How much wood do you burn in a normal winter?
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Gearhead660
Minister of Fire
Same for me. Only use propane if we need to leave for more than a day.
MissMac
Minister of Fire
I burned about 2.5 cords and roughly 500 gal. of propane this winter. Ran out of seasoned wood, so been on the furnace for about a month and a half now.
weatherguy
Minister of Fire
I have half a cord I didnt burn, 1/3 pallet of NEILSs and half a pallet of the big bricks from TSC left over. Wife's not happy with the garage space it's taking but I'm happy with the heating costs this past year. Cant make everyone happy .
Woodsplitter67
Minister of Fire
Woodsplitter67
Minister of Fire
MissMac
Minister of Fire
yup, it kinda does, but we will be in a better situation next winter i think.
Highbeam
Minister of Fire
WoodBurnerInWI
Feeling the Heat
I will also add that we have a natural gas furnace but I enjoy wood heat too much to want to run it, regardless of fuel prices! I strive for over 95% of winter heating to come from the wood stove, and the furnace can kick on only if its abnormally cold or I let the house temp get below 62. But that never happens thanks to my long burn times, it guarantees I'll be around in time to reload the stove if needed.
My house isn't real old (1978), but it certainly isn't to today's standards. I burn from usually the end of Oct thru early May. Our hardwood is definitely the biggest difference. Unless it's super cold, I only make a "big" fire for overnight and make smaller fires and burn woodchips during the day (I'm generally around). Stove is still producing some heat and has plenty of coals 8-10 hours after an overnight fire...and mine is secondary not a catalyst.
JRHAWK9
Minister of Fire
Now if everyone weighed their wood prior to loading and posted their cumulative weights instead of volumes, we wouldn't have this disconnect. It's useless to compare volumes of different species.
I'll go first....15,295 lbs. and 7,011 HDD's to date.
LP furnace also ran for 49.8 hours while we were gone.......once for a week. So used ~41 gallons of LP (75KBTU furnace) this winter for heat.
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Ok, now THAT'S FUNNY! Let me get my bathroom scale out every time I haul wood into the house to burn...Now if everyone weighed their wood prior to loading and posted their cumulative weights instead of volumes, we wouldn't have this disconnect. It's useless to compare volumes of different species.
I'll go first....15,295 lbs. and 7,011 HDD's to date.
But let me ask you this: IF assuming the same moisture content, will 25lbs of pine give as much usable heat as 25lbs of oak (or whatever random weight you think your stove will hold of the oak)? I say no because the volume of the pine will be twice as much and the burn time half as long as the oak resulting in loading the stove twice and having to reheat the system...
Highbeam
Minister of Fire
Ok, now THAT'S FUNNY! Let me get my bathroom scale out every time I haul wood into the house to burn...
But let me ask you this: IF assuming the same moisture content, will 25lbs of pine give as much usable heat as 25lbs of oak (or whatever random weight you think your stove will hold of the oak)? I say no because the volume of the pine will be twice as much and the burn time half as long as the oak resulting in loading the stove twice and having to reheat the system...
25 lbs of any wood has approximately the same amount of energy in it. The burn time will be the same with pine or oak if you or your stove can regulate the stove output. The beauty of that double dense oak is when you load the stove full you have twice as much energy in the stove and if properly metered out will last twice as long. JR's furnace and my stove both have a level of automation that do this.
Weighing the fuel would be more meaningful but I just can't do it. I already get ridiculed for logging each gallon of fuel in my pickup, miles, mpg, and fuel cost.
JRHAWK9
Minister of Fire
I hear ya. I do the same with all my vehicles as well....well not fuel cost, that would be crazy.
As far as weighing, it's not any more work for me really, as how I do things is I place a plastic container on the floor which is roughly the same volume of my firebox and load that. I then move it right next to me when I load. When I first started burning it helped me gauge my loading size so I wasn't going back to my wood rack while the loading door was wide open. The only difference is instead of the container sitting on the floor it's sitting on a platform scale. I just write that weight down on a notebook I have sitting near the furnace and when I get a chance I record the daily loadings in my Excel spreadsheet at a later date.
Just went down and snapped this one. The display for the scale is mounted on my plenum.
JRHAWK9
Minister of Fire
But let me ask you this: IF assuming the same moisture content, will 25lbs of pine give as much usable heat as 25lbs of oak (or whatever random weight you think your stove will hold of the oak)? I say no because the volume of the pine will be twice as much and the burn time half as long as the oak resulting in loading the stove twice and having to reheat the system...
yup, like Highbeam said, wood, regardless of species, contains close to the same BTU's per POUND. If it didn't I wouldn't be weighing it. I do so not only for records, but to determine my loadings for the day based.
