionally add some wood acquired from roadside scrounging. I am sure I will run a bit short anyway. The end of the season (april and march) I usually end up burning what ever I can get my hands on just to make it through the season. I am definitely using less wood than last year. Mostly because I have an empty house most of the day.

Over half gone here. Getting concerned! Wife at home this winter uses a lot more.

Over half gone (albeit a fair percentage was 'old' wood insect damaged and dry rotted), more like 2/3 of 3.5 cords. Will have to pull from a secondary pile (also seasoned) farther away from the house.

My "pile" is a long ways from being half gone, but I've probably burned around 7 cords so far. I expect to use about 4 or 5 more when all is said and done. My relatively high consumption is a big combination of things, including:

1.) Wasted some wood figuring out how to operate the boiler;
2.) Didn't get around to insulating some unheated pipe runs until after New Years;
3.) Heated the greenhouse until last weekend.
4.) Keeping the house around 80 at all times.

Resolution of the first three has made a huge difference in our wood consumption. I suspect #4 is a lost cause. My wife keeps going out of her way to tell me how much she loves the new boiler, how it's already paid for itself, etc. I've got all this great WAF momentum going, that there's no way I'm jeopardizing it to save a cord or two of free wood. So my prediction is: 12 this year; 10 in subsequent years.

Have to keep up my rep here:

I've burned 2.12 cords as of three days ago against an expected 2.22 cords based on 3017 degree days for my heating season so far.

Of that, 1.79 cords went to space heating and the hot tub, while .33 cords went to heating domestic hot water. If the rest of the winter matches historical norms, I'll finish the season on April 15th at 4.13 cords total.

We dropped our thermostat settings to extend our wood supply....it's gonna be very close....I was picking through "next years" pile looking for stuff that may be good to go early... :red:

I've been burning wood for over thirty years and my answer to "do you have enough wood for this year" is almost always a nice loud laugh. That's one question I never have to ask myself. My WAG is 4.1976 to 5.3761 cords per year. If I ever build again I'd like to have a gassifier, but NO COMPUTER to control it.

Ok, so you Guess in 10 thousanths of a cord????

You mention degree days

Do you calculate your own data or is there a way to grab this off the web ?

I am a simple cheese head in Wisconsin and most formulas are a stretch for me to operate - I covet an ez interactive calculator or source!

I had 8.5 cords (maybe 8.48723637498493837839994847) when I started on Halloween. I have used 6+. If all you guys would just donate 3,4 pieces, well I won't even come close still. I'll be burning bad stuff by end of Feb.

Remember, only 10% of your donation will actually reach the burner.

Remember, only 10% of your donation will actually reach the burner.

I know, administrative costs, hauling fees, embezzlement, fuel surcharge, sales tax, use tax, gov. tax, state tax, osama tax, obama tax, Himary tax, this tax, that tax. Just to name a few. I know a bit off topic here, sorry.
Mike

Well, you will get a bigger refund on next years tax if you donate your old wood. Im pretty sure there is a line in there somewhere for wood donation. It may depend on the speicies you donate to me.

Be careful going down the road of obsession with this stuff. I use this site. Substitute your zip code or search for your city/state. There's an almanac part way down the left side. You can put in any date and it will show degree days since July 1.

I just log that number each week and subtract the previous week to get degree days for the week. I do a quick SQL query of my database to find out how many minutes my boiler was above 140 degrees. I can correlate that to wood consumption with a surprising degree of accuracy.

NoFossel: I appear to be defeated by my interpretation on the instructions - I put in a December 1 07 and get a number - then try 12.15.07 and I get a smaller number - then 12.31.07 and the number increases

1.23.08 give yet another that doesn't appear to come up on the bell curve

Is this number the degree day use of that exact day? How do you get a degree day for the week?

Couple of pics - the first one (if I got them in the right order) is the main page for wunderground. The Almanac link is on the left side, and I circled it in black. Clicking on it brings you to the next page, with the data. I circled the number that I use - 'since July 1 heating degree days'

If you want, I have a spreadsheet that has all my calculations in it. It has weekly historical average numbers for my location as well.

Oh no!!

Just when I thought I was going to have some free time, nofossil posted the http://www.wunderground.com link...

Ther road of obsession starts now

STOP! In the name of all that is good and holy, do not go down this road! Especially, don't even think about using my spreadsheet. Once you've reached that point, there's no hope. Serious negative WAF can ensue.

Too Late I have fallen into the abyss

But I do not appear to have the same three lines of data

Do you have as subscription to this site?

Welcome to the Boiler Room, Sting. I spent my formative years behind the Cheddar Curtain.

Your mother probably wouldn't be surprised to learn that first day in the new school, you start hanging around with the wrong crowd.

Thank-you Eric

My newbee ness is already showing!

sometimes Sting, building a Flux Capacitor would be easier than some of this stuff. Maybe we should set our boilers to 88C.

According to my buddy down the street ( I live 3 miles from WI border in IL) some of the data for Wisconsin inquiries is different due to the frozen tundra of some field.

No. Mine comes up on the weekly tab. Try that and see.

Howdy all. I've been reading the site for a few weeks absorbing the collected wisdom. The degree day calculation caught my eye as a good way to partially judge the raw amount of heating that needs to be planned for.

According to Wunderground the last year here in Tok Alaska had right around 15,000 degree days. I'm going to need a really big boiler aren't I?

I'm just buying a log cabin here, with the plan to put in a heated garage with a wood boiler soon.

Also.. if you go to the custom tab, you can enter any date range you want up to a year long and get a total of the degree days if you're looking for a quick and dirty number that you won't be correlating with actual wood burned on a given day.