New to wood burning, how much wood do I need in Northwest Arkansas?

[FLank_Sinatra]

Hey everyone! I've been lurking on the forum, and the internet in general for about a month now and trying learn everything I possibly can about wood burning. I plan on buying my first wood stove this spring after this heating season is over in hopes I can find a good deal on a stove from one of the local dealers.

From what I have been reading I'm wanting to get my wood long before I plan on burning it so it can season, so I've been looking on the local craigslist and I see alot of people selling oak for around $50 a rick or $150 per cord.

Now, this leads me to some questions.

First, I convinced my better half that this would be significantly more affordable to heat our home and it would be warmer than it is right now. Right now I use about 400 gallons of propane a year to heat the home and our water tank; we also use a delonghi oil filled radiator that runs 24/7 during the fall/winter/spring and located in the front room. In order to save as much $ as possible we keep the temperature of the central heat to about 63-65 during the day and about 55-57 at night. Once I get a wood burner I plan on making that the primary source of the home heat and maybe use the oil radiator on the opposite side of the house where the bedrooms are.

Our home is 987 square foot and we are located in Northwest Arkansas, it's moderately insulated, and when it's above 41F outside I can normally heat the house with just the radiator to a semi-comfortable level. So, this leads to my questions

How much wood should I get before my first burning season? I was originally thinking that I could probably do the entire season with a cord of wood ($150) but the more I read I'm seeing people using 2-5 cords a winter to heat their homes. This has me really concerned. I want to use wood heat to save money, but if it's going to need 2-5 cords a year at $150 a cord, that's actually more expensive. Now, obviously if it's going to be warmer in the house that is certainly worth a little bit extra, but I don't want to go over what I'm currently spending now, especially if it's going to require alot of work with the wood etc.

Is there a good way to estimate how much wood I am going to need? I do have my propane furnace I can use if I do run out of wood, but I would like to avoid it once I have my wood stove. I also don't have a ton of space outside my house to store the wood because where it live it's very hilly, so there's not alot of flat land I can put it. If there a good cost effective way of seasoning and storing wood that I can do until I can get more suitable hardware such as a wood shed or wood crib?

Sorry for the epic long first post. I'm just completly new to this and I want to make sure I do it correctly. It's very exciting to be doing this and I am really looking forward to it.

 

[Trktrd]

Save your money and buy a chainsaw. CL in Arkansas is full of people giving away free firewood, as long as you cut it up and haul it off. After the recent ice storm I collected nearly a cord of birch and oak without even trying. It was cut up and sitting at the roadside awaiting city pick-up.

 

[bigbarf48]

I think you'll definitely be looking at more than 1 cord. One thing to keep in mind is "scrounging" your wood. When you see a tree company takin down a tree, ask the homeowner for it, if you see rounds piled up in someone's yard, go ask for it. Check your local Craigslist. Most people are more than happy to have you haul it off. This way you don't have to pay for every cord you burn (that'll get expensive fast)

As far as seasoning, it's gotta get stored in your yard somehow. Burning will be easier and less of a headache if you get ahead. You'll hear the "3 year plan" be talked about here. This involves getting enough wood split and stacked so you don't have to go year by year trying to scrape together enough to burn. Basically the idea is that your year 5 wood should have been gotten in year 2. I stack on pallets, and they can be leveled out with bricks, cinder blocks, etc. You want good sun and wind exposure for your stacks. Bear in mind that heating with wood is something that does require some extensive space and time investment

 

[Wood Duck]

I have a small stove and use it pretty much all the time when the weather is colder than about 35 degrees outside. I burn about four cords a year in Pennsylvania. I think in Ark. you'll burn three cords. Keep in mind I am keeping the house a lot warmer than 63.

It should be possible to store wood on hilly ground. Just make sure the bottom layer is stable and after that it doesn't matter if the land slopes or not - you stack vertical regardless of the slope below. Prop the lowest layer of splits so they are level.

