Why it's good to be ahead in wood gathering.

[Raptor]

This is my second year of heating with wood so I really don't have a real good handle on how much I will use in a full season. Last winter I didn't have the wood furnace up and running until almost the end of December. As is the case with most first year burners, I was having to cut and burn as I went last winter and that is much too stressful. :shut: But, I had found this forum and quickly learned what I needed to do to get a good wood supply set up. I was burning green wood (and cleaning the chimney every month) and was well aware that it was resulting in me having to burn more wood than if I had a properly seasoned supply. Most of the wood I have access to is hickory and oak with some ash, beech, dogwood and elm thrown in. I figured from my electric usage records over the past 10 years that I needed about 60 million BTU to heat the house for the winter. Using some approximate overall system efficiencies I figured I would need around 4 cords of properly seasoned hardwood a year. I had this years supply CSS by April so most is about a year seasoned. At this point I have next year's already CSS and am working on 2012/13.

I just read a news article that says this past December was the coldest since 1985 and that January is expected to be record cold as well. I have used about 2.5 cords so far out of the 4 I had put up for this winter. It is looking like I may be using 5 to 5.5 cords this winter because of the record cold. Thanks to this forum and the great people who frequent it I have another 4 cords CSS and about 2 more in rounds that I can dip into when/if I use up this year's supply. Of course this means I have more to process this season than I had anticipated to get at least 2 years ahead, but that just gives me more of an excuse to get outdoors and get some much needed exercise! :cheese: Is anyone else seeing higher than expected wood usage this year?

 

[ROBERT F]

Less than expected here. but also warmer than expected as well!. good thing about wood, is it will still be there next year if I dont use it this year. Even better too! Try that with electricity!!

 

[Danno77]

according to my records the total degree days in december of 2010 was 1274, the degree days in Dec 2008 was 1342. How do they determine "colder?" wonder what the dd were back then?

 

[Raptor]

I looked up the article again. Here is the link:

http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/43933/bastardi-january-could-be-cold.asp

I was a little off, it states that December was record cold and that January will likely be the coldest since 1985. In any case, I am just trying to get an idea of how "normal" wood usage is this year so I can look at my current usage and plan for the future. Thanks for any input.

 

[Wingman]

I am in my first year of burning, so I can't exactly tell if I am ahead or behind. I can tell you that I have been busting my butt to get stuff c/s/s to get ahead. These forums are probably the most informative forums I am on. It has helped me from picking to installing and to burning.

 

[Raptor]

In reference to the heating degree day question. I looked up some info and found this site that lists and charts HDD, CDD and comparisons by zip code:

http://www.weatherdatadepot.com/

 

[woodchip]

I just read a news article that says this past December was the coldest since 1985 and that January is expected to be record cold as well. Is anyone else seeing higher than expected wood usage this year?

Over this side of the pond, we have just has the coldest December for 120 years, and it really has been an interesting experience in survival. I only had the stove installed in November (in anticipation of a cold winter as predicted by some), so have no idea what I should use as an average. But I have been collecting all the standing dead wood I can get to stack away and cut as and when time permits. Glad I did now, it's gone mild and wet and it's deep mud out in the woods, almost impossible to work in.

As an idea, I reckon I burned nearly a cord inside December alone (average temperature 22f by night and 36f by day for the month) although it's too warm to run the stove all day and evening now (51f by day and 49f last night, and continuous rain).

With the colder weather followed by the milder weather, I expect wood usage will average out, so I'll be very interested to see what the whole winter burn comes to here

 

[SolarAndWood]

I'm in year 5 now and only now don't stress about. For me, because of our heat load, this means having 35 cord on hand and enough of it dry that I never have to burn anything that's sub prime. Having 35 cord on hand leads to a lot of abuse from anyone who sees it but doesn't have to worry about keeping my family warm. My advice to you is that if you need 6, then you should have 10 dry ready to go and 25 overall in the pipeline. No stress, easier on you and much easier on your equipment.

