How much wood are you using?

[VCBurner]

As I sit here and watch my perfect cat fire with slow ghost flames lifting off the logs in the window I wonder: why didn't I do this years ago?

But my question was: How much wood are you going through? The Dutchwest is burning through a little less than two totes of firewood in a 24 hour period. I can fit logs up to 21 inches in the plastic totes about 40 pounds of wood I would think. Not bad for heating the house not less than 70f. and not more than 76f. usually in the hallway just outside the stove room.

 

[soupy1957]

Burning every day since October 1st (non-Cat stove) but only started burning ALL day and part of the night about two weeks ago. Haven't gone thru a half cord of wood yet.

-Soupy1957

 

[pen]

I go by my max. In the COLDEST weather, when I am working my englander 30 to the max, I'll hit 1 face cord of wood in a week. But that doesn't happen often.

I would expect that you should use much more to heat your home to 76 °C (169°F ) ! I don't know how you can stand it that hot Even my heat loving / worthless cat would leave by then.

pen

 

[Dune]

How big is your tote? Out here on Cape Cod, a tote holds a hundred pounds of codfish and twenty pounds of ice. I figure a wheel barrow full of hardwood per 24 hour once real winter gets here. Could be less this year since I about doubled my attic insulation last year. Might try some shrink plastic on the windows this year. Putting 2" foam against the rim joists this week. Burned a cord of pine and 1/2 a face cord of oak so far, no other heat source.

 

[steeltowninwv]

way too much..i have an older 1981 shenandoah insert...was happy with fuel consumption until yesterday....i took the old beast apart and replaced a blower and cleaned it up..in the meantime tmps got to 63 in the house...man after i got it back up i had to run it hard to get temps up to 74 75.......loaded it down for the night and got up this morning and temps were 69 in the house....slamming the wood in it again this morning....6 degrees outside right now...and its eating some wood

 

[Backwoods Savage]

As I sit here and watch my perfect cat fire with slow ghost flames lifting off the logs in the window I wonder: why didn't I do this years ago?

But my question was: How much wood are you going through? The Dutchwest is burning through a little less than two totes of firewood in a 24 hour period. I can fit logs up to 21 inches in the plastic totes about 40 pounds of wood I would think. Not bad for heating the house not less than 70 °C and not more than 76 °C usually in the hallway just outside the stove room.

Wow! 70 C and 76 C is too hot even for me! Perhaps you meant F rather than C?!

We're not going through a big quantity of wood yet. Looks like we soon will be though.

 

[Hanko]

Now thats it finally cold out, 12 in SE michigan today. average 1 face cord every ten days in the house, 1 face cord every two weeks in the shop

 

[cre73]

As someone else stated about a wheel barrow full, equal to about three armloads a day.

 

[maxed_out]

+1 about a wheel barrel (3cuft) per day give or take. if its warmer say north of 30 degrees we'd do about a half a wb.

 

[jharkin]

When its cranking in the deep winter we are going though about one medium size split (16-18in long, 4-6in dia) an hour. So figure on 3 packed full loads a day, which with our 2cu ft firebox would equal a little under a face cord a week if we heated 24/7.

But remember this is all relative. I'm heating 1400 ft2 of a very old marginally insulated house with low ceilings in southern New England. If I had modern levels of insulation I'd probably cut that down by a third or more. Or even better somebody in a temperate state like Virginia might heat a 3000ft McMansion with less wood. OTOH in Alaska or northern Canada you might use a lot more than me for a smaller house.

 

[ironpony]

my wood (pellets) comes in 40lb bags
I burn 1.5 bags per day
empty the ash once a week when cleaning the stove
keeps the house 68 where we like it
someday I will burn real wood
stacking the pellets is time consuming

 

[Battenkiller]

Hard to say, I haven't been paying attention. This is the first year I started burning in October. Use was very light at first (fire every other day) and picked up to 24/7 now. Maybe a cord so far, maybe less?

During cold snaps like this I have to run my stove hot and hard because it is in the basement. Woke up to a fairly warm stove (250º), but the place had dropped 6º overnight so I'm feeding her fast as she'll eat. Which is about a face cord a week (bucked 18-20"). Stove runs all day between 600-750º at that burn rate. Probably hard on the stove, but I don't have much into it so I chose to run it hard and stay warm rather than baby it. I wish I could burn less, but it'd be a losing battle with my install. No place to put a decent heater upstairs so this is what I have to deal with. Or pay $500/month extra for electric heat.

