EPA stoves figured out why

[jack_90125]

the new stoves do in fact use less wood.and I notice with my smoke dragon still here I filled it up.then i took the wood out that I filled the dragon with and put it in my Isle.and I could get almost half less in the the Isle.so by my half scientific method i figure if heat output is the same or better of the dragon that I put 14 gator loads thru last year which roughly equals 3 loads to the cord, I should use 7 gator loads this year unless winter is brutal this year. compared to last year.
so if same heat output and longer burn time i should get twice as much use out of the same amount of wood..
will see if I can keep as close records this year than what I did the last few years.
so 1 last final burn in fire and off to the races we go.

 

[Woody Stover]

Dennis (Backwoods Savage) claimed his wood usage was cut in half when he went to the Fireview, but that's a cat stove. At any rate, you'll no doubt see a big drop in cords used. That makes it a lot easier to stay ahead in the "dry-wood game."

 

[Slow1]

Cat or not I expect you can expect similar improvements - assuming of course that your new stove is burning good dry wood.

I hope you do keep good records - would be interesting to hear at the end of the season just how much improvement you experienced.

 

[mellow]

I know I cut my usage by close to half. Most winters I was using 3 cords in my smoke dragon, cut that to 1.5 cords in past winters, however last year I used 2 cords due to colder than usual temps.

 

[Sprinter]

Interesting to see these experiences. This is the first stove I've had in 20 some years, but I'm sure I burned a lot more wood in the 80's in a smaller stove and home. I will have to say, though, that I had less appreciation for dry wood at the time either (well, less anyway).

 

[begreen]

Dennis (Backwoods Savage) claimed his wood usage was cut in half when he went to the Fireview, but that's a cat stove. At any rate, you'll no doubt see a big drop in cords used. That makes it a lot easier to stay ahead in the "dry-wood game."

The stove is part of this usage drop. He also "super-insulated" and tightened the house which helped make it easier to heat, requiring less fuel.

 

[Woody Stover]

The stove is part of this usage drop. He also "super-insulated" and tightened the house which helped make it easier to heat, requiring less fuel.

Insulating has got to help even more but I think he claimed about 50% less wood used as soon as he switched stoves from the old smoke-blower.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

The stove is part of this usage drop. He also "super-insulated" and tightened the house which helped make it easier to heat, requiring less fuel.

To be more exact, we reduced our fuel needs by at least 50% and that was before the super-insulation. When we insulated, we also added a room plus new doors and windows. To compare, our first year with the Fireview we burned pretty much exactly 3 cord of wood. Only one year have we burned less and that was the winter that wasn't a couple years ago. Last year we burn about a wheelbarrow load over 3 cord of wood.

However, I've so far just kept the record as a 50% drop in wood use but if we consider also that with our old Ashley we had to keep part of the house closed off, that makes a big difference as we no longer close off part of the house. In addition, we now keep our house warm as we like; 80 degrees or more all winter.

 

[begreen]

Pardon my confusion. It sounds like the old Ashley was a real loser. Providing half the usable heat it had to be running at about 40% efficiency. At that rate I couldn't fathom why anyone would hang on to it for 20 years.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

We were very pleased to remove it from the house. We planned on using it for boiling some sap but still haven't got around to do any tapping of the trees. However, someone wanted that stove more than we did so it is gone, gone gone!

 

[Sprinter]

Pardon my confusion. It sounds like the old Ashley was a real loser. Providing half the usable heat it had to be running at about 40% efficiency. At that rate I couldn't fathom why anyone would hang on to it for 20 years.

What do you figure the average efficiency of pre-epa stoves was?

 

[begreen]

I thought they were more like 60% but apparently in this case I was very wrong. My apology Dennis, you folks had a real turkey on your hands. Most any modern stove will achieve similar consumption reduction with that kind of loss.