How much wood have you burned this year?

Shoot, I bet we've burned close to 7 cords of wood this year! I mean it seems that the wood burning season here has been a heck of a long one. I don't care, because the Heat Pump nor the Propane Furnace has not come on a single time the entire time. hehehe I do have to admit that we had to buy a lot of our wood because we just didn't have enough seasoned yet. We have about 5 cords seasoning right now for next year and hope to get a lot more soon. Hubby is taking a little break this week because he's not use to all of this bucking and splitting stuff.......but he's doing a great job.

Prada, using that much wood you definitely need to look at buying a hydraulic splitter. That alone will take a huge portion of the heavy work away from this job. Besides, it will save the body for doing other things!

^Yup!...the day I got my American gas splitter was just as memorable as losing my virginity again.

Savage, I agree it made a memorable experience, but to compare the two! Geeze. No comparison. That splitter sure hit the spot. lol

The difference is you always know how to turn on a splitter. :coolgrin:

Yes we know he needs a good splitter and from the cost of wood during this winter, we could have almost bought one for the same money but then again it would not have been seasoned wood ready to burn. There's a guy that lives near us that is trying to get him to buy his Timberwolf for $1800 but it doesn't have the Vertical option on it and hubby was kind of thinking he would like that A good splitter sure isn't cheap is it.
Our Buck non cat puts out great heat and we don't even use the blower. We are heating quite a bit of sq ft and it's doing a wonderful job, but it eats the wood. BeGreen once mentioned it might be wise for us to install a damper but hubby says he's not cutting his draft down because he doesn't want the worry of creosote. He says we will just feed our hungry heat baring Buck as much as it wants. lol

Prada, in my humble opinion $1800 is way too much to pay for a wood splitter.

I also agree that the vertical option is a necessity. I simply can not see lifting those logs one more time to get it up onto the splitting block. Then with the bigger logs, you either need a big table to set some splits on or else let some drop down only to have to pick back up again.

Our splitter is only a 20 ton and in all the years we've used it we've found exactly one log it would not go through. Naturally that was a gnarly knotty elm. It did not bother me in the least to throw it on the brush pile. I also sit while splitting! May not be recommended by manufacturers or those worrying about being sued, but it works for me. I use and old milk crate and have a hot seat on top of that. I simply roll the logs onto the splitting blocks instead of lifting them. Almost every log I do that one handed too! There are some tricks for using the splitter and speeding things up too. You may have seen a couple of our pictures in the Wood Shed part of the forum.

Also, I'm not too hot on dampers in the pipe. Much easier to clean without them for sure. Most of today's stoves should work great without the damper. Usually if there is too much draft there is a flaw in the controls of the stove or a leak somewhere. And this comes from a fellow who has used dampers in some of our older stoves. They had their place once upon a time.

Yes I did see your pics in the Wood Shed and was very impressed. Was your splitter purchased or home made? I don't know much about splitters but Hubby had mentioned to me that he hated to spend money on one that is gonna break down on him and that won't get the job done and he acted like the Timberwolf was a good one but the particular model of the one that the guy is selling doesn't have that vertical option.
Can you recommend a good one that wouldn't cost us so much?

Prada,
7 full cords sounds like a lot of wood for 1 season. I don't even go through half that. I don't remember your set up, but it sounds like your wasting some heat up your stack. You may need to cut back the air some, install a damper to slow the draft down, or even tweak the air control so it shuts down more. You may like how clean your chimney is now, but it may be just as clean burning less wood more efficiently and It may also save some hard work processing wood.

We started in October and have used up 4 cords. I think we'll use another cord before the season ends.

Hi Todd (that was my dads nickname) lol
I understand what you are saying but this Buck stove eats wood like crazy. We have gone over it with a fine tooth comb and can find no air leaks. We have replaced the door seals and have done the dollar bill test and adjusted the door etc. and all. We don't even use the ash pan and have it covered up on the bottom of the stove floor with fire brick. We just have an overdraft I guess and BeGreen had suggested adding a damper but Hubby hates to. I do have to say that we started burning full time back in Oct and we are still burning at least one fire a day to take the chill off for the day.
We don't burn with the air wide open or anything either We start it up with it wide open and then crank it down in a couple of steps till it's about a quarter open and leave it alone. If we put it all the way shut it starts smoldering and we don't like that. It's just the nature of this stove I guess.

NOTICE: I stand corrected! lol Hubby just told me that we burned close to 6 cords not 7 as I had stated. lol

Thanks Prada.

