Almost 18 Years of Wood Heat

[jebatty]

Thought I’d tell our wood heat story.

We heat just over 1500 sq ft, single level, very open floor plan house, 51 years old, 3-1/2" wall insulation, 18" ceiling insulation, very good windows. The house faces the SW and is mostly open to the NW, the main direction of our winter winds. We have 30' of glass across the front, and on sunny winter days we gain considerable passive solar through the high efficiency windows. In fact, on most winter, sunny days we don’t need to use the stove at all due to solar heating. Unfortunately, late Oct to early Jan typically is mostly cloudy. Later Jan into Mar is usually quite sunny.

We installed the wood stove and chimney in Oct 1990. It is our only source of heat, except when we’re away for brief periods. Then electric baseboard backup. Our winters are long and cold. The heating season starts with late Sept and ends in May. Really cold periods typically run -25 at night and -5 daytime (-55 is the coldest we have had at night and -30 in the daytime); most of middle winter runs 5-20.

The stove is a SeeFire 1600S, EPA certified, 7.1 gr/hr emissions, 55,000 btu/hr rated. It is entirely lined with firebrick, except for the secondary burn baffle. The stove keeps 2/3 of the house 68-72 typical regardless of outside temperature or wind conditions. The parts of the house furthest from the stove may drop to 50-55 during the really cold periods.

The wood box is 2'W x 3'4"L x 2'8"H. During really cold periods it holds 3 days of wood, during typical winter periods, 4-5 days of wood.

We cut, split and stack our wood supply in two woodsheds, 8' x 18' x 6' and 8' x 20' x 6', for about 14 cords of storage. We typically have an additional 3 cords stacked and covered in the open. The wood is usually cut from diseased and storm damaged trees from our own land. Typical heating season runs 4-6 cords. Our firewood is almost all aspen, as we have lots of that available to us. We always burn wood dried for 3 summers.

The wood sheds are about 50 yards from the house. I use a two wheel cart to move wood to a small stack by the house. The stack holds 3 cart loads. I then use a small 2 wheel cart to move loads of wood into the house to fill the wood box.

After nearly 18 heating seasons, I conservatively estimate we have saved $20,000 - $30,000 in heating costs. Total stove/chimney investment was about $2,000 in 1990.

 

[swestall]

What a nice story. We have a similar situation and have also saved a ton during 20+ years of heating with wood. We've been through a few stoves and I think we are on our last, as I just love the Mansfield.
Great good luck to you in the future.
I bet we have a gazillion years of wood burning experience on here! (and that's just Corie and Craig)

 

[woodzilla]

I can't wait to tell those stories. Keep up the great work.

 

[SlyFerret]

Thanks for posting the writeup and the pics. We always need more pics around here!

-SF

 

[jpl1nh]

One of the things I admire about your story is that it is not just about wood burning (your story of that is admirable in it's own right) but also about just plain common sense. What a novel concept, orienting the house to take advantage of passive solar heat! As we face the fossil fuel energy crunch, global warming, and other environmental issues, it seems to me that our demand for energy is far in excess of what is really necessary if more common sense were brought to bear in the first place. That new construction today still for the most part ignores the advantages of even the most basic solar applications is just plain foolish. We could expand that common sense thinking to virtually all that we do. I was just thinking this morning how computers were a great example of technology with little energy use. They take you wherever you want to go with out traveling. (yes they consume power even when not running, and we can improve that ) but telecommuting for example, sure beats the energy consumption of real commuting hands down. Congratulations on your much more sane and sustainable way of life. And you saved money too! ;-)

 

[jebatty]

The passive solar was a bonus and not realized at the time we bought the house. It also wasn't built with passive solar in mind, as it initially had a front screen porch which blocked almost all solar heat gain. Also, the SW (closer to SSW) orientation occurred only because the house is on a lake and that orientation provided the best lake view.

Fortunately, the porch was interior to the foundation, and when we tore out the porch and moved the exterior wall of the house to the foundation line, for our latitude (46.52N) we achieved by accident a near perfect passive solar result. We have 4' eaves, which block fully the summer sun, but in the winter not only allow full sun but also obtain solar reflection off the lake ice/snow, so we get "double" solar gain. Our windows are all new and specifically designed to achieve maximum solar winter gain and minimum summer solar gain. With the 30 feet of glass, on sunny mid-winter days, it's like being in front of a large radiant heater. As alluded to in my story, outside temp could be -30, but if the day is sunny, our solar gain for a couple of hours is enough to heat the whole house. Also, as the seasons progress, and with the 4' eaves, the solar heat gain adjusts automatically as the sun goes through it rising and falling cycles. Closely connected to this is good tree wind and shading protection due south, as well as good tree wind protection on the north, with near full open exposure to the SSW.

As mentioned, this was accidental, but based on my readings on passive solar design, our house and shading have achieved near perfect passive solar design.

 

[WoodMann]

That's so cool. Newbie here, I didn't think solar was advantagous in those regions. Here in NM most every house is built to take advantage of the sun by some means, and I hear ya with todyad energy prices. But hey- I just moved into a house, about a year ago now, and hapilly it has a wood stove, which works out great as my folks have 20acres of tres that mostly have been nailed by the bark beetle. Questions is- how hot should the stove itslef be allowed to get and/or how hot should the flu be? I got this little magnetic thermometer and alwyas stuck it on the stove carefully watching that it never got above 250* but have since come to understand that it's the flu that ya wanna keep an eye on.
Thanks

 

[jebatty]

For my opinion, see:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/15085/

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Welcome to the forum.

WoodMann, you need to watch both, but 250 degrees on the stove is awfully low. We don't even turn the cat. on until it reaches 250 or above. If you live high there in NM, you definitely need some heat, so try to find out specifically what your stove recommends for the high mark. I certainly would not worry about getting it to 550 degrees where you can feel the heat.

 

[savageactor7]

Nice set up Jim, especially the savings. Now you got me thinking how much we saved...been heating with wood since '77.

First post with our new verizon DSL, started out the morning with 30 kbps at present the speeds are 3062 u/l, 698 d/l from http://speedtest.net// ....

....WOOOOHOOOO000000000!