OT:Firewood post

Its snowing pretty good here in NY. I brought in firewood yesterday, was loading the stove just now and thought about how many years we have been burning wood. All those cords. Dad started in 1980, so we helped him split and stack as kids, as we got older we learned to cut, load his stove help with chimminy cleaning, putting water in the pan on the stove, ect. I have owned my house for 11 years now and have been burning wood every year on my own. I thought everyone could post how long they have heated with wood, ect! J

Moved here to the Carolina's in 1993.... from N.Y.. Our first house in N.Y. (1980) had oil heat, no way we could afford it. Heated with wood only 24x7. Moved to a newly constructed house in 1985, heated on the weekends with wood to save money till we moved in 93. A lot of wood went up our chimneys!

Building a new place here, to be our retirment home. Planning on having a wood heat setup so we can save money, we will need it on our retirement budget!!!

L.

We put the wood burner in in 1978 - oil back up. It takes 6 cord to heat each year. I clean the stack every two weeks just for nice.

My wife and I have been heating with wood for the past 15 years. Use about 1/2 tank of oil as a back-up per year. Live in central Saskatchewan with -30 to -40 nights common in winter, so go through a lot of wood. Grew up cutting wood for my father in the 70"s and 80"s. Total combined time about 30-35 years of wood heating. All splitting with a maul, until last year when I finally treated myself to a hydraulic splitter.

would be 25 yrs for me,the last 14 yrs 16 cords a year(2 stoves now). i don't mind the burning part,but the felling,bucking,loading, hauling and stacking part is getting a bit old.

But we like the heat from a wood stove so i guess so its gonna be part of my life for a long while yet.

Well, was old enough to help parents and grandparents with their wood furnaces starting about 1985. They burned about 15 full cords between the two houses from that time until 2000. Parents built a new house and I bought the farmhouse from grandparents and two new outdoor wood boilers were installed. They burn about 20 full cords between the two. In addition, my brother and I cut and sell 10-15 full cords a year, have for at least 10 years. So, if my math is right, somewhere in the range of 525+ cords in my firewood history. Plus I help a neighbor and a cousin of mine from time to time with their firewood needs cutting on their own property.

Burnt wood for 12 years. For 12 years I never slept worth a darn. Worried every nite it was gonna burn the house down.

Built a new house with Geothermal. I sleep much better and only waste time cutting wood for camp fires now.

Gary

Hey Gary!

Can you share about your geothermal? Building a new home here in the next year or so, interested in lowering energy costs.

L.

I spent $350 or so a year for heating and cooling. The thermostat is set on 72 year around.


The exhaust from the cooling system pre heats our water for the hot water supply. So about everything spent on cooling is a saving in heating hot water.

I have a 2000 sq.ft.single story house with a full 2000 sq.ft. heated basement. 6" walls with 6" of insulation in the walls and 12" of insulation in the ceiling.

I have a ground loop water circulating system with 1600' of 1" plastic pipe buried in a 100' by 40' 6 foot deep pit. The heat pump pumps the heat out of the water and blows in into the house thru forced air ducts.

I'm in Iowa where we have hot and cold.

There are a lot of this type of systems here in eastern Iowa being installed.

Gary

How much does someting like that cost to install? I've heard from $20,000 on up from the uneducated on the ins & outs of the system. Most of that being the digging. Our furnace is a 20 year old oil burner and is a pig to feed. The last owners installed a pellet stove which burns about 2-2 1/2 bags/day when it's really cold out, but it doesn't heat the whole house.

Been really interested in geothermal, but it'd be hard coming up with the cash up front.

Donovan from Wisconsin

..38 years at my house and when I was growing up on the farm from the time I can remember until I left home at around age twenty..so over fifty years, going to the bush with my Dad and brother to help load wood on the wagon and unload and stack at the house.
I pretty much heat my house with my wood stove, only use a tank of heating oil per year and I love beating those Arab bast@rds out of profit for oil.

The heat pump itself cost about 6000 more than an LP unit in 2000.

Digging the pit with the cost of the pipe and all was about $2000.

I don't know what the rebates are right now from your electric company but they did extent the tax rightoff for energy savings that wasn't available when I installed mine. You'll save around 20% of the cost in taxes. Depending on which tax bracket you are in.

