So this might be so super-simple that no-one bothers to mention it--sorta like the kindergartener who figured out that none of the crayons look as good as they taste, and zooms off to tell everyone, none of whom care--but I this is what passes as an epiphany for me, so am sharing it here.
I have a wood rack inside my sunroom where I bring in wood to get up to room temp (sometimes 80-90 degrees warmer, so it makes a difference to the stove) and to dry off if needed. Was looking at that rack yesterday, thinking about how long that would last, and the aha! bell went off.
I measured the rack, and calculated that a level wood rack is just under 7 cubic feet. I believe that lasts me about 3 days, but I could be wrong though, so am paying attention to when I started pulling off that rack, and not topping it off until I've used it up. It's going to be my little experiment this weekend. If it lasts me three days, then I calculate that a cord of wood will last me about 7-8 weeks; if it's two days, it's going to be about 5 weeks per cord.
And the stack I have left under my deck--the easiest access to my stove--is 54 c.f., so about 7 reloads of my sunroom stash--another 2-3 weeks, which is what I'd estimated a pile that size lasted me back in November. And I can start looking at the other stacks I have pulled in, and even the ones out in the woods, and figure `That's three days, that's a week.' I can also look at the standing dead wood I have, and measure it when I cut it, and start getting an idea of how long an x-sized tree will last me.
So it's a rough estimate: variables include the quality of wood, how much sunlight we're getting, whether it's a weekend or weekdays, ambient temps, even how much I run the oven. Rough or not, it's a place to start, and I can learn to adjust for those variables from there. Thought that some of the rest of the kindergarten class might find this approach useful.
update: formal testing confirmed what my loose best guess seat-of-the-pants guess had come up with: one stack-full lasts just a few hours shy of three full days, so I'm figuring from there that a cord will last me about two months at the 0-20F range, and thus about 4-to-5 cords a winter, adjusted for supplementation w/fuel oil. It's a start for figuring.
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Got my best overnight burn yet last night--it's a Heritage, and is supposed to give me 6-8 hour burns, but I figured it was because I was burning poplar that I wasn't consistently getting that. Tried a technique that someone posted here--didn't catch the name, but I think it's someone from Ontario--and it worked very well for me. Moved my coals to the front of the stove, opened the air intake to burn them down, and then capped them with a split. I stacked more splits behind/above them, like books on a library shelf--not over-stuffed, just three of them, but one was pretty good-sized, then turned the air intake down and shut the stack damper partway. This way, the coals had to burn through the first split before it could ignite the rest, slowing down the rate of burn. I've been tweaking this approach for the last few days, and I think I've got the hang of it. Nice, big bed of coals this AM, stovetop about 200F degrees, 70F in hearth room, 69.5 upstairs.
***********************
Life is too short to make all the mistakes and do all the learning ourselves, so if anyone else has newbie lessons to share, please feel welcome to do so in this thread.
I have a wood rack inside my sunroom where I bring in wood to get up to room temp (sometimes 80-90 degrees warmer, so it makes a difference to the stove) and to dry off if needed. Was looking at that rack yesterday, thinking about how long that would last, and the aha! bell went off.
I measured the rack, and calculated that a level wood rack is just under 7 cubic feet. I believe that lasts me about 3 days, but I could be wrong though, so am paying attention to when I started pulling off that rack, and not topping it off until I've used it up. It's going to be my little experiment this weekend. If it lasts me three days, then I calculate that a cord of wood will last me about 7-8 weeks; if it's two days, it's going to be about 5 weeks per cord.
And the stack I have left under my deck--the easiest access to my stove--is 54 c.f., so about 7 reloads of my sunroom stash--another 2-3 weeks, which is what I'd estimated a pile that size lasted me back in November. And I can start looking at the other stacks I have pulled in, and even the ones out in the woods, and figure `That's three days, that's a week.' I can also look at the standing dead wood I have, and measure it when I cut it, and start getting an idea of how long an x-sized tree will last me.
So it's a rough estimate: variables include the quality of wood, how much sunlight we're getting, whether it's a weekend or weekdays, ambient temps, even how much I run the oven. Rough or not, it's a place to start, and I can learn to adjust for those variables from there. Thought that some of the rest of the kindergarten class might find this approach useful.
update: formal testing confirmed what my loose best guess seat-of-the-pants guess had come up with: one stack-full lasts just a few hours shy of three full days, so I'm figuring from there that a cord will last me about two months at the 0-20F range, and thus about 4-to-5 cords a winter, adjusted for supplementation w/fuel oil. It's a start for figuring.
************************
Got my best overnight burn yet last night--it's a Heritage, and is supposed to give me 6-8 hour burns, but I figured it was because I was burning poplar that I wasn't consistently getting that. Tried a technique that someone posted here--didn't catch the name, but I think it's someone from Ontario--and it worked very well for me. Moved my coals to the front of the stove, opened the air intake to burn them down, and then capped them with a split. I stacked more splits behind/above them, like books on a library shelf--not over-stuffed, just three of them, but one was pretty good-sized, then turned the air intake down and shut the stack damper partway. This way, the coals had to burn through the first split before it could ignite the rest, slowing down the rate of burn. I've been tweaking this approach for the last few days, and I think I've got the hang of it. Nice, big bed of coals this AM, stovetop about 200F degrees, 70F in hearth room, 69.5 upstairs.
***********************
Life is too short to make all the mistakes and do all the learning ourselves, so if anyone else has newbie lessons to share, please feel welcome to do so in this thread.