 

[paul bunion]

Real easy to get a rough estimate by figuring out the BTU equivalent of the gas and electric that you use and then seeing how much wood that equals. The efficiency factor of your appliances comes into play also. You will need to adjust your usage by that. But for a rough estimate you can use the raw amounts.

 

[FLank_Sinatra]

I do own a chainsaw but I don't have a truck, I am looking into getting a small SUV though, so I can carry some wood in that. I have some thicket behind my house that I can use for firewood, including some oak trees and I found a fallen oak tree that I can get a good amount of wood from for next year. There's maybe 2 acres of woods behind my house but it all goes down into a ravine, so not exactly the most accessible, but I could if I needed to. Do you guys plant trees after you cut them down to replenish what you cut down? How long does a good oak tree take to grow back to make good firewood? I know they can live for about 200 years, so it doesn't sounds very sustainable on a small scale. Call me paranoid but I figured I would keep those woods intact incase I ever needed it if SHTF. Kind of like we is the US do with our domestic oil. lol

 

[Applesister]

If you start with 2 solid cords of super dry, one cord of semi seasoned and 2 more of green wood you will be off to a nice start.
Its simple, to just plain old hoard. Put your nose to the grindstone to kickstart the situation.
It wont go bad if you overestimate.
I burn 5 cords per year with 2 cords of aspen/birch.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Hey everyone! I've been lurking on the forum, and the internet in general for about a month now and trying learn everything I possibly can about wood burning. I plan on buying my first wood stove this spring after this heating season is over in hopes I can find a good deal on a stove from one of the local dealers.

From what I have been reading I'm wanting to get my wood long before I plan on burning it so it can season, so I've been looking on the local craigslist and I see alot of people selling oak for around $50 a rick or $150 per cord.

Now, this leads me to some questions.

First, I convinced my better half that this would be significantly more affordable to heat our home and it would be warmer than it is right now. Right now I use about 400 gallons of propane a year to heat the home and our water tank; we also use a delonghi oil filled radiator that runs 24/7 during the fall/winter/spring and located in the front room. In order to save as much $ as possible we keep the temperature of the central heat to about 63-65 during the day and about 55-57 at night. Once I get a wood burner I plan on making that the primary source of the home heat and maybe use the oil radiator on the opposite side of the house where the bedrooms are.

Our home is 987 square foot and we are located in Northwest Arkansas, it's moderately insulated, and when it's above 41F outside I can normally heat the house with just the radiator to a semi-comfortable level. So, this leads to my questions

How much wood should I get before my first burning season? I was originally thinking that I could probably do the entire season with a cord of wood ($150) but the more I read I'm seeing people using 2-5 cords a winter to heat their homes. This has me really concerned. I want to use wood heat to save money, but if it's going to need 2-5 cords a year at $150 a cord, that's actually more expensive. Now, obviously if it's going to be warmer in the house that is certainly worth a little bit extra, but I don't want to go over what I'm currently spending now, especially if it's going to require alot of work with the wood etc.

Is there a good way to estimate how much wood I am going to need? I do have my propane furnace I can use if I do run out of wood, but I would like to avoid it once I have my wood stove. I also don't have a ton of space outside my house to store the wood because where it live it's very hilly, so there's not alot of flat land I can put it. If there a good cost effective way of seasoning and storing wood that I can do until I can get more suitable hardware such as a wood shed or wood crib?

Sorry for the epic long first post. I'm just completly new to this and I want to make sure I do it correctly. It's very exciting to be doing this and I am really looking forward to it.

Welcome to the forum Flank.

You are very wise in your thinking that you can save dollars with a wood burner. Not only that, but you can stay a whole lot warmer!

You are somewhat correct in your thinking about getting the wood ahead of time. However, the first warning is that new wood burners should not begin with burning oak. The reason for this is that while oak is indeed one of the very best, it does give up its moisture very reluctantly. Around our place, we won't consider burning oak until it has been split and stacked out in the wind for 3 years. This is why you should beware of it. I would think in your area you should also have some maples, elm, ash, etc. Those can be ready to burn in a year. Two years is even better and three years is super.