Gary

I"ve burned wood, mainly as an auxiliary heat source, and partly just for the heck of it for about 10 years when I had an open fireplace. About 6 years ago I got an insert and started burning to cut back on my gas bill, which was a HUGE savings. Last winter and now this winter I am burning wood exclusively since my gas heater developed several holes in the heat exchanger after more than 20 years of use.

Im 73 and have spent 2 winters with out burning some wood.Its hard work but with 3.00 fuel oil I cant see any other way.Friend has a pellet stove because he cant handle wood any more.He uses 1 bag a day.My nephews and a friend help for a couple of days to get the wood in.I still use 700 gallons of oil each winter.Most of the neighbors burn some wood here.

Guess I'm the odd one in this group, just adding so you all can laugh at my thinking. Grew up on the farm, only ones in the neighborhood that burned wood. Small chain saws hadn't been invented yet.
Dad spent his weekdays during winter dropping trees with his hand saw & axe, cutting into about 8 ft logs. Dad, brother & I would spend every Saturday lifting these logs onto the buzz saw, cut to stove lengths,& hauling to wood pile. Had 2 woodpiles, one to build for curing, other that had cured for a year to burn from. Every day after school split with axe or sledge&wedges, lug to the house & throw through cellar window. Left the farm right after graduation at age 18. Swore that as soon as could write check for nat gas, never burn wood again.
Fast forward to retirement. Moved into a lake home. Original log cabin that has been upgraded with 4 additions, part on crawlspace, part on slab. Had a wood stove in it with nat gas for backup. Only on 1/2 acre, so had to buy wood. Haul it home, stack porch full, pile the rest outside. Carry thru kitchen to stove. Used that 1 winter, next year swapped to pellets. Burn about 4 ton a year, gas kicks in to help if temp gets down to around zero outside. Pellet stove puts out enuff heat, but due to shape of house, circulation is a problem, even with ceiling fans.
Only wood i burn now is in fire ring to roast hot dogs & marshmallows in summer when grand kids are here.
Not knocking those who heat with wood, but this is my choice, I'm sticking to it.
Willie

I been heating with a pellet burner for 5 years now.

Runs all night, I dont run it when I am at work.

I used to have a wood stove, but.......I cant get up every 2 hours in the night to reload it and the time it takes to split/stack/gather firewood is a pain. I also dont have that much wooded land. So buying wood at $40/face cord is just as expensive as the pellets.

How far north are you from the US border?

That is really cold, we havent had -20f temps here in several years. (I am in Michigan)

I grew up heating with wood so from 1954 till 1992? or there abouts. When we put up the new house I said I was all done with wood the work the stink and the mess. We have propane now and I am happy as can be.

When I checked the radar before going to bed I could see that you were getting it, and that it may go all to the west of us. This morning it looks pretty much the same, but we may get the tail end of it.

I've been married 29 years and except for 3 years we always heated with wood. As far back as I can remember, Dad, Granddad, greatgd all heated with wood as their main heat source.

wood in this house since it was built in '58. new wood furnace with an oil beside it in '90. (furnace dealer thought we were nutz) 1 165 gallon tank of oil lasts 4 years. I have 40 acres woods, so always have a ready supply of dry downed wood ready to cut up. Only problem is to get it all before the deep snow hides it
Cent wisconsin

Propane is 3.00 a gallon here plus propane is distilled from crude oil.

Gary, what make and model "Geothermal" do you have ?????? thanks

My father still heats with wood and keeps me busy cutting, splitting, and hauling.

Heated with wood using an add-on to my forced air furnace since 1976. Clean the masonry lined chimney about once a month. I use about a face cord a week, so probably burned 600 cords over the 34 years. I use about 250 gallons of oil a year, mostly in the spring and fall when it's too warm for the wood furnace. In the next few years I'm looking at replacing my old oil furnace with a high efficiency propane, but the darn thing'll probably run forever since it doesn't run much.
I cut, split, stacked, hauled all of it myself.

grew up in a house built in 1902 that was heated with wood and built my house in 1975 started heating with wood in 1977 and have since then

About four years ago we decided we were burning way too much oil. Three things we changed cut it back by about two-thirds
1) replacement windows
2) automatic thermostat that turns the heat up and down according to a programmed schedule
3) woodstove in the living room.

