Benefit in saving wood supply for Jan/Feb?

[petes_sakes]

I have a stove for supplemental heat. We heat with gas while I'm at work and when we are short on wood. I have noticed that the price of natural gas seems to be much higher in February than it is in November. Is this always true? If you only had one chord of wood to burn, it would make the most sense to use it up in January and February... Right? Thanks in advance to any replies, hopefully I'll be set with plenty of wood in a couple years and wont have to worry about it, but I figure this might come in handy for any part-time burners out there with nat-gas as their primary source of heat-

 

[KDMANN]

We tend to use our furnace a bit more this time of year , and I burn all the weird shaped wood . I'm almost out of the crazy wood , ( stuff I had a heck of a time splitting ) . Then I'll start on the "good wood" . We have propane and my tank is really small , only holds 100 gallons. When it hits 30 % I'll have it filled...and start burning 24/7 .I think your plan is solid !

 

[tarzan]

If I only had one cord I would save it for exceptionally cold weather and power outages.

 

[BrotherBart]

If I only had one cord I would save it for exceptionally cold weather and power outages.

For sure.

 

[smokedragon]

If I only had one cord I would save it for exceptionally cold weather and power outages.

Ditto

 

[peakbagger]

I agree, the most efficient wood burning is with the stove wide open in cold weather. Plus in general heating fuels cost more when there is high heating demand so it makes sense to burn when fuel is expensive (or when the primary heating system is down due to loss of power).

 

[rwhite]

I agree, the most efficient wood burning is with the stove wide open in cold weather. Plus in general heating fuels cost more when there is high heating demand so it makes sense to burn when fuel is expensive (or when the primary heating system is down due to loss of power).

You should be able to look at last year's power usage and figure out which months to use your wood supply in. If it were me I'd save it for emergency uses or the occasional fire for ambiance. That way if you don't use it you may be a cord ahead on next year's supply.

 

[ddahlgren]

Get yourself 20 or so bundles of bio eco hot bricks whatever they call them around you and stash them away for a power outage. Treat them sort of like a fire extinguisher there for an emergency like no power and no wood.

 

[firefighterjake]

If I had a limited amount of wood . . . most definitely save it for when you really need it in the very cold winter months. Most folks up this way that heat only occasionally do just that -- heat in the dead of winter when it is most cold and keep some wood in reserve in case of power loss.

 

[SteveKG]

Around here, propane prices go way up in winter and drop down in late spring until the end of summer. I don't keep up with what happens with natural gas, though others who do tell me the two gases more or less follow one another. So, what customers here do is try to top off tanks before winter hits. In our 500-gal tank [which holds 425 gal.], doing so can mean saving 7 or 8 hundred bucks per fill. Or more. People keep their wood stoves going as much as possible during the coldest part of the season so as to minimize the gas usage. The coldest spells are when the highest gas usage occurs unless one has another way to heat, so the wood stoves are cranked then. Simple economics.

 

[ambull01]

I agree, the most efficient wood burning is with the stove wide open in cold weather. Plus in general heating fuels cost more when there is high heating demand so it makes sense to burn when fuel is expensive (or when the primary heating system is down due to loss of power).

That's the most efficient? I thought it would be with the minimum amount of primary air while still achieving secondary/catalytic combustion.

 

[smokedragon]

I agree, the most efficient wood burning is with the stove wide open in cold weather.

That puts more heat up the chimney..........and is especially a no-no in a cat stove.

 

[petes_sakes]

We tend to use our furnace a bit more this time of year , and I burn all the weird shaped wood . I'm almost out of the crazy wood , ( stuff I had a heck of a time splitting ) . Then I'll start on the "good wood" . We have propane and my tank is really small , only holds 100 gallons. When it hits 30 % I'll have it filled...and start burning 24/7 .I think your plan is solid !

Haha, I'm going to use your 'crazy wood' phrase from now on. Yea, I had a bit of poplar and some random, unstackable pieces in a pile that I burned up in November. I'll stick with that approach until (if ever) I can rid my life of crazy wood!

 

[petes_sakes]

If I had a limited amount of wood . . . most definitely save it for when you really need it in the very cold winter months. Most folks up this way that heat only occasionally do just that -- heat in the dead of winter when it is most cold and keep some wood in reserve in case of power loss.

Nice, good to see I have company in my madness. I'm a fireman as well, how do you burn (assuming you work 24 hr shifts)? I don't any other firemen who burn, so I just figured i'd ask you (seeing your screen name). You must have an alternate source of heat as well?

 

[petes_sakes]

Around here, propane prices go way up in winter and drop down in late spring until the end of summer. I don't keep up with what happens with natural gas, though others who do tell me the two gases more or less follow one another. So, what customers here do is try to top off tanks before winter hits. In our 500-gal tank [which holds 425 gal.], doing so can mean saving 7 or 8 hundred bucks per fill. Or more. People keep their wood stoves going as much as possible during the coldest part of the season so as to minimize the gas usage. The coldest spells are when the highest gas usage occurs unless one has another way to heat, so the wood stoves are cranked then. Simple economics.

Thanks for the info, this is only our 3rd winter in our house, so I haven been able to track the prices for any longer than that. I noticed the trend, and saw the prices peak in February, but didn't know if that was because of our exceptionally cold winter last year(I'm sure that did bolster the effect though).

 

[firefighterjake]

Nice, good to see I have company in my madness. I'm a fireman as well, how do you burn (assuming you work 24 hr shifts)? I don't any other firemen who burn, so I just figured i'd ask you (seeing your screen name). You must have an alternate source of heat as well?

Public Education Officer . . . so I have to work 5 days a week . . . for some reason no one wants to take a fire extinguisher class at 3 in the morning.

I do have an alternative heat source -- my oil boiler -- but that doesn't kick on very often as I use the woodstove for 85-90% of my heating needs.

Even if I did work 24s though . . . it would not be an issue . . . my wife can load the stove and run it as good, if not better, than me . . . actually I think I run it better, but she is a lot more patient than me when it comes to reloading it and waiting for the splits to ignite.