% of total heating home via woodburnig

[Got Wood]

I voted 80-100%. Oil does hot water as well so its hard so say exactly but the thermostats are set below 60 and the house rarely ever gets that cold with the wood heat doing its job.

 

[allhandsworking]

I would say close to 80% It would be better but when I am working nights the fire goes out. My wife is blond and cant be trusted lighting a match. Would you believe that she spent her summers driving tractor over in Ireland when she was a kid! When she was 16 she discovered makeup and tight jeans! We are from Queens NY ya know! Boy you should see the big hair pictures from the the 80s, its so funny. Me I guess I have always been an urban redneck. I had a Millet before it was called a mullet and lots of rusty car parts in the garage. My buddies were listening to Duran Duran and ACDC and was listening to Hank William's and Johnny Cash. The only thing that I had going for me is that my parents home didn't have the traditional tyvek siding. See not all us city folk are screwed up!

 

[WoodMann]

80 to 100%, I have the nat gas fired furnace on back up. Regardless of the temp outside, it's great if the sun is out, really makes a diference when ya get home. I've recently fotten a Serta air mattress so I could camp out in the living room by the stove, the cat really loves that................

 

[Backwoods Savage]

100% wood and would not have it another way. It has been a long, long time since we bought oil for a furnace. Many, many moons, paleface.

 

[WoodMann]

For some reason I never think I seem to have enough wood at the ready................

 

[mackconsult]

I heat my house about 97% wood heat. Lights,appliances, etc. account for the other 3%

+1
I'm always surprised how it will stay above 20 C (70 F) in our house when outside the temperature is only 9 C (48 F) without any backup heating (furnace or wood). That heat has to be coming from somewhere. (lights?, computers?, hot water tank?, cooking?)

Solar gain? Body heat?

Insulation, good windows, nicely sealed doors, air spaces above and below the house.

 

[Ratman]

100% wood and would not have it another way. It has been a long, long time since we bought oil for a furnace. Many, many moons, paleface.

Me think you smokin' peace pipe again Dennis...

So your oil burner never ran once in the last year couple years?
If so I would claim your house has been occupied every single 40 degree or below day in the last couple years.
If the above is factual then congratulations I guess.
I stand corrected; one could actually and factually make the 100% claim.

Oil cost for mine last year was approximately $125.

 

[SolarAndWood]

Me think you smokin' peace pipe again Dennis...

If he is, I'm smokin it with him Ratman. I ripped my furnace and all the ductwork out 4 years ago. Wife and I have jobs and kids. It's not impossible to heat exclusively with wood unless you consider solar gain cheating.

 

[Dune]

Wood heat only! Zero oil for two straight years now, and very little the year before. Additonaly, this year my hot water will come only from wood during the heating season. (electric hot water otherwise. When I installed my indoor wood boiler, I hooked it up in paralell to my oil burner. Later, I installed ball valves to isolate the oil burner from the system, as I reasoned;
1. the oil burner was acting as an outdoor radiator
2. I never use the oil burner (my oil tanks are full by the way. If I ever go on vacation or leave for an emergency in the winter, I can leave the heat on.)

 

[Dune]

I heat my house about 97% wood heat. Lights,appliances, etc. account for the other 3%

+1
I'm always surprised how it will stay above 20 C (70 F) in our house when outside the temperature is only 9 C (48 F) without any backup heating (furnace or wood). That heat has to be coming from somewhere. (lights?, computers?, hot water tank?, cooking?)

Refrigerators put out lots of heat. Bodies do too. At one time there were super-insulated homes that were so tight that they needed no heat source at all, other than lights and bodies, even in norther New Hampshire. They stopped building them because of air quality issues. Nonetheless, enough can't be said for sufficient insulation.

 

[northwinds]

80-100%. We use a natural gas furnace when we're gone on overnight trips.

 

[btuser]

This will be the 3rd Winter in the new house. Seeing how its just me stuffing the stove on the weekends I don't think there's much chance of burning more than 2 cords of wood.

Southern NH. Design temp -7F
3500sqft colonial 5 br with 800 sqft in-law over garage.
The in-law apt is pretty isolated from the house (thank God) and doesn't benefit from the insert unless we open the french doors. The heat for the house is set to 60f 24/7, and if "we" want it warmer, we start a fire. I'm hoping now that I have my wood shed and properly seasoned cord wood ready to go it won't be the chore it was to burn last year.

2007=1400+(didn't count the first tank) gallons oil no wood stove.
2008=1200 gallons with Lopi Freedom insert+2 cords not-very-dry cordwood. This was actually a colder Winter than year before. It lasted until May.
2009=40 gallons for the month of October. I wired an hour-meter so I can graph daily/monthly usage more accurately. No, as a matter of fact, I don't have a life.

I'm shooting for 1000 gallons this year. I've got a little more than 4 dry cords, another 9" fiberglass in the attic, an extra 275 oil tank, and some serious upgrades to the near boiler piping / controls. The apartment is 40% of my heat load in the Winter. Eventually I'm planning on the apartment to be converted to a direct exchange geothermal system (already ducted for central air) and with some other slight tweeking I could get down to 500 gallons.