You'll find we recommend the 3 year plan here and for good reason. Well over 90% of all wood burning related problems could be solved if folks just let their wood dry properly. In addition to the benefits of using less wood when it is dry, you'll also clean your chimney less often so you'll work less with the wood and with the cleaning. And what if some year an unfortunate accident or illness should come your way? What then? If you are 3 years ahead, you would still be okay and not have to buy wood or rely on neighbors or relatives to help put up wood. We've seen this very thing happen to more than one hearth.com member.

So now that you know the wood needs time, how do you handle it once you have it cut to length? Of course you split it to expose more of the wood to the air. Then you stack it on something. We like to just cut some saplings in the woods and lay down 2 of them to stack the wood on. Typically we cut in winter, split and stack in spring and then top cover around the first of December. When we stack, we want to stack in the windiest spot we have. Sun is good too but wind is more important. Don't try to stack super neat and tight. Remember the air circulation; stacked a bit loosely allows air to go through the wood stack and it dries the wood.

If you want to stack some wood in the barn or a woodshed, that is fine.....but first dry it outdoors unless you have even more than 3 years to dry it. We're burning some wood right now that was cut the winter of 2008-2009. It was stacked by early April. We moved some of it into the barn last October. Still have about a cord of that left outdoors to start on next year.

Here are a couple of our wood stacks. By the way, most of this wood is white ash. Top covering is old galvanized roofing.


How much wood will you require? Usually most folks will want 3 or 4 cord per year. That is a good starting point and you'll know for sure within a couple years. You very well might burn more in your first year as most new burners do but will find that you taper down a bit as time goes on.

Good luck and please keep us posted on your progress.

 

[FLank_Sinatra]

Thank all of you for your very informative posts. Paul Bunion, I found a good calculator and found that the cost of propane vs the cost of local wood in NWA is about over 2 to 1. So, for the cost of 1 million BTU's of heat from propane, I'm getting over 2 with wood, that's some crazy good value! Also, that's just assuming worse case scenario and I buy all of it, which isn't the plan!

Backwoods Savage, I'm going to try my best to find at least 3 cords of non-oak wood ASAP, preferably somewhat seasoned, and then 2 cords of oak to let start seasoning. That way hopefully by heating season 2 years from now those 2 will be ready. I will also cut that huge downed oak behind my house and find what ever else I can find. Then, late this year or early next year I'll get some more so I can start building a surplus. I love the way you have that wood stacked in your pictures, I'm going to try to emulate that with my stacking.

So, while it's seasoning do I just want to cover it with something like a tarp or in your case the metal? So is it best to keep out until you're just about to get it close to burning time so it doesn't get any more wet from rain etc? I have a patio I can put maybe a rick on. so if I moved that much at a time into dry storage during the winter would that be ok?

Thank you guys again. I'm thinking about buying a PE Fusion wood stove. I know it's made for 2000 square foot, but I do plan on expanding my house at some point to about 1200sf and also figured it would better to have slightly too big than too small.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Thanks Flank.

In your area, if it were me, I'd top cover right after stacking. You can use tarps but will soon grow tired of them because they don't last long nor do they do a good job unless you put something solid under them. Even then, they are questionable.

We leave the wood stacked outddoors and then come October move enough into the barn for the winter. That way we don't have to dig through snow and/or ice to get the wood. Like in that first picture above! And just now, we received at least another 12" of snow yesterday and last night so digging wood out of that is not fun.

Moving some onto a patio can work well too. We know of several folks who do this. I'd just beware of an east facing patio because most of the time rain or snow comes with an east wind (NE or SE too).

Good for you getting the stove a bit oversized. Remember too that many manufacturers tend to overstate how large of a space it will heat. You also have to consider cu ft to heat. Those with high ceilings need more heat than with lower ceilings. And, you can build smaller fires in a bigger stove and still do fine.