how long can u go????

gonna see how far i can get this yr without putting on the old furnace. i know some guys never use anything but wood but id like to see how i can do last yr it was late dec when i had to break down and turn it on one morning. anyone else want to try? well go by the honer code im in central nj not really cold till dec around here. say where u are lets see who can go the furthest...

I'm in the same area. I'm hoping the furnace never kicks on.

Only time mine ran for any amount was last year when I was hunting(inlaws visit so wife doesn't burn much during that time) and when we went away on the holidays to visit family.

Mine will run a little when the temp drops below 10*...enough to burn 100 or so bucks worth or propane all winter. I can live with that.

ya we go away in feb to puerto rico each yr and i have to put it on then hopefully ill make it till then.

Unfortunately, mine has to run for two reasons- hot water and to heat one zone of my house- but the wife is coming around and there may be a nice little pellet stove in that zone within a year.....

I still kick mine on occasionally. Also if its above 40 I usually do not burn. The house gets too hot. Its not a big deal as I live in Wisconsin. Its usually either summer or winter with a sprinkling of spring and fall...

Just installed the 30-NC a couple weeks ago. I have used my Quad pellet stove for 3 yrs heating the house. Only use the furnace twice a yr to check to make sure it works.

It was 39* 2 nights ago and the 30 did a great job of heating the upstairs with just a small load. I am pretty sure I can make it till Dec before lighting the pellet stove.. I hope I dont have to, but I have 9 ton of pellets to burn. I went from $4,000 a yr (filling LP tank 3-4 times a yr) to having 50%-55% in my tank and in November it will be 2 yrs since it was filled. Even if I only use 2.5-3 ton of pellets. Iwill save 1-1.5 ton a yr (avg use was 4 ton a yr)

So in short, I will partake in the games.......

Sell the pellet and install another wood stove. Maybe an Englander 13 for consistency. You ain't burning unless you have more than one stove to tend to! :lol:

I have no problem running the furnace this time of year. It doesn't run much, but when it does, it stops before it cooks me out. The wood stove will not be loaded until the temps outside are consistently below 50F. If my gas bill stays below $30/mo., I'm fine with that.

I challenged myself to heat my house 100% with wood last year - succeeded. Oil burner only ran for DHW. Good luck with your attempt. This year my challenge is to reduce the amount of wood consumption - wasted a lot of BTU's last year learning the stove and using full loads to heat the house in October/November - way too much heat - going to try to burn much more efficiently this year. Cheers!

If my wife wasn't scared of the stove, we would be 100% wood heat. If I have to leave town for work on comes the electric heat.

The last time our furnace ran was in 1978.

HA! HA!

My wife was petrified of the idea of even HAVING something burning in the house, minus the oil burner... Her dad's place burned down when she was a kid, leaving her post-traumatic stressed about fire. She thought I was a complete idiot a few years ago when I told her I wanted to install it. She thought it was whimsical. I did it anyway, with her eyes rolling to the back of her head all along the way. The only reason I got away with it is that we have a 250 year old farmhouse that has icicles coming down off the ceiling during the winter!

Didn't take long for things to change, though, once she felt the heat coming off that thing. She now jump starts the thing each morning, and is the first to say "GET THAT THING GOING!!" when we get home after a long time away!

I try to soley heat with 100% wood as well, my furnace is natural gas and was installed new in 2008. I don't think it's been used very much since then. We go away occasionally in the winter season and will rely on the furnace, but overall we heat with wood. I'm glad NH brough up trying to be more efficient with wood consumption, this year I am looking to do the same.

This weekend I started the process of moving the seasoned wood in the backyard to the covered porch. After moving about a cord I realized I had much more 'shoulder' wood this year than I have had in the past. I'm hoping this will fit into the fuel consumption numbers for future reference. If I can use the shoulder wood (which is wood not counted as cord wood) deeper into the shoulder season and save maybe a months worth for March I think I can save maybe 3/4-1 cord of wood for the 24/7 burn times.
Can anyone else ring in on how they plan to use and burn this year

I'm getting close to firing up the stove to bump the inside temp. This weekend was the coldest it's been in New England this season. Night temps dipped to the high 30's low 40's. Inside temp dropped to 63 degrees both mornings and I was temped to fire up the stove but didn't. Doesn't take long to bump the temp with a little fire, but trying to hold off until the day time temps don't help heat the house.