Of the three, the thermostat was by far the most cost effective. It only cost about fifty bucks, easy to install and really makes a big difference in your heating bill.

The woodstove makes the house comfortable when we're home and awake; like Gary, I don't like to go to sleep with the fire burning, we shut the damper and let it go out at night. We only burn about two cords of wood a year but the rooms we're in are toasty warm.

One of my earliest recollections as a child is lying in bed at night and watching the light dance on the ceiling from a crack in the old wood stove.

I've lived in wood heated homes for 45 of my 61 years.

Paul

Built house in 75 and put a Queenair wood burning unit in the basement and hooked to furance ducts. Burned some wood over the years not full time because was working. Since retired thats all I try to use. Have plenty of wood to cut and I do not have to run a mile or to everyday to keep in shape. Don't want that wood to go to waste.

Iam nw Iowa and we burnt wood back in the 70,s it realy saved me some money. we moved out to the farm in 78 witch had no wood. went to lp, it was not bad at .35 a gallon but 2yr ago it was 2.00 a gal.( not so good - $5.00 aday) and iam cheep. so we put in geothermal. yes a big cost but iam 58yrs old and its a investment in my reterment. now the cost in the winter is $100 a day and in the summer to cool it .68 cents. ( if i havd a sorse of wood id be burning that. good luck to ya. Bob

Geothermal isn't always worth the effort is some areas of the country. Depends on how cold your weather is, and how expensive your electricity is, what you pay for fuels (wood, propane, oil, etc.) In cold regions, a geothermal setup uses a lot of electricty. A place near my property in northern Michigan just converted from propane to geothermal last year. All government subsidized (it's a public museum/learning center). So far, they've saved 20% on their total energy bill. A savings yes, but not huge. And if electric prices go up, and propane doesn't the savings is less.

Winters here in northern NY can get chilly, and in a rural area like ours, there's probably a majority of people who use wood as at least part of their heating scheme. My grandparents heated a large old farmhouse exclusively with wood (a basement furnace and a second stove on the front enclosed porch) until about 10 years ago, when we installed a wood/oil combination furnace in place of the wood-only basement furnace. My parents built their house in 1967 with oil-fired hot water heat, but installed a Fisher wood stove in the early 70's when it became apparent that oil prices were on the way up, and still use it as a supplement. I, on the other hand, live in a mobile home, and though it sits on a full basement (and thus isn't terribly mobile, unless it's windy out!), neither I nor my insurance company is real fond of the idea of me having a wood stove, though the previous owner did. I took that out of commission (you could throw a cat through the cracks in it, and I'm frugal, not suicidally cheap!) and have relied on extra insulation and sealing up cracks to keep my fuel oil bill under control. As was mentioned in another post, a programmable thermostat is an excellent investment as well, and will pay for itself in a matter of months.

I started burning wood in the 60s, but never heated 100% with wood until 1979, when I bought my first old farm house in central NY. Started out with a home-made double-barrel stove.

We now heat the house and a 3 1/2 story barn and workshop 100% with wood. Original part of the house built 1820. Not very tight. Main heat in house is a big Myers 4000 Woodchuck furnace with a room built around it and a basically fireproof chimney that I can clean from inside. Barn is heated with an old Thermocontrol 500. We heat all our hot water with wood also.

This photo was taken around 1983. Truck is a 69 Dodge Power Wagon with a GMC cab stuck on it, along with a Ford box. I still have it, and use it. 318 V8 and 4.88 axles. I still use the Sthil saw in the photo also.
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Also early 80s. My little kid on my Deere 540 skidder. "Little kid" is in his 30s now.

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My new "little kid" standing by a nice hemlock tree.

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Same new kid helping me measure a 13 foot circumference red oak.

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Same kid with me getting wood up on the hill with my 94 F250 turbo-diesel

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My overloaded 1985 Isuzu 4WD diesel truck . .

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Our wood pile this summer . .

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House with fireproof Canadian chimney . .

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3 1/2 story barn/workshop smoke pipe . .

