Anyone else burning more wood than they expected too?

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Rockey

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Dec 18, 2007
811
SW Ohio
I expected to be burning more because of the addition of the Englander 30 in the basement but combined with the below average temps here lately I have seen my woodpile dwindle with a good size chunk missing out of it already. At this rate I should be out of dry wood sometime in January.......'10. The great news is we are warmer than ever. Last night it was about 20 degrees from 7:00 pm till about 7:00 am and the house never dipped below 73 degrees. Is it cooler than usual in your neck of the woods lately?
 
This is a new setup for us but I figured we'd need 6 cord. After some further evaluation, we'll probably only use 4. We have about 5 cut and split, and 5 more in log form. It has been chilly the last few days and is supposed to stay this way for a week or more. I'm not really burning a lot more however.

Tripper
 
A dang site colder than usual here in balmy, tropical Virginia. We were in the twenties last night and didn't get out of the thirties today. It looks like the same for most for the rest of the month. My wood pile always starts shrinking more than I anticipate. It happens every year. I look out there at the hole in it and wonder how we are ever gonna make it.

Well, time to go feed the big steel box again. :shut:
 
yup going quick, never got above 25 today in the poconos, very early for me to be burning 24/7
 
I'm with BB......always wonder how I'm gonna make it.......but 6 cord oughta do it. Gotta get splittin next years.......
 
I broke into the good wood today. And a warning when you do that make sure you tell the wife.
I've been burning punky lousy popular and today I filled the box with nice rock maple,that was standing dead this spring.
Wow, I just got home and she left the damper open and the air halfway, and its hot in here.
Which is good cause it's 20 and windy out there.
 
We are burning more wood than I calculated. However, this is a huge improvement over the fireplace and the house is much warmer.
 
I've been burning 24/7 for 2 months now. (It has been a cold year with almost no summer here.) This is my first year with the new stove so I wasn't sure how much wood I'd burn since it's supposed to use less wood than the old smoke dragon. Unfortunately, if our heating season this winter is anything like last winter, I'll be heating til mid-June. (Seriously, it was cold enough you needed to heat the house in the mornings through mid-June.) I suspect I'll be using 5 cords if I have to burn that long. Once hunting season is over, the bears will be asleep and, if we don't have a lot of snow on the ground, I'm going to get a permit and head into the forest to start working on next year's pile.
 
Its been unseasonably warm here.
46 degrees in late November :question:
I went to work today in a long sleeved t shirt.
Must be the calm before the storm.
I should have plenty of wood though.

Brad
 
blustery windy and a cool 20-25 at nights here for the next week im told ,inside we are toasty and the thermostat says almost 80
now that the big ash load is taking off
 
15 degrees here last night. I started burning 24/7 about two weeks earlier than usual. It's been "hog killing" weather here about all month. The oldtimers will know what that means.
 
You all keep me up to date on weather 'out there'.

Hard to relate to such cold temps. when we are seeing record highs here in the Mile High City. Has been in the 70"s lately so, no, I am burning far less wood than I had anticipated but when winter hits who knows how long it will last. Last winter the snow and cold kept on coming into May so I was burning a lot longer than I had expected.
 
west central ct , 19-24 deg at nite with a wind so I been burning 24/7 for the past week & it seems that i am eating up the wood but I am still on my junk wood,: I have not touched the
long time seasoned splits yet as I am saving them for when it gets really cold.

44 day time temp

Seems especially cold this time of yr for ct. & it seems I am burning more than I expected but
like I said, its all my junk wood, busted up pallet wood mostly, with whatever short pieces of old lumber from around the yard.

2 weeks ago,I burned up all the small tree limbs, 1 to 3 inch diameter, so they are mostly all gone now & anything larger was converted into splits by my 22 ton huskee log splitter, back in aug. & are curing in a covered woodshed full to the roof.

I figure I went through 1 or 2 cords of junk & maybe have another cord or 2 of junk wood left & 4 cords of premo wood . After that, I have 2 start burning rotted wood as a last resort, if need be,
to get through march, but I hope not.

every one seems to think that i have enough wood for the winter ,except me.

oh well,time will tell!!
 