 

[jdscj8]

100% wood, i think winter would be alot easier if we had a furnace. JD

 

[EKLawton]

its my first full winter with the new insert...hoping to get about 70 percent with wood. Natural gas makes up the other 30,,,at least I hope..

will have that 30% coverd. Just need beer,jerky and a lighter :shut: :roll: :lol:

 

[quads]

100% wood and would not have it another way. It has been a long, long time since we bought oil for a furnace. Many, many moons, paleface.

Me think you smokin' peace pipe again Dennis...

So your oil burner never ran once in the last year couple years?
If so I would claim your house has been occupied every single 40 degree or below day in the last couple years.
If the above is factual then congratulations I guess.
I stand corrected; one could actually and factually make the 100% claim.

Oil cost for mine last year was approximately $125.

Count me in for a puff of that peace pipe too! 100% wood heat. We get down to -30°F below zero quite often, and I have seen it -45°F below zero a couple times. I'm never gone overnight, and no more than 10 hours or so at most during the day, even when I have a rare day off from milking the cows. We have a furnace for emergencies, but I haven't turned it on in years, other than a test in the Fall. The only thing we use LP gas for is cooking and hot water.

 

[brokeburner]

95% have little electric space heater for kids room. and no backup oil gas the duct work was so nasty i just tore it all out and scrapped the ng furnace. electric hot water

 

[BrotherBart]

Remember, if you have a back-up and use it once it's 80-100%, not 100%.
If you use your back-up system even a few times a year it really inflates the 100% claims / statements.
Remember the cost/price of your back-up, although not part of the question, is not considered in the connotation when one claims 100%.

A similar statement, and even I have made this slip of the tongue, is Free Wood.
It's never totally free. Close sometimes and nearly full price other times when all cost elements are considered.

OK. OK. The heat pump died from lack of use ten years ago or so. Really don't know when because we never used it, but the backup oil filled radiators may have come on a time or two in the winter that I didn't notice so I guess we are at 99.763%.

As to the wood I figure that with the effort and equipment it is costing me around $900 a cord.

 

[lazeedan]

At $900 a cord you might want to start buying your wood.

 

[Dune]

At $900 a cord you might want to start buying your wood.

Nah. Then he'd get fat.

 

[heppm01]

60-80%.

I have the programmable thermostats set to shut off the OWB at 6:00AM and fire up the propane furnace to bring the house back up to temp. This way my wife wakes up to a warm house and doesn't wake my lazy ass up to start a fire. They're set to flip-flop back at 9:15AM - I usually have the boiler back up to temp by then.

Matt

 

[precaud]

Probably in the 60-80 camp now. Passive solar makes up the rest. Free heat, no work involved. Next year I'm planning on another solar array which would lower the woodburning to around 50%.

 

[crazy_dan]

I heat 100% with wood
There is NO other source of heat in my house no furnace or anything else for that matter.
well ok we do have heated mattress pads on the beds for the nights that are kinda cool but not cold enough for a fire.
I do not count that in to the heating of the house if we did then nobody would be 100% as the sun heats the house some so does cooking and body heat just not sure how anal naysayers want to get.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

On the subject of heating the house with body heat......
"The human body maintains a basic minimum rate of heat production at about 250 Btu/hr during sleep, the heat equivalent of about 75 watts, and about 400 Btu/hr (120 watts) when awake but sedentary. As bodily activity increases, the rate of oxidation of food, with its attendant release of energy, must increase. The level of heat production for light work will be about 650 Btu/hr (190 watts), the extreme value for heavy work, about 2400 Btu/hr (700 watts)."

According to the above, my wife and I produce at least 500 Btu/hr while we sleep, but 14 and 12 years ago, respectively, we produced about 4800 Btu/hr on a couple of cold nights, now our family produces a steady 1000 Btu/hr while we sleep.
%-P

 

[westkywood]

I would say about 80%. I use the 45 degree as my rule, if it's 45 or below by 7 PM which gives me time to do a startup fire and a decent load up before bed. We like the house around 75 degrees in the house and at 52 it's too cold not to have heat but in my opinion too warm for the fire so the propane comes on. Once it's get real cold the propane only comes on when the schedule don't permit or when I'm sicker then a dog - hopefully not this year!

Yeah, What he said...

 

[firefighterjake]

80-100% for me . . . which is a bit strange since I started out only intending to burn weekends and evenings . . . until I found out how well the house could be heated with the woodstove and how long the heat lasted . . . I figured burning 24/7 would not be possible . . . but was happy to find out I was wrong.

I do have an oil boiler on back-up . . . thermostats set to 60 degrees in case things get too cold, we're gone from the house too long, we get sick and bed bound or while we're on vacation . . . and there is a small electric space heater (also set to 60 degrees) which I use in the mudroom/utility room (but it's main purpose is to keep the water lines from freezing as it is located in the room furthest from the stove . . . ironic really since this is also where the oil boiler sits unused most of the winter.)