Is there an easy way to estimate how many cords of wood I'll need?

[Detector$]

I am almost finished building a brand new house near Charlotte, NC. It's an open floorplan 2,600 sq.ft. two story. I have a new Jotul F600 and electric heat-pumps.
I'd like to heat mostly with wood and have a lot oak and hickory on the property. Would anyone be able to help me guess how much wood I'd burn in a full season?
We've got horses, so I'm going to build a nice hay shed/wood shed, so space really isn't a big deal. Just finished 9 hours of cutting previously felled oaks and hickorys (about 18" diameter) and realize what a joke my craftsman chainsaw is....
Thanks for your help.... really, your best guess is OK. I'm just looking for responses from people with more experience than me.

 

[begreen]

Hard to say as a lot depends on the house design. If the house is well insulated and doesn't have an overabundance of glass, maybe 3-4 cords. Plan on 6 cords, that way you are prepared for anything.

 

[BrotherBart]

With a large mass heating beast like the Firelight and being in Charlotte you are going to be doing a lot of heating like I do with the 30-NC Englander. That is for the daytime hours firing a load in the morning and using the residual stored heat from the stove and coals for most of the day and then loading up for a overnight burn later that night. Doing that three cords of good dry hardwood like oak will probably get it done for you. That and a good, say half cord, supply of small split fire starter/coal bed builder like poplar.

Doing it that way our 2,500 sq. ft. center hall colonel stays in the mid to upper seventies all winter long.

Four cords is good insurance because you will burn up more wood your first season getting settled into operating the stove.

 

[pinewoodburner]

. Just finished 9 hours of cutting previously felled oaks and hickorys (about 18" diameter) and realize what a joke my craftsman chainsaw is....
Thanks for your help.... really, your best guess is OK. I'm just looking for responses from people with more experience than me.

Time for a bigger saw. Go on and cut like 6-8 cords of wood then you hopfully will have a 2 years supply on hand.

 

[stockdoct]

Measure the cubic ft of all rooms in your house.

Thats how much wood you'll need.


;-P




A newbie wood burner who is stunned at how much wood you can go through, burning 24/7.

 

[Henz]

#1 your in NC....That means you need 1/2 of what I burn here. I burn 4 cord minimum and thats 6 months of burning, but your house is 2x as large as mine and definatly better insulated. My overall guess is that you will burn 2 cord.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I am almost finished building a brand new house near Charlotte, NC. It's an open floorplan 2,600 sq.ft. two story. I have a new Jotul F600 and electric heat-pumps.
I'd like to heat mostly with wood and have a lot oak and hickory on the property. Would anyone be able to help me guess how much wood I'd burn in a full season?
We've got horses, so I'm going to build a nice hay shed/wood shed, so space really isn't a big deal. Just finished 9 hours of cutting previously felled oaks and hickorys (about 18" diameter) and realize what a joke my craftsman chainsaw is....
Thanks for your help.... really, your best guess is OK. I'm just looking for responses from people with more experience than me.

Detector$, with all due respect, you have a good plan. However, I do sincerely hope you are not planning on burning that wood this winter??!

Also, putting wood in a shed is good....if it is seasoned when put in there. Otherwise, that shed had best have lots of leaks in it for air to circulate. Otherwise, it becomes extremely difficult to evaporate that moisture that is in all wood.

Best to cut now what you will burn NEXT YEAR. Get it cut, split and stacked ASAP. We leave the stacks uncovered through the first summer and cover it only after it has had all summer and fall to evaporate the moisture. Then we cover the tops of the stack only. With the woodshed, I'd fill it only after the wood has had a full summer to dry, uncovered, in the sun and hopefully where it will get a cross wind.

If you cut wood now and expect it to keep you warm, you will be highly disappointed and could run into some very serious problems because of creosote. You might even have problems trying to keep a fire going and if you are successful with it, you will still burn about twice the amount of wood that you would if you had good seasoned wood.

If you buy any wood, do not take the word of the supplier that the wood has been seasoned. Most really do not know what seasoned wood is. Even if the tree has been cut down and laid for 2 or 3 years, it is still full of moisture! If the bark has fallen off, that helps, but it needs to be cut into fire length logs to properly season.

Hope this helps and good luck to you.

 

[Dill]

There are 2 schools of thought in my household.
Mine just keep cutting wood all year.
My wife is an nuclear engineer.
So here's her solution, figure out how much wood you burn in a 24 hr period. For us its 2 rubbermaid totes.
Figure out the volume of your wood box. And then (I'm not the engineer so my formula won't make sense.)
With the daily wood volume, mulitply by the number of burning days, divide the sum by the the volume of a cord of wood and this will give you the yearly cord consumption.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Most burn 3-5 cord of hardwood in a year, 24/7, in a newer style stove. I don't care where you are, it just seems to work that way.
Oak and hickory are premium. make sure it's dry- trees being dead may or may not equate to the wood being dry so watch out. Dry wood- more heat, easier to burn, less smoke, less creosote, lighter to carry.