My fellow Ohioan, I hear ya! Using alot of wood latley! I am in same boat might be out by Jan
 
We're on the north side of a steep hill, so this time of year we get virtually no solar gain. By February, suns starting to warm us pretty well again and even though its colder that time of year, the sun cuts our wood use a lot. So I'm always surprised how quick we seem to go through wood early on. Just 4-5 days ago I was struggling to find enough small stuff to mix in with the pine and hemlock. Then boom!, winter weather has swept in with windchills down as low as single digit and I'm finding I have to quickly adjust to big splits of good stuff. Very cold for this time of year and it happened very quickly.
 
Sorry guys, I'm living in the tropics for now - balmy Oregon - Willamette valley where the daytime temps are high 50's or better. (had to mow the lawn this week and got a beautiful Monday for a round of golf...the weather was much better than my game)) and nights are still in the low to mid 40's. Do see a cold one coming later this week as we will get down to 39 for the night. I'm still using my Poplar just to take the chill off the early evenings. We let the stove burn out for the day and restart again the next evening. I've maybe had 2-3 all day fires. I put 1.75 cord in the garage to try and gauge how much my second year with the soapstone would actually use. At this rate I'll be taking some back to the woodpile in the spring. ;-)
 
Looked like it was going to turn off cold pretty early this year, but then it seems to have moderated a bit...topped out near 65F today. I've thrown a few logs on for overnight heat, otherwise, just been burning sticks, small limbs and chips from around the splitter.
 
I have a feeling I'm always going to feel like I'm burning more at the start of the season. I've got a lot of wood left, but it seems I took a decent amount. I have pine, medium grade, and the good stuff. Haven't broken into the good stuff, but a few days ago started to hit the medium grade (birch, small maple and oak, and misc-who-knows-what-it-is cause I scrounge and take it and like it.

just thinking of H. Bogart to Peter Loree in M. Falcon, "When I slap you, you'll take it and like it".
 
bcnu said:
Sorry guys, I'm living in the tropics for now - balmy Oregon - Willamette valley where the daytime temps are high 50's or better. (had to mow the lawn this week and got a beautiful Monday for a round of golf...the weather was much better than my game)) and nights are still in the low to mid 40's. Do see a cold one coming later this week as we will get down to 39 for the night. I'm still using my Poplar just to take the chill off the early evenings. We let the stove burn out for the day and restart again the next evening. I've maybe had 2-3 all day fires. I put 1.75 cord in the garage to try and gauge how much my second year with the soapstone would actually use. At this rate I'll be taking some back to the woodpile in the spring. ;-)

Very similar to me down here except I have yet to have all day fires (chill-chasers only). Lit the stove up for the first time in 11 days this evening.
 
usually this time of year its 2 fires a day using only the poplar. We've been burning the hardwoods 4-5 times a day all week. Yesterday the high was 34 and it snowed Monday night. We're supposed to stay in the 30'd for the foreseeable future. That's January weather for here.
 
Wood burning about average, first fires in Sept. Night time temps now in the 5-20 range, daytime highs in the high 20-low30's. Gone through about 2/3 cord of aspen (no real hardwood where I live). Wood stove is only heat for 1500 sq ft. Still not burning 24/7. As long as daytime highs reach into the 20's, we usually don't have to burn all day; almost always quit burning by 8-9pm, as house gets too hot for good sleeping. We like the bedroom about 55.

Come January, and temps likely will reach -20 to -40. That's 24/7 burning time.
 
I am burning a heck of a lot earlier this year, answer is yes.
 
BrotherBart said:
colder than usual here in balmy, tropical Virginia
Is it really "tropical". What are your typical highs and lows for the time of year?
BJ64 said:
We are burning more wood than I calculated [...] the house is much warmer.
That goes hand in hand, woodpile shrinkage and more heat. I'd burn it all by December if I had the chance so I have to have a set of rules to control myself. 1) Weigh out a maximum amount of wood in the morning to last the whole day, 2) don't add any wood to the fire unless the temperature indoors drops below 72ºF, and 3) if it's not too cold outside try to get by with the heat pump instead of the fire. I find that if the thermostat on the heat pump is cutting in and out a fire will overheat the house, whereas if the heat pump is running continuously a fire would be good.
 
I am a bit worried, and have been since before we even started burning 24/7. We have been going all together since oct 1st when the furnace was installed and have gone through almost a cord so far of mostly smaller maple, in the 2"-6" range. We have about 5 1/2-6 cords all together. We too are in a cold snap, night time lows in the upper teens, low 20's. We have 6 more cords outside, but the oldest being cut and split in july so we may be okay to use some of it come march or april if we run out.
 
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