Heating With Wood ?

[CharlieG]

Wood heat

When folks come over my house they immediately feel the solid heat of the wood burning stove. Must be burninng a lot of oil these days, right. Nope I say, and point to the stove working quitely in the corner. Free heat I tell them, from that ol' tree that fell across the neighbors drive. Nothing like helping out friends to get free firewood and a chance to run the saws and the splitter.

 

[rx7145]

That's funny a few years ago someone wiped out a power pole on the icy roads and the power was out for about two hours it was -30c that day when the power came back on you could see all exhaust coming from the chimney's every house except mine it was still 72f in my home.Thanks to wood

A couple years ago we had a big ice storm and No one had power for two-three days. I installed a 15kw diesel generator hard wired to the panel. The electric company stopped by to see how we still had power!

 

[A100HVA]

saw shop wood heat 100%,rest of the place oil fired steam heat.

 

[LarryTheCableGuy]

We use about four cords per winter - two cords of pine that I cut/split and two cords of mixed hardwoods that is purchased. There just isn't much hardwood around here that is available for cutting.

Wood supplies about 85% of our heat. My wife needs the house to be WARM and I don't mind her burning all of the wood that she wants. She can have it up to 80F - burn all you want, I'll cut more! I just have to be in a different part of the house if it's anywhere near that hot in there - but if it makes her feel better, no problem!

.

 

[kellog]

We heat fully with wood from Nov to the end of March. Other than that we use Oil. I voted in the middle.

Two stoves, a Heathmate cat and a VC Winterwarm cat. Burn 6-7 cords of hardwood which I get delivered by the grapple. Just finished cutting up one today. Time to order another. Starting to build up a good stock.

Don’t have any time to harvest wood as I spend all my time developing the Impact Splitter. Update on that coming soon.

 

[Butch(OH)]

We have used wood to assit our gas heat for 24 years. Last year we switched to a OWB and our gas furnace only ran once, in September for test. Our wood comes from several places. We own 52 acres which has 15 acres of woods plus fence rows. The county limb drop off area is a mile from us and we scrounge a bit of wood there and my in-laws own land and farm and are always glad to have us cutting back fence rows. We heat the house plus water plus my shop so we use some wood, guessing 10 cord last year. It helps to have two burley boys to help with the cutting and a H-D home built splitter. All of our 2007-8 wood is cut and in the woodshed. Next years cutting will start as soon as it cools down enough to work, was close to 90 here again today or at least 20 above normal

 

[CharlieG]

Wood Heat

Thats the way to do it....get a head on next years stockpile of wood, or maybe several years ahead. Don't know what might happen in between-injuries, sickness, etc. Be prepared cut when you can.

 

[goof008]

I keep the fire going all the time, but when it gets real cold, it can't keep up. It's not real big and it's in the basement, but it helps a ton! The thermostat is set at 63 at night, and the only time the furnace has to kick in is in the early morning before I can get more wood in the fire.
I need a bigger stove!!
Then I would need a bigger saw, to cut more wood in the same amount of time.
Then I would need a bigger, better splitter to split the wood the new saw is cutting for the new stove.
Then I would need a new quad to haul all the new wood to the house.
Then I would need a bigger trailer to haul the quad and the wood.
Then I would need a bigger truck to pull the loaded down trailer.
Then I would need a good divorce lawyer!!
Maybe I'll just stick with what I have....for now.

 

[logbutcher]

Impact Splitter

Don’t have any time to harvest wood as I spend all my time developing the Impact Splitter. Update on that coming soon.

Keep us updated here. You have a built-in Focus Group for trials and feedback. Plan a workshop or show-and-tell on your site.
Even better, take the prototype Impact Splitter to ME in ME. We're only 7 hours due north of you Downeast next to Acadia Nat'l Park ....and it's pretty now. opcorn:
Now, if some brain designer/engineer/inventor would develop a bomb-proof non-Peltor helmet system

 

[logbutcher]

saw shop wood heat 100%,rest of the place oil fired steam heat.

Bill: What's the name of your shop ? Don't be shy .
That is one cool system for the stove: sawmill blade in back, then granite under the stove ? Nice.
BTW: the plywood floor needs painting.

 

[A100HVA]

found way not to keep painting floor regularly

u.s.route302 main street center conway,n.h.

 

[JPE]

Our previous house (rental) was an ancient farm house with little to no insulation. Fortunately it had a wood burning furnace add on. The last month we were there I had run out of wood so we used gas heat only, and kept the thermostat at a balmy 68 degrees.....it ran us right at about $500/month in fuel costs.

The bulk of the time we kept that wood furnace going though so it wasn't really an issue. I've cut wood most of my life and really enjoy it, but I found that I started to dread cutting wood when I actually HAD to do it. It became too much of a chore and less of a hobby.

I'm back to only a wood burning fireplace in the new house for now. We burn a fire just about every evening and most of the weekend during the winters. There are 4 other households in our family that still get the majority of their heat from wood though so I still get plenty of cutting in.

 

[njtuna]

this will be our second winter in our house. never had a fireplace before. we have a fireplace xtrordinaire now. used it a lot last year, mainly weekday evenings. started using it during the day on weekends late in the season. ran out of wood in march and gas bill went up over $100. plan on using it all weekend long and weekend evenings this season. cut my own wood this year. got a large maple from the town, some oak from 2 trees that fell on a friend's property, and scrounged some more.