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Thank you Jd for the pictures . I am on dial up but the pictures are worth the wait. As far as burning wood- orig. question- when I lived at home with folks we had a wood stove in basement (as well as at my Dad"s camp), then put in a wood/oil furnace about 1979 - replacing an oil furnace. About 1996 my dad put a new wood /oil furnace in and I took out the first one and put it in my house and took out the kithcen cookstove that was here. My house was built in 1848, since I have owned it I have put in new windows and insulated it, which helps ALOT. I use about 1/2 tank of oil a year- mostly spring and fall when you dont need alot of heat. So I guess I have dealt with wood heat all my life .My dad still mostly heats with wood, I hope I am in that good of shape when I am 83.

We started heating with wood full time in 1988.
Our house is actually heated by electric base board heaters.The first year we lived here we had a fire place and base board heaters.A fire place burns to much wood and base board heaters cost way to much.So I installed a block off plate on the fire place ran a stainless chimney liner and installed a wood stove.We've been heating with wood for twenty three years this winter.You just can't beat wood heat for warmth.

Dad bought a Central Boiler outdoor wood burner about 5 years ago. Heats our house, garage, hot water, and hot tub. We burn 15-20 cords in a season (usually end of September - early May).

This is not meant to be critical of anyone,but a question.First,I don't ever remember my parents or Grand Parents heating with wood,(Coal until 1997 but never wood).Question,WHO stokes this stoves anyway because they won't keep burning and putting heat out for over 4 to 6 Hrs.My son started to put a out door unit in and got to thinking of being able to only fire it on a 11-12 Hr.bases which wasn't practical to maintaining a decent temp..He took his unit back out.(never finished)

House and shop since 1979, Going to put a new wood,oil furnace in the house this summer, old set up pretty well used up. Also heat the hot water with the wood burner. Now, with the high cost of fuel that wood is finally saving us some money.

My grandfather started burning wood in 1888 when he immigrated from Finland, the fire has gone out a few times since then but I'm still heating with wood.

How often you must stoke a wood burner depends on many factors. My dad finally bought the classic central boiler after doing a ton of research on outdoor wood burners. As I said, we have cold winters here in MI and we heat our house, garage, hot water, and hot tub. We fill our stove every 24hours unless it happens to be extremely cold (below 10 degrees or so). My dad and I enjoy the fresh air and don't mind spending 10 minutes filling the stove each night.

Burned wood since '99 when I bought my house. Every piece burned is red oak. I check my chimney once a month to be on the safe side but I can go all winter without cleaning it.

Not sure I understand the question. I have an indoor wood-furnace and we heat 100% with wood. Even when temps are 20 below zero F, we load at night before we got to bed, turn down the thermostat to 60 F, and the fire easily lasts all night. Come 7 in the morning, I open the door and chuck some more wood in. No big deal. Never had a fire go out on me. During the day when we keep the house at 70F, I load the furnace 3-4 times a day.

We also left once for an overnight somewhere. Stoked the furnace at 8 am in the morning. Came back over a day later around noon. Nothing but coals left in the furnace, but still putting out heat and I did not have to restart the fire. Just put some wood in and let it take off.

Anyone here have any trouble with woodchucks chucking their wood? Just wondering.

About 300 miles north of the Montana border. No -40 yet this year, but lots of -25 to -35 range nighttime temps. We like to say its not bad because its a "dry cold", but -35 is -35 no matter how you slice it. Remember that these temps are degrees C -20 F=-28 C, -40 F=-40 C

I'm 66 years old and grew up in a family of 7, we always burned wood/coal. First chainsaw I ran was a Sears gear drive. We had 17 acres of woods. There was a big furnace in the basement with a jacket around it that funneled the heat to air ducts. My favorite spot was by the kitchen register which was directly above that old furnace. Since being married I've continued heating with wood because it's available and fun (to me). Built a hydraulic woodsplitter at least 25 years ago and it's still working good. The large room where the woodstove is today was 85 degrees 20 feet away from the stove- but the sun was also shining in the large south window. That kind of warmth would be a luxury otherwise.

I'm 19 and have been helping cut split haul stack and burn firewood since i could walk. Dad and i cut and haul for my two grams us and my cousin. We finally got a log splitter the year i went to college so dad could split with me being gone. But now that i'm home on break i cut and split most. We have access to a lot of wooded ground. I usually just make trails to the fallen trees then skid them with my Farmall H of 9n to a field where we can cut them and haul them easier. Then Load my dads old ranger and a home made wagon down and stack it at the house. We've broken the leaf spring mounts 3 times on the ranger hauling so much wood.

