OWB wood usage & square footage

[Mister Twister]

I have almost he same situation. I live Northeast of Syracuse New York in the Town of Vienna. I have a CB 5036 Classic on the way. Heating around 1100 square feet of house. I have a 1000 square ft. garage and a full basement also. I don't heat the garage and basement all the time. I have a gas hot water heater and range use about 800 gallons of propane gas a year. I have about 20 -25 face cord of mixed wood right now not sure how much I will use so I will obtain more. I have a 500 gal. propane tank that is half full so they will be asking questions soon when I don't contact them for gas I am on a will call basis now and did not lock in a price on gas this year. It would have been $2.96 a gallon for lock in another $100 so I would have been looking at $2,468 this year for gas......

:greenchainsaw:

 

[coostv]

Might as well make this my first post. Here is my info.

- Just north of Grand Rapids, MI
- 2000 square foot 2 story
- 1000 square foot garage
- no water
- My stove is a Timber Wolf, it was built here in MI. I do not remember the exact model of my stove, but it is a 5000 sq. ft. model. I see on the forums that MS-310 may sell them. I bought mine directly from the guy who made them 2 years ago.

I use about 6-7 full cord a year from Oct, to Apr, but I make sure I have 8. I have the house thermostat set for 62 degrees from 7AM to 2PM, 70 degrees from 2 PM to 9:30PM, and 64 degrees from 9:30M until 7AM weekdays. Weekends we keep it at 70 all day, and 64 at night.
The garage is kept at 50 degrees, except for in the evening and weekends when I am working out there. I keep it at a toasty 70 degrees or higher. I recently picked up a 100K unit heater for the spray booth, I think it may be too big, but I won't know that until I get it hooked up and try it out, but for the price I paid I won't be upset if it does not. I will not use the unit heater and the shop air handler (old furnace) at the same time, so it may be fine.

 

[ms310]

with 7 cords year round... that's just about the best numbers posted so far...
folks posting 9-12 cords seem pretty knowledgeable.

how many square ft are you heating and what brand OWB?
gasifier?

I am heating a 2400 square foot home wife sets thermo at about 73 and it turns down to about 69 at night. I also heat the 2400 square foot basement, keep that at about 68, and i also heat my dhw. I do not split anything unless i can not fit it in the door, it last longer when the peices are bigger. I also burn mostly the stuff, we can sell during the winter. This will be pretty much what we call junk wood. Cherry, apple, poplar, maple, hickory, and i am even known to throw rotten wood, and small stumps in the OWB. I do not sell wood burners as someone posted they thought i might. However, am seriousley thinking of getting into it, but cant find one that i would feel confident selling to people i like. The heatmore franchise is already taken, i guess i need to do some research when i get serious.

 

[coostv]

I am heating a 2400 square foot home wife sets thermo at about 73 and it turns down to about 69 at night. I also heat the 2400 square foot basement, keep that at about 68, and i also heat my dhw. I do not split anything unless i can not fit it in the door, it last longer when the peices are bigger. I also burn mostly the stuff, we can sell during the winter. This will be pretty much what we call junk wood. Cherry, apple, poplar, maple, hickory, and i am even known to throw rotten wood, and small stumps in the OWB. I do not sell wood burners as someone posted they thought i might. However, am seriousley thinking of getting into it, but cant find one that i would feel confident selling to people i like. The heatmore franchise is already taken, i guess i need to do some research when i get serious.

MS-310 is the user I was referring to, the - being the key.

I do not know how others are constructed, but the Timberwolf is insulated using spray foam and I think there is a layer of fiberglass under that. The entire water tank is encapsulated in the spray foam/fiberglass. The tank and firebox are round, some say that makes a difference, but I have no idea if it does or not...

I forgot to mention in my previous post that my in laws have the same stove. They use theirs to heat a 2200 sq ft convenience store constructed of block and very little insulation. They use around 7 cord a year and keep the temp at 68-70 during the day and set back to 62 at night.

We both keep the water temp in the 175-180 range. This seems to be the temp that works best for us. My pex is buried 2' down in round foam, in retrospect I should have used the square style foam. I have a 100' run to the house and a 30' run to the garage.

I do not split anything I can pick up and handle easily (under approx 10" diameter). I also try to mix the load in the firebox, some split, some not. I do not know if mixing does much, but that it is how I do it. I also try to keep my coal bed around 6-8" deep and I let it burn down on the weekends when I can be home if it starts building too high.

Also, for anyone interested in cost I will share that, mind you this is 2006 pricing. I shelled out a grand total of $5200 for everything. Stove, second pump, 300' of 1" Pex, foam insulation for the Pex, a mess of fittings, Watts crimp tool, 100 crimps, 2 water to air heat exchangers, one side arm heat exchanger for the water heater (which I can not use due to the location of my heaters drain valve, too cramped to get to), plus other misc. items I am forgetting. I shopped hard for everything, utilizing ebay, pexsupply.com, and the local big box stores.

Below is a pic of mine before I had it hooked up. It may not be a pretty shed looking thing, but it seems to be efficient and simple enough.

 

[milkie62]

OWB is the best thing since sliced bread.I use the weekends of October to get my wood cut and stacked near the boiler.I would probably have to spend around $3-4k to heat with oil so 8 days out in the fresh air is pretty good pay the way I look at it.