When the house starts to get cold, I put more wood in the stove...
I know all wood has the same BTU output by weight (which I learned on this site - had no idea before), which is why I was very specific about my parameters. It was intended to be tongue in cheek. Not many people outdo my OCD tendencies, but I think I found my match... Here in good ol' cheesehead country even!
I know all wood has the same BTU output by weight (which I learned on this site - had no idea before), which is why I was very specific about my parameters. It was intended to be tongue in cheek. Not many people outdo my OCD tendencies, but I think I found my match... Here in good ol' cheesehead country even!
JRHAWK9
Minister of Fire
You have a bit different setup though. I batch burn and if I put too much wood in I may overheat the house. There's a rhyme to my reason, believe it or not.
A lot of us on any enthusiasts forum like this have OCD personalities. 
Plus weighing of loads really helps my other half when I'm gone. She just looks at what I load and does similar loadings, it makes it easier for her rather than just guessing.
Definitely the lower density of our wood is the main player... but also a minor contributor is sunlight. Most east coast folks get a lot more sunlight than we do in the winter. Especially if you have big south facing windows. My parents house in NH has a huge south facing window that cooks their main room during the day. I figure whenever the sun shines its worth about 15 free pounds of wood per day just from that one window.
Whereas our windows just get rain on them
Agreed. For my house, sunny days heat way better than cloudy days that are 10 degrees warmer... plus sunny days create way more power on my electric solar panels. I'll always take a sunny day over dismal grey no matter the temp.
D8Chumley
Minister of Fire
4-5 cord, burning from mid to end of October and am still burning some now. Oil backup but try not to use that unless it’s below 25F in January/February. Old 2000ish SF ranch built in 1957 not very well insulated, block walls and single pane windows with storm windows. Stove is in family room at one end of the house and that room is always cooler than the rest of the house with a vaulted ceiling. Lots of Ash, cherry, poplar, hackberry with white/red oak and black locust for the colder months
heavy hammer
Minister of Fire
I believe around 5 cords. I have ash, maple, oak, and locust. The last few winters have been very different from each other so it has been hard to get an exact amount. I know I try to have more processed, and seasoned than the previous year and every year have more wood than the last. I heat close to 4000 sq feet but I have an oil furnace. I use about 200 gallons of fuel oil a winter more to help take the chill out on days we both work and the stoves die out or for those real cold days. My daughters bedrooms are the farthest from the two stoves so we run it as well to keep there rooms warm.
hickoryhoarder
Minister of Fire
If I heated only with wood, probably 2 cords, maybe 2.5.
Keep in mind my house heats for $425/year in natural gas, if we don't use the stove at all. First thing we did was make the 1959 house very tight and very well insulated. Our winters are similar to Cincinnati.
Keep in mind my house heats for $425/year in natural gas, if we don't use the stove at all. First thing we did was make the 1959 house very tight and very well insulated. Our winters are similar to Cincinnati.
MissMac
Minister of Fire
Well I just crunched the numbers - 431 gallons of propane used for 490 furnace hours (assuming 0.88gal/hr), plus the 2-ish cords I burnt. Cost of propane was $3.34/gallon. So the furnace gobbled up just under $1500 of propane this winter. Now compare that to the 4 cords of birch I just bought for $180/cord ($720 total), which will give me about 1.5 years worth of heat.
I'd call that math about a bajillion reasons to burn fire wood, and yet another reminder to myself of how grateful I am for the wood stove. Not to mention that the heat coming from the stove is soooooo much nicer...
I'd call that math about a bajillion reasons to burn fire wood, and yet another reminder to myself of how grateful I am for the wood stove. Not to mention that the heat coming from the stove is soooooo much nicer...
Don't have the exact amount, somewhere around 5+.
Started in October and I'm still burning, except I'm not currently pulling any wood of the stacks. Now, with the "warmer" weather I don't need a big pile so my daughter and I will go out fill a 20-30 gallon bucket with sticks/branches and I'll burn that for the day for enough heat to take the chill off and keep the house warm for a day.
Keeps her busy, and cleans up the yard after all the windstorms.
Started in October and I'm still burning, except I'm not currently pulling any wood of the stacks. Now, with the "warmer" weather I don't need a big pile so my daughter and I will go out fill a 20-30 gallon bucket with sticks/branches and I'll burn that for the day for enough heat to take the chill off and keep the house warm for a day.
Keeps her busy, and cleans up the yard after all the windstorms.