With spare parts hard to find, I'm thinking I should buy a couple extra Vigilants in good shape and put them in storage. I paid $300 for this one, two more would surely last me the rest of my life.

 

[Battenkiller]

stacking the pellets is time consuming

Can't you just leave them in the bag? %-P

 

[BrotherBart]

stacking the pellets is time consuming

Can't you just leave them in the bag? %-P

+

It is the splitting that is REALLY hard.

 

[shawneyboy]

stacking the pellets is time consuming

Can't you just leave them in the bag? %-P

+

It is the splitting that is REALLY hard.

Naw not that hard, slip channel plier and Steak knife.

 

[ckarotka]

I've been burnin since mid Oct. Gradually buring longer and hotter. So far I estimate under a half cord. That is changing quickly. All this years supply was cut and split for a smaller stove than the 13 so it's like kindling in there. Also since the second stove is now functioning correctly, and a new baby, I get the look from the wife about lighting two fires all the time. She likes 74 better than 68 in the backroom. I might have to dip into to next years stash in March.

 

[Battenkiller]

Naw not that hard, slip channel plier and Steak knife.

Dang! I was just about to close a deal on my new line of hydraulic pellet splitters. If word gets out there's a simpler way, I'll lose my shirt.

BTW do you really have to split them? You can get a longer burn if they are left in the round, just takes longer to season them.

 

[Battenkiller]

I've been burnin since mid Oct. So far I estimate under a half cord.

Half a cord in six weeks? Man, CK, you're using less wood that the Fireview guys. Are you lighting that wood on fire or just letting it decompose in there? :-/

 

[thewoodlands]

As I sit here and watch my perfect cat fire with slow ghost flames lifting off the logs in the window I wonder: why didn't I do this years ago?

But my question was: How much wood are you going through? The Dutchwest is burning through a little less than two totes of firewood in a 24 hour period. I can fit logs up to 21 inches in the plastic totes about 40 pounds of wood I would think. Not bad for heating the house not less than 70 °C and not more than 76 °C usually in the hallway just outside the stove room.

After pushing in some cherry tonight it will make a total of just over one cord pushed in, so after burning the cherry it will be 1.22 cords. We start bringing in the sugar maple tonight also.

The sugar maple is stacked so that it calculates out to be 0.32 of a cord.


zap

 

[basswidow]

I have a tupperware bin about the size of a cooler. It usually takes me 3 arm loads to fill it. It will last me 24 hours.

Things were mild here in Oct/Nov. We are burning 24/7 now! Might be thru alittle more than 2 face cords. Started with 9 full cords and hope to carry over some. We've averaged 4-5 cords per year.

I am gonna try my best not to nag the wife. She loves to load it and run full throttle. Since she is the primary burner during the week, she sets the pace for consumption.

 

[FLINT]

yes, we too love our new stove ! We have a woodstock keystone - the fireviews little brother.

Each row in my wood shed is exactly 1/2 cord and we've burned 3/4 of one stack. let me do the math here. So that would be a little over 1/3 cord burned since mid october


We fill up the little wood box 3 times each day, and easily get 8 hours out of each load with plenty of coals (sometimes need to let them burn down some).

6 deg yesterday morning, 7 deg this morning, with highs in the 20s and our house has been around 70 in the morning and 77 in the evening.

 

[PapaDave]

stacking the pellets is time consuming

Can't you just leave them in the bag? %-P

Glad I'm done with the coffee for the day, or I'd be cleaning it up right now.
Struck me as quite humorous.

 

[Slow1]

So far this year I've burned .71 cord (best estimate)
December average is just under 16 splits/day however the last few days have been pulling that up as I've been feeding 20-22 splits/day. (I count about 770 splits/cord average so far this year).

We've been keeping the house a bit warmer this year than last year and our wood burn shows it. Burning different wood too - last year was mostly oak but this year I have some nice black birch but also have burned a lot of pine (early season) and poplar. All wood this year I think is on average lower MC than last year - overall too many variables to make fair consumption comparisons.

 

[Mad Tom]

Two loads in an average size wheelbarrow last me about 6 days. Weekend I burn a bit more due to being home.

 

[ckarotka]

I've been burnin since mid Oct. So far I estimate under a half cord.

Half a cord in six weeks? Man, CK, you're using less wood that the Fireview guys. Are you lighting that wood on fire or just letting it decompose in there? :-/

We had some pretty mild temps through Nov. I'm burning 5 days a week also. This past week the furnace ran 9hrs 45min. This week so far 8hrs 5min and that's where it stops cuz I'm home now till Tuesday.