Is 5 cords enough?

[learnin to burn]

What do you guys think? I burned about 7 1/2 cords last year from October to the end of March. It was for the most part not well seasoned Red Oak, Silver Maple, and Tulip Poplar.

Right now I have close to 3 1/2 cords of White Ash, and about 1 1/2 cords of mixed Oak, Maple, Hickory, Honey Locust, and some other unidentified wood for this season. Is this going to be enough?

 

[North of 60]

I think it will still mostly depend on how winter is going to treat you.

 

[KeithO]

Sounds like you are burning double the national average amount of wood. Why so much ? If the wood is not dry, most of its energy is going to be spent evaporating water and making creosote. Ash is good wood to burn, but if you did not get the wood split and stacked early enough, you should re-split it finer (less than 3" in section). This will speed the drying process and make it easier to light off in the stove. Do you possibly also have an insulation problem with the home ? Sometimes laying in extra insulation in the attic and weatherproofing is less work that doubling the rate at which you feed the stove ? If in doubt, get yourself a pallet of anthracite coal and use that on the coldest nights for an extended burn. You are in the right place for that and can get it cheaper than the rest of us.

 

[BucksCoBernie]

I sure hope 5 cords would be enough this winter....I only have about 5-6 cords ready to go...was hoping to get 2 winters out of my stash.

Where in PA are you?

 

[WOODBUTCHER]

Weather, wood, draft, stove operation and insulation can play a big part. Red Oak IS A PIG if burnt unseasoned. Most of your BTU's go straight up your stack while your fire burns off the moisture. (Explain to us how you run that Reagency)

Last years wood -----> Please tell us how long your Red Oak was split and stacked. I like to let is season split/stacked no less than 18 months. Did you have to run your stove's draft control wide open with that oak?
How much Poplar and Silver Maple did you burn? Poplar burns fast and Silver Maple is pretty soft/light. You will chew through cords burning exclusively poplar and silver maple.

This year ----> Good news is ...You've got a really good stash of Ash (Ash will season much faster than Oak) and you have some really good mixed hardwoods. Never burned Locust, but that hickory will need well over a year split/stacked to get max BTU’s out of it. How long has your supply of wood been split/stacked? What kind of Maple do you have......Red Maple will season faster than Sugar Maple.


WoodButcher

 

[quads]

What I think is that you will need at least as much firewood this year as you used last year. You'll be sure not to run out this year. If you have leftover it can easily be used the next season. Plus, the leftover will burn even better then!

 

[Highbeam]

Whatever you burnt last year, double it and have that on hand for this coming winter. It's a hard lesson to learn. My first year burning I went through 7 cords of cottonwood (low btu wood) and then this year after insulation improvements I went through only 4.5. Better insulation means you can start burning later and stop burning earlier for bigs savings.

You need more wood.

 

[learnin to burn]

BucksCoBernie - I'm in Delco Near both State lines...

WOODBUTCHER - "Explain to us how you run that Regency" - (I'll be as brief as possible) I mostly ran it 24/7 loading every 4-5 hours always filling the box completely. After filling closing the door and with air wide open for a minimum of 30 min with red oak but mostly 45 min to 1 hour sometimes but rare even longer. Typically trying to achieve temps around 600 however I was slowly closing the air when temps reached 450. The poplar and maple would only need 15 min before closing down the air. Air was cut back to about 3/4 close anything more and I had a real smoke dragon.

Last years supply - as I said was not real seasoned - my source of course believes differently! (the proof was in the pudding as seen above) All the wood was in log length and down for 3 years. I cut, split, and stacked between October and December. I probably had close to 3 cord of mixed poplar and maple.

Everything I have on hand now that is split has been stacked since March/April. My hopes are that I won't even have to touch the Oak or Hickory this year.

 

[BrotherBart]

Besides the dryness of the wood the fact is you burn more the first year with a new stove. Learning curve, can't wait to crank'er up, over heating the house, trying to burn 24/7 when you don't need to and on and on and on.

With the same wood you would burn less this season.

I think you are going to be fine with five cords. I used to heat this joint year in and year out with five cords of less than well seasoned wood. And this is a pretty good sized barn we live in. Now I heat it with three and change with the new stove.

 

[WOODBUTCHER]

BucksCoBernie - I'm in Delco Near both State lines...

WOODBUTCHER - "Explain to us how you run that Regency" - (I'll be as brief as possible) I mostly ran it 24/7 loading every 4-5 hours always filling the box completely. After filling closing the door and with air wide open for a minimum of 30 min with red oak but mostly 45 min to 1 hour sometimes but rare even longer. Typically trying to achieve temps around 600 however I was slowly closing the air when temps reached 450. The poplar and maple would only need 15 min before closing down the air. Air was cut back to about 3/4 close anything more and I had a real smoke dragon.

Last years supply - as I said was not real seasoned - my source of course believes differently! (the proof was in the pudding as seen above) All the wood was in log length and down for 3 years. I cut, split, and stacked between October and December. I probably had close to 3 cord of mixed poplar and maple.

Everything I have on hand now that is split has been stacked since March/April. My hopes are that I won't even have to touch the Oak or Hickory this year.

I think you'll be fine with what you have, your better prepared and have a season under your belt now.
Start your 2010/2011 log splitting quest now, can you post some pics of the mystery "unidentified " wood?

Thanks for the reply,
WoodButcher

 

[learnin to burn]

I'll take a pic of a split tomorrow and post it.

 

[myzamboni]

Sounds like you are burning double the national average amount of wood.

KeithO Add his 7 1/2 with my 1 1/4 and a friend 1 1/4 and divide by 3. He's keeping the avg. up or we're pulling it down (all perspective)

 

[learnin to burn]

Here are a couple of pics. First pic shows 3 separate bins connected, in the left 2 bins you see all white ash. The right bin I thought was ash as well but as you can see the color of the wood is a lot different.

2nd pic is of a few splits from the right bin.