 

[bowtechmadman]

My wood for the winter...and a shot of the Woodmaster 5500. Guesses are welcome but I feel comfortable that I have plenty to get me through the winter.

 

[mschoff]

shaver

I have a shaver 165 and I hooked it up last feb and I had some wet and some non season wood and I think I only burned around 2 1/2 cords and that was for 10 weeks. and my house is 1550 sq ft plus hotwater and garage michael

 

[barkeg]

Indoor wood boiler in AK

I've got an econoburn ebw-100 that we fired up for the first time on 30 Nov 08. I have not been keeping diligent records on fuel use but the 1st bunch of wood was not completely dry so it won't be accurate for next season anyway. Lately we've been burning some dead standing spruce and birch I've been cutting. It makes a world of difference! We're heating a 3100 sf house (4 years old) in North Pole, AK and it is -60F outside today and the house is a toasty 73F. We also have a Blaze King Ultra we run in addition to the boiler when it is colder than about -45F. I estimate we've burned about 1.5 to 2 cord just in December. The temp averaged about -30F though. I intend to put up about 7 cord and see how it goes next year. I'll start cutting it as soon as the temperature climbs above -30F. I expect we'll have a warm spell in a week or two.

Best wishes.

 

[Biker Dude]

BRRRRR!

Welcome to AS, your input is greatly appreciated. We have long wanted to compare outdoor boiler usage and indoor gassification boiler usage. Please keep us updated as the season wears on.

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

I have a Central Boiler SCL5648SB(stainless). In southwestern Ohio and have had it for 6 years now. Always heated totally with wood but moved to our family homeplace and installed one. Put it in before the new pex feed tube was available so I have the 8 inch slip over type. I DID lay 12 inches of peagravel with 4 inch drainage tile under ALL the feed line(150ft) as if your ever trying to heat ground water your going to be hurting.

House is 36' X 50', 2 story with full basement and 36' X 50' attached garage with radiant floor heat.(2 x 6 sidewalls) I'm heating my domestic hot water and turn it all off when warmer weather comes around. House is over 150 years old and had NO insulation. Used close to 25 cord the first year. Yes, 25 FULL cord. If you have an energy waster it doesn't matter what you heat it with, your going to use alot. Next year I completely stripped the exterior one side at a time and insulated. First floor has full cut 2 X 8's while second floor is full cut 2 x 6's. All insulated using double layered on first floor and 16 inches of blown in on ceiling to attic. Sealed every nook and cranny and added new windows. OSB, House wrap and vinyl siding too. Planning on staying till I die and did the work myself so I know how it was done.

I now use between 10 - 14 full cords and I can easily keep track of it. I built a 20' X 20' building that the boiler is in and bring all the wood in at the beginning of the season. All wood is dry and seasoned as we store in barns but the varing factor is what wood is used. Depends on what dies, blows down or what's in the fencerow. Here a pic of the building with the stove inside.

View attachment 85686

Both me and my Dad use wood and we have done it(cut) since I was a little kid. I hear the Vermont castings stoves are highly efficient but I can't bring myself to drag the dirt and such in the house. If that means I have to stay outside a little longer it's a price I'm willing to pay. I turn away wood cutting for others as cleaning up our own properties keeps us with more than we need.

 

[MoparDuke]

I have a Mahoning 200, I think it has a 22x22x36 fire box with a 220+ gallon water jacket and forced air draft. I heat a 2,000 sqft house (radiant floor),a full basement(Modine),a 580 sqft garage (Modine) and my domestic hot water. I keep the house at about 72-74 degrees, the basement at about 65, which means the Modine rarely runs and the garage at 55 degrees. I live in extreme northern NY (which is colder than most people think it is). It is a new, 2001, well insulated home and I can keep the water jacket temp pretty low at about 160. I also heat an 18 foot above ground swimming pool to about 90 degrees all summer. So, I run the furnace year round.
I have a 50 acre wood lot and try to only cut dead wood or blow downs so I burn a lot of junk wood, hemlock, pine, poplar, bass wood even some willow. I try to save my "good" wood, beech and hard maple for when the temps get down near zero. I leave all my wood outside, uncovered. I split as little as possible. Most is 8" -10" stuff anyway.
I burn quiet a bit of wood. 12-15 full cords.
I suspect if I burned only good seasoned hard wood and kept it covered and didn't heat the pool I would burn less than half of that.
Sometimes it seems like I burn more in the summer to heat the pool than I do in the winter to heat the house.
There are so many factors to consider that it makes these comparisions difficult.
I do love my Mahoning.

 

[kalib stock]

I also have a Taylor T-500CB and two of my buddys have the T-1000 and the T-750. Mine is two years old, the 750 is ten years old and the 1000 is 11 or 12 yrs old! I burn about 7-9 cords a year and heat my 2200 sq. foot house and hot water. I love the Taylor!! =]]]

I have a Taylor 450, the smallest they make. My house is 1700 sq. feet heated with baseboard heat, basement included but it is kept at about 64 degrees. I also have 700 sq. foot addition that is heated with radiant floor heat. I also heat my hot water all year with out any backup. I use between 10 an 12 cords per year. About 90% of my wood is oak, hickory, and elm. I live in south central Illinois. Hope this helps.

Sam