Shoulder seasons... gas or oil?

[blades]

Last couple mornings been in the high 40's low 50's, and only mid 60's day time plus rain yesterday so its cool and damp, Fired up the NC30 with Willow, kick the inside temp up to 70+ chases the damp out , good for the rest of the day. Willow been laying around for 4 years, split it up a couple years ago. Works fine for this time of year, but I do not go scrounging for it. This was on my little chunk of USA needed to come down before it took out the powerlines. I was the last one of several I planted back in 1960 to soak up water/ wind break. Back then I was in the country, now I have been city-ized, yech.

 

[Trilifter7]

I normally can't wait for the first fire of the year so it usually happens sooner than necessary, lol. In general I start using the stove when it becomes chilly (<68ish) in the house. I have a propane furnace that I start up once in the fall but otherwise I'm %100 wood. I'm more anxious than normal this year bc of the new stove so I'm sure ill be heating us out of the house very soon

 

[daleeper]

Heat pump for the cool fall October weather. LP gas for backup in winter. Fire up the stove if cold enough in November to run and then runs pretty much continuous till spring. Usually don't use heat pump much in spring, as it warms up too fast here.

 

[Grisu]

Sweater, socks > natural gas space heater > woodstove

Almost every house here has either a fireplace or a woodstove, so free wood is really hard to find. Plus, tree services have no incentive to drop off wood at my place due to this here:

http://www.7dvt.com/2011community-group-rekindles-plan-heat-burlington-excess-mcneil-plant

They use wood to run a large generating power station and accept any and all wood deliveries. Hence, not much free wood here. I therefore try to preserve my stacks as long as I can.

 

[McKeznak]

Sounds strange from a wood burner, but I enjoy it when it is cool like this.

I have oil as a backup but I try to hold off as long as possible, and by that I mean as long as I can keep the fiance from killing me.

So I'll intermittently get the oil going maybe in a couple weeks and the in mid Oct start burning. Then I keep the oil off unless I'm away.

 

[PapaDave]

100% wood here.
Start with the sweatshirt, then the morning kindling fire, then the morning and evening fire.
After that, it's..."game on".
We have a wall furnace in the living room which I turned off a few years ago (it's noisy and ugly all at the same time), and a direct vent wall unit in the laundry room at the back of the house.
Those both run on nat. gas, except we don't run 'em.
Late Sept. through mid-May....usually, is our burn season.
Started early this year, as there's been a fire in the morning for about a week or so.
It's a very subjective thing as to when I "have" to, but normally when the house gets down near 60 is when the stove gets lit.
60 feels different to me from winter to summer. I know....weird.
ETA: Now is when I start baking more too, so that takes the chill out.

 

[ddahlgren]

First fire of eseason last night. 39 degees and a brisk wind off the ocean. It was not much of a fire enough kindling to get some small maple rounds burning for a half hour and threw a couple of 4 inch splits before bedtime and a couple at 4:30 am. stove is still140 at noon. Supposed to be warmer tonight mid to high 40's and usually tough that out. It sure was nice waking up to72 degres though.. Some eco bricks would have done fine and may need to go and buy 10 or 20 packs for the next couple of months of nippy nights , save the good stuff for december to march. I have a good supply but you never know how cold it is going to get either. 2 cords 1 1/2 years split down to 3 inch 1 cord 3 year 6-8 inch and 1/2 cord maple rounds 1-2 years seasoned.7 55 gallon bags of cedar shingles for kindleing. After october 1 will wash windows an start with the 3m interior plastic for windows remove a/c units etc.

 

[Ashful]

In the Fall I'm usually itching to burn wood so I'm more likely to build a fire but come Spring time I get sick of burning wood and tend to burn more gas.

+1

Fall shoulder = wood
Spring shoulder = oil

Gotta clean out the gardens and get the mulch down in March (45 - 70 yards, depending on how ambitious I get), and pre-emergent fertilizer (or fresh seed) down in April, so... I'm outside too much to worry about burning wood, anyway!

 

[Shadow&Flame]

I let the heat pump take the chill out early. It takes a little while to get things cooled down enough to have a fire or even
run the heater any. After the summers we have I like to get cold for a while anyway...

Going to be a bit before I can even think about heat at this point...

 

[firebroad]

When it is cold enough that I won't take my coat off when I come inside, it is time to fire up the insert. When it is cold enough that the woodstove can't hack it, I turn on the boiler to help out a bit. I don't get chilled until it reached 55 or lower (inside).

 

[ColdNH]

I’m going to try to hold out on starting a fire till November this year. Last year I started in late September and didn’t stop till late April. blew through a TON of wood, a lot of it unnecessarily keeping the house at 80 and learning the new stove.

Our house typically warms up pretty good in the shoulder seasons thanks to passive solar, its only cold in the morning, but at that point were out of bed, in the shower and off to work, so no biggie.

 

[GS7]

Hey all!

Happy shoulder season!

How many of you guys say, "The heck with it..." and go ahead and turn your oil or gas thermometer up a few degrees when it gets cool in the house?

Or, how may folks chill yourselves out and ignore the cold, and go ahead and throw on a heavy sweater and an extra pair of socks?

How many of you grin and throw a couple of splits in the ignored firebox, instead?

Will be interesting to hear what you guys choose!

The shoulder season gets the insert into action on those cool nights.

 

[Kevin*]

Gas is for making hot water only, wish I could make hot water with my BK.

 

[PapaDave]

Here's how you do that.
Get a pot, put some water in it.
Start a nice fire in the BKPU.
Put pot on stove and wait.
Water will be hot in a while.
It works,....I've done it.