 

[PapaDave]

I'm in year 5 now and only now don't stress about. For me, because of our heat load, this means having 35 cord on hand and enough of it dry that I never have to burn anything that's sub prime. Having 35 cord on hand leads to a lot of abuse from anyone who sees it but doesn't have to worry about keeping my family warm. My advice to you is that if you need 6, then you should have 10 dry ready to go and 25 overall in the pipeline. No stress, easier on you and much easier on your equipment.

In the same boat. Year 5 for us too, and from day one I was told this house needed about 5 cord/winter. PO's left about 3 cord here, and I had another 3 delivered (what a joke THAT was), and then got a 10 cord log load delivered the following year as I was receiving my 5 cord c/s/d. In May 2009, got another log load (this time 20 cord), and I'm just about done working that into splits. Almost 1.5 years in the woodshed, another 2 years stacked in the field.
Struggled with wet wood the first 2 years, 3rd got better, last year was pretty good, and this year (FINALLY) mostly dry. Next year and subsequent years should be smooth sailing. It seemed as though I was doing the old "2 steps forward, one step back", routine at first, but now it's finally coming together.
Good for you in realizing the need to get ahead on the wood. I had NO idea until I started burning.

 

[NH_Wood]

I'm in year 5 now and only now don't stress about. For me, because of our heat load, this means having 35 cord on hand and enough of it dry that I never have to burn anything that's sub prime. Having 35 cord on hand leads to a lot of abuse from anyone who sees it but doesn't have to worry about keeping my family warm. My advice to you is that if you need 6, then you should have 10 dry ready to go and 25 overall in the pipeline. No stress, easier on you and much easier on your equipment.

Solar and PD, you guys are really doing well! I thought I was well ahead - you guys make my 20 cord sounds like a kindling pile! I'd LOVE to see 35 cord on my property, but not sure if I'll ever get that far ahead. I hope to keep 20 cord on hand - that's 4 years of heat - replacing 5 cord per year. I am guaranteed 3 cord per year (by contract) from my work, so I only need to scrounge 2 cord/year, which should be easy. Nice work gents! Cheers!

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Well over 50 years of wood burning here. We learned a long time ago that it is always best to be ahead on the wood burning. But how far ahead? Well, just for pure seasoning effect I always recommend 2-3 years as a minimum. But I do not thing going minimum is always the best way to go. It is sort of like minimum clearances or minimum code when installing the stove. Why just go with the minimum? Go further and be assured you are in good shape.

It is no secret here that we've burned 6-7 year old wood and sometimes 8 or more year old wood. I assure you it burns fantastically great! I wish I had more that old but at present we are burning wood that was split and stacked in early April 2009. The wood is great but so was that older stuff!

But why be ahead so far in the supply? In my case, I feel it is absolutely necessary because of health. I've had a few winters when I just could not cut. One winter I laid in a hospital for a good part of it and was no good for work before or after. Thankfully, we had a good wood supply on hand. I am facing a year this year where I can not cut like I normally can. No problem. After this wood burning season we'll still have between 5 and 6 years of wood split and stacked and that does not count what I've been able to put up so far.

Well, what about some folks who might face unemployment. It might be good to say that they then have time to put up wood and in theory that is right. However, in practice, they will have to spend extra dollars buying gas for the wood hauling and cutting and that is just one more expense they might not be prepared for.

There are many situations I can think of where it will pay everyone to be ahead on their wood supply. It is best to have some dollars set aside for emergency expenses and retirement and the wood supply is the same way. Besides, the wood you put up is actually worth more than the money in the bank right now because of the low interest rates. The cost of fuel will certainly not stay the same as interest rates so I say put up lots of fuel....now!


btw, I can not tell for sure but I'm thinking that we've actually burned less wood so far this year. Sure, December was colder and we did burn more then but October and November were not cold months here. And we do not know what late winter or early spring will be like. I'll wait until May to really determine if we burn more or less. Regardless, even if the rest of the winter is colder than normal, I have plenty of fuel ready and waiting.