The oil fired furnace supplies hot water so that runs daily. The only time I turn the forced hot water heat on is when temps are near 0 degrees to prevent freezing the pipes.

I did satisfy my fire needs by burning a few brush piles during the day though

I don't really care if and when the oil boiler kicks on . . . since it usually isn't on for long. Heck, I like the idea of having the oil boiler kick on once in a while just so I know it still works . . . which reminds me I do have to turn it on at some point this Fall to be sure it still works as the wife and I are hoping to go to the Carribean again this year for a week.

My boiler runs year round as it's what heats the domestic hot water. Also heats my garage. BUT for the house, I keep the T Stats set to 60* just in case and I keep the house at ~70-75* normally with the stove.

I tried to run my gas furnace yesterday. It won't light. Last year it was a thermostat issue and I didn't really worry about it. The way my wood furnace is connected to the ductwork, it's really not a good set and forget backup. There's a couple of things to take care of manually. This year, however, with the new stove, I suppose I would like it to work. I even bought gas.

Same idea as you. I just finished loading about 5 cord in the barn (exact same amount loaded as last year, and I had a little left over). I separated the shoulder season wood into a few different areas - 1 area of uglies (small pieces, irregular pieces, small rounds, etc.) that I'll burn first. A second area of normal splits, but lower BTU wood, mainly black cherry, white birch and red maple. I'll burn that wood until things get cold, but will hold onto a reasonable amount for spring shoulder season. The rest of the wood (and the majority of all wood) is red oak, with some beech, and black and yellow birch for the cold months.

We have a sunroom that faces south and once the windows are in, I can raise the house temp (downstairs) into the lower 70's (on sunny days) into late October, and into the high 60's even into early November. I plan to make heavy use of the solar heat this year - last year I didn't even bother putting in the windows until November because I was having way too much fun learning the stove and getting the house into the upper 70's/lower 80's. As it gets colder, I figure my shoulder season burning will start when temps are much cooler and it is an overcast day with no solar heat from the sunroom. Then, single nighttime fires as temps really start dropping to supplement the solar, and finally moving into more full time burning. I really think I'm going to save a significant amount of wood this year.

Cheers!

We think alike on a few fronts, it was nice to read that someone else does some of the same things.

You have quite a selection of wood, thats nice to get a sense of how you will prepare your season. I see you have somewhat mapped out what
you will use and what time of the season you will use it. My selection is limited to Maple, Red Oak, Ash and few pieces of leftover Black Cherry.
The shoulder season wood is all about the shorts, punks and uglies for me. I have only had morning burns the last couple days and with
the warmup coming I'll be back to normal again.

The Ash and Black Cherry will get me into the 24/7 part of the season and then the Red Oak will take over until early March. I should have enough
shoulder wood to get me into spring after that.

Last year I found that the only time I filled the firebox was to prepare for the overnight burn. I self tested 3/4 full firebox burns during the daytime
at 3/4 open air and stretched out between 5-6 hours down to large coals. That gave me about 68-72 degrees in most areas of the house. The year before
I would 100% refill the firebox and push the air to almost wide open and get alot more heat but at a loss of more wood and the load would not last
any longer than 5-6 hours, using the same hardwoods.

This year I may be even more experimental and try some different things to offset wood use.

I am in Ocean County NJ and my boiler only ran for 4 days last year and that was because we went on a short vacation. This year, hopefully it will not run at all.

I lost already,wife kicked on the furnace already since my exhaust pipe is not hooked up,shewants it unhooked in the summer so the stove can be pushed back out of the way.Last year it was Christmas day I let it go out so I could clean the pipe from the stove into the chimney and the chimney itself,other than that it only ran 4 other times on particularly cold days.I burn a lot of box elder,popler etc in shoulder season and a lot of beech in the cold part of the year