It’s fun reading the story of when someone starts burning. It’s always very interesting and we are grateful when people share their stories. It makes us all richer.
At any rate, where we are it’s cold 7 months of the year and on average we burn about 8 1/2 cord of pine. It’s currently -30C and we have only 8 cord sitting in the main shed (prob enough) but 2 cord are still in seasoned logs sitting under a foot of powder snow. We got behind on prep this year when the young and short wife decided, at the end of August, to let her brother and his youngest kid move in permanently. I had to take the truck half way across the country to fetch them - and then plenty of time was lost rebuilding part of the old house to accommodate them for their first year. We just moved them out of a (literal) shack back in our woods and in to the main house on Sunday. (They can build their own place next year as by then they will have some idea of what is needed and how to handle the tools). At least now, with the renos done, it will be easy enough to finish up the decked firewood logs but I sure don’t like leaving things this late. In this case I guess it’s okay because we always keep a couple of cord in a secondary shed ‘just in case’ (a thing we do because because once it gets really cold after Christmas that is no good time to discover we have sleep walked in to a firewood shortage). Although I completely despise having to use the snow-machine to slide back loads of standing dead from down the frozen river in the dead of winter, we always have that option as well. So we’re good.
At any rate, we are isolated, off grid and wood is heat, hot water and cooking from September through March - though we also keep a few 100 lb bottles of propane on hand, have a back up gas stove, plumbed in gas lights and a wall fireplace thing. Of course the gas wouldn’t last long though if we really needed it for continuous heat but it’s nice to have the fp on pilot if we are away the day as it will kick on and keep things from freezing if we are late getting back.
Fwiw: After a couple learning years on wood we notice that most newcomers have gained a pretty good idea of their wood consumption and we recommend to them that a 50% buffer of ‘more wood’ on top of that is enough for safety and comfort.
And that’s what I wanted to say here. 50% more than needed is a good safe policy. Time tested and keeps families alive and comfortable without the need for heroics at -50.