 

[Danno77]

When I plug your usage into my spreadsheet I get that you need 6.58 cords for a whole heating season.
looking at average DD for a winter I made a spreadsheet to indicate about what percentage would be used each month. basically it looks like this:

October = 4.6%
November = 12%
December = 21.4%
January = 21.8%
February = 18%
March = 13.7%
April = 8.7%

So by the end of December, you should have burned about 38% of your total supply (on average in my area). and 2.5cords is 38% of just over 6 1/2 cords...

I'm guessing you'll be short.

 

[Jeff S]

Dennis ,you described my situation perfectly,last winter I was layed off and didn't know when I would be retuning to work so I took advantage of the time off coupled with all the dead Ash trees we have and cut wood almost every day until I was about 6 years ahead on my supply and boy am I glad I did because now I'm back to work and have little time to cut but I'm sure I will find enough time to cut at least a years supply so I can stay ahead.By the way I know plenty of other wood burners who were also layed of at the same time and never bothered to cut wood at all and are complaining about their lack of wood.

 

[PapaDave]

I've been thinking about something that precaud has said in the past regarding winter temps. Basically, that, it's colder during the last half of winter than the first half.
He's got a point. I can't base my total usage estimate on the past 4 month average.
As of today, I still haven't used quite 2 cord, and somewhere around the 20th of this month, I will have been burning for 4 months. That's actually a little over half way if I use 7 months as my winter time period. HOWEVER, the rest of this month right on though maybe the first half of March should be colder than the previous 2 month period, and then there's still another 2 months or so of dwindling usage. I would LOVE to only use 4 cord this winter, but I have a feeling old man winter has other plans for my firewood than letting it sit in the woodshed.
Dennis makes very good points about being prepared. I've thought along the same lines (broke my forearm almost 2 years ago, my knees aren't what they used to be, etc...), and don't like the idea of not having wood put up. Never know what the future will bring.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Dennis ,you described my situation perfectly,last winter I was layed off and didn't know when I would be retuning to work so I took advantage of the time off coupled with all the dead Ash trees we have and cut wood almost every day until I was about 6 years ahead on my supply and boy am I glad I did because now I'm back to work and have little time to cut but I'm sure I will find enough time to cut at least a years supply so I can stay ahead.By the way I know plenty of other wood burners who were also layed of at the same time and never bothered to cut wood at all and are complaining about their lack of wood.

Jeff, you are to be congratulated on making good use of your time. Too many just sit around or play around. Now you can enjoy the fruits of your labor and if you now just cut the same amount that you burn every year you will be in excellent shape.

 

[SolarAndWood]

Dennis, I've enjoyed your posts on this topic over the past few years. While I still need to produce 8-10 cord a year to replace what I currently burn, it is nice to have a system and cushion in place that I don't have to worry about it. Having enough dry wood under a roof before the snow flies no matter how cold the winter ends up being and enough in the pipeline behind it to sustain it makes burning much more enjoyable.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Thanks Solar. It surely does smooth out the rough spots!

 

[mainstation]

Sound advice from all.
You never know when you are going to have an ailment that may prevent you from cutting wood. It's money in the bank, and around here its currency if times get tough(er).

 

[Raptor]

Thanks to all for your input! It seems that most are not seeing much if any increase in wood usage this winter. It got me to thinking about why I am using significantly more wood then I had calculated. After going over the numbers again it suddenly dawned on me that I had not accounted for the fact that I am also heating all my domestic hot water with the wood furnace. After factoring in the BTU's needed to heat the water that is typically used in a season I came out with a figure of a little more then 5 cords. That is much closer to the actual usage I am seeing. So now I will figure on putting up at least 6 cords per year instead of the 4 cords I had originally figured.

Once again, thanks for your input and for helping to open my eyes to what my wood needs actually are!