You answered the question JD,on how many times a day when the house has to be kept 70 or so but when there is no one to stoke it from 6:30AM to 6-7 PM.I was raised with coal and that was a once a day to every 2nd,3rd day event.The few people I know with Out door units have to reload 5 to 6 times a 24 which isn't possible a lot of the time.

Things are changing fast, but most outdoor wood furnaces are old tech and ineffecient. To make things worse . . . most people I know that use them are nowhere near as careful with using good wood. The attitude seems to be, if the furnace is outside - it's so safe you can burn anything in it. I see many people burning wet and/or green wood in them. My farmer/neighbor has a 10 year old Central Boiler outdoor furnace. Before he had it, it's cut wood in the summer, split it, stack it, let it dry, etc. Some oaks take two summers around here to be dry enough to burn right. Now?? With the outdoor stove, he cuts trees in the winter, drags them home, cuts them up and burns - frozen and green a few days later. Preferably white ash, since it has the lowest water content for hardwood green tree.

Outdoor furnaces with the present state of technology will probably be banned soon (for new sales), and replaced with only EPA rated furnaces. That was already done with "woodstoves." Many companies that had been previously selling inefficient units called "woodstoves" had to start calling them "wood furnaces" instead - to be legal.

Here in New York, some new laws already came into effect on Jan. 1, 2011. All outdoor stoves MUST have 18 foot chimneys within 6 months -and all new ones must have them. Soon they will also have to be EPA certified for efficiency.

No matter what you do or use - one general principal exists. You need a hot fire to burn clean. If you have a huge furnace, and must keep it turned down so the house doesn't get hot - it builds up with creosote and wastes wood. If you run it hot enough to stay clean, but can't use all that heat - then you still waste a lot of wood.

In Europe, some setups use a system where the wood fire only runs hot and is never turned down. That requires a heat-storage system that you rarely see in the USA. You run the fire only once every few days - heat up a huge amount of water, then shut down the fire and heat from that water for days.

I installed a big, low tech wood furnace 20 feet from the side of my house. I then built a well insulatred room around the furnace, connected to the house. This way, we get all the heat and it does not sit out in the cold. We can store around 4 full cords of wood around the furnace. Even if wet and green, it bakes and dries before we have to use it. Works very well, but. When outside temps are "warm", around 40-50 degrees F, the big furnace cooks us out of the house - unless we choke it - which can plug the chimeny. So, we have a EPA rated woodstove in the middle of the house. With just a few chunks of wood it easily keeps the house warm all night when it's not very cold out. It's a Hearthstone Mansfield. EPA woodstoves are pretty amazing. We had a huge Royal Oak coal/wood potbelly stove there before the Hearthstone. If we loaded it full, it would barely hold a fire for 3 hours.

Note that when I bought my big Myers 4000 Woodchuck furnace, it was not my first choice. At that time, there was only one wood furnace that had been tested and certified for high efficiency by the EPA. It was made in Québec, called the "EPA Caddy." I tried to buy it, but the Canucks up there refused to sell it to me because I live in the USA. That makes me wonder why they spent the money to get it EPA certified?

By the way, I worked a place that made "air tight woodstoves" back in the 70s. They worked well then, and still do - but only when someone knows how to use. They also caused many houses to burn down. Main problem is - people turned them all the way down at night, and plugged their chimneys with creosote. I.e., ran them too much, too cold. That is much harder to do with the new EPA rated woodstoves.

The airtight woodstoves like the Blaze King models with a catalyst solve a lot of those issues. They are designed to burn relatively slowly, but the catalyst burns off virtually all of the smoke. Very little if any creosote build-up in the chimney. We've been using one for ten years, and the chimney needs cleaning only once a year, and then it is more soot than creosote. They definitely are not cheap, and require regular gentle cleaning of the catalyst. In our case, this stove uses 1/3 the wood that the older model airtight it replaced. Most of the heat comes from the catalyst itself, which is simply reburning the smoke that went up the chimney wasted with the older stove.