We bought that splitter quite a long time ago at Quality Farm & Fleet, which was basically the same thing as Tractor Supply. Then Tractor Supply did end up buying out QF&F;. They still sell the same unit that we have. Of course there have been a few changes but it is still basically the same unit.

The one they sell now is a 22 ton whereas ours is a 20 ton. I think the wheels are not quite as wide which would be better for getting around in some spots. Most of the rest is like ours. So the new one is 2 ton pressure more.

I would hate to guess how many cords of wood ours has split but there have been plenty because I've split for several folks in addition to our needs plus we even give some wood away to needy folks. But I can say that our splitter has been 100% trouble free. We've never repaired anything.

I see the cost of this splitter is $1099. At the time we bought ours, it was out of season and they had a sale going. We were looking at them one day and the manager happened to be there and came up to talk to us. I knew zero about them at the time but was slightly interested (because I could no longer handle splitting by hand). I think the sale price was $150 off or something like that. After a bit, I told the guy I'd buy one that day if he would reduce the price a bit. He asked what I had in mind and I told him if he'd come down another hundred that I would buy it. He did! We've never been sorry.

To also pick up on Todd's posting, you probably knew all of this but I will also add that when we put in the new Fireview stove our fuel needs were cut just about in half and possibly more. With our old stove we burned up to 7 cords per year but more like a 6 cord average or slightly above. Last year we burned just under 3 cords. It looks like this year will be a tad over 3 cords. I know with the winter we had this year that we would have went through 7 cords with our old stove.

Good luck.

Thank you for all your time Dennis. So that would probably be a Huskee then at TSC?

That's the one Prada. Only difference is it is 22 ton vs. mine at 20 ton. Same motor, same pump.

We've hit 4 cords and still burning compared to 3 last year. However, the winter was much colder this year and we kept the house much warmer. We ran 75-80 versus 68-75 last year. Last year I'd wake up to 58-62 degree temps and this year it was never less than 65 - so much nicer. We occasionally supplemented last year with 2 space heaters while we were away and did not do that this year. Much better wood and better planning ahead. I'd crank the heat up to 80 plus before bed and before we were leaving for extended periods, then load up the stove again. That way it would be in the mid-60's 8-10 hours later. Sadly we burned thru the cord I thought I would have as a start on next year. Oh well. I'm looking to put of 6-8 cords for next season.

But I bet you are glad you had that extra wood Caber! I do that sometimes. I used to burn 3 months a year during Dec, Jan, and Feb. Now I burn when its cold :lol: I try to never run out of wood. That said, I am not really years ahead either. I have 3 cord set aside and need to split 2 more for this winter. I probably have another 2 face cords of this years wood yet. I was about 5.5 cords at the start of winter and have gone thru 4.5 to 5 this year is my best guess.

I sure was. Goal for this Spring - get a year + head. 3 year plan - 2 -3 years ahead.

Gee, its good to know I'm not the only anal person out there keeping track of how much wood used (5.25 cord this year) and on hand for future use (9 cord... money in the bank!)

first year burning, I figure to use less in coming seasons as I learn to burn more efficiently and have better seasoned wood.

6 full (18 face). And still counting. 4 of oak and 2 of ash,elm and maple.

Expect that by season's end, I will have burned about 5 cords (mostly cherry & oak).

Rich

I have burned about 3 cords. This is my first year, so there is a learning curve. I need to get better at filling the firebox and getting longer burns so that the stove doesnt go out as much. I also need to work on air flow in my 2800' colonial. Too many walls. All in all, I figure I saved $500, and thats a conservative estimate and net of all costs of wood. I'll save more next year. Even better, I enjoy burning so much that I really don't care about the savings any more. Makes the winter go by faster...

Ditto!

Can I ask how long everyone has been burning for this year? I started 24/7 burning at the beginning of October, and will probably end in May with an estimated 9.5 cord burnt. That seems high, but thats burning wood 24/7 for 8 months. If I was only burning Nov- March, it would only be around 6 cord which seems to be in the same ballpark as everyone else.

Regency, our burning requirements sound a lot like yours ^I'm estimating 10 cords, Oct to present. Hard to tell for sure cause we pile our wood, still burning today too. For the last 15 or so days we've been using our shoulder season wood...a collection of dry junk wood.

95% of the time we're burning as hot as possible...wide open. That takes more wood but I don't care, we got plenty of wood...and you can't take it with you.

Yes, burning from late September or early October through April or part of May. Our wood heat is our only heat; no backup furnace at all.