A PLUS FOR WOOD STOVES Last year we lost power due to an ice storm, lost power for three and a half days, some people lost much longer. We ran wood stoves 24/7 and kept house temperature to 65 or better. No frozen pipes or any storm damage and plenty of kerosene lamps for light. If not for the stoves we would have had many problems.
burning 24/7
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24/7. To do otherwise is much more of a hassle and most of them are designed and certified that way I believe.
Heatpump Hater - I wouldn't quite say mild, but definitely could be worse. We are in for 12" - 20" this weekend and possibly a drop to 10F. That of course is about as low as we ever get here.
Heatpump Hater - I wouldn't quite say mild, but definitely could be worse. We are in for 12" - 20" this weekend and possibly a drop to 10F. That of course is about as low as we ever get here.
Heatpump Hater said:
Once you get a stove you get over the fear pretty quickly. My fear was that I would forgot to shut down the air enough so the stove wasn't raging while I was gone/asleep. That lasted about a week.
You get over the fear of your stove real quick. We haveburned24/7 for over 30 years. It's our only heat.
And im real cheap.
And im real cheap.
It always seems when I do leave for the weekend the winds are blowin' and the high temps are in the teens.
I can hear the oil burner kicking on two hundred miles away! It just kills me.
KC
This is our first year of trying to burn 24/7, which really turns out to be 6am to midnight and let it burn out till morning. We do leave the house with a firing going but only when it settled down. We also work opposite schedules though, the wife's a nurse on night shift. When she comes home in the morn, then I go to work, so there's always someone around to tend the fire more or less. Furnace only kicked on once so far this winter, about 5 in the morn when it was really, really cold.
We keep the stoves running all the time. I load it up at night, wake up around 2-3 to load again. My wife wakes up between 4-5 and adds wood. I add more before I go to work. My parents watch my kids at our house and we burned wood growing up(although my mom didn't do much loading of wood than) I showed my mom how to work the stoves and what temp to keep them. I told her she would have to learn or she would get cold.
Just to provide a different perspective, we are not 24/7 burners. Two reasons. First our house is custom built with passive solar design, so that if it's at all sunny, which is often in our part of the PA in the winter, we don't need heat. The house gets to 80F by noon on a sunny day and a wood fire would have roasted us out of the house. Secondly we have a floor plan with bedrooms downstairs and the wood stove is upstairs, so no real way to heat overnight with the stove.
We do like to think that the evening and weekend fires still save us some on the heating bills, and we are okay with the heat pump coming on when it does. Our monthly electricity bills are quite reasonable. I am however worried about the coming deregulation of PECO and what it will do to the electricity rates. Perhaps time to install a stove downstairs then.
We do like to think that the evening and weekend fires still save us some on the heating bills, and we are okay with the heat pump coming on when it does. Our monthly electricity bills are quite reasonable. I am however worried about the coming deregulation of PECO and what it will do to the electricity rates. Perhaps time to install a stove downstairs then.
hyperion said:
Yep, 20 cents per KWH seems to be just around the corner. Once I get the third stove installed it looks like I get to put all of me time into solar energy to cut down on our electric bills.
Anyone know a good forum for that?
hyperion said:
Sounds like a good application for a wood boiler with storage. Burn when it is convenient to charge the tanks, then let the zones pull from storage as needed/programmed.
SolarAndWood said:
A system like that requires a large storage tank I believe, and we don't have a basement or an attic. I am actually thinking a geothermal heat pump is probably my best option, or solar panels. BrowingBAR, let me know if you find that great forum on solar energy.
hyperion said:
Eastern PA does get as many sunny days as Florida, so, solar panels are an option.
BrowningBAR said:
DOn't know of a forum for that but am very interested. I'm a big fan for heating water with solar and I think photovoltics are just comming of age. Dad just got a wild hair for a windmill...........
WoodMann said:
I started looking last night for a good forum on solar energy. I found a few forums that had a decent amount of posts, but nothing to the level of Hearth.com. Still looking.
Valhalla said:
Well, next winter I will have hole house heating with wood, essentially cutting down my costs by $3,000-$4,000 a year in oil. And my wood supply is sorted out. So, the wood burning setup is complete. I now have to tackle my $200-$230 monthly electric bill (which will be rising over the next few years). Solar energy will be the first area I look into. I don't think I have enough property for wind energy, but I will look into it.
If I can cut my bill in half I will be happy. I don't think I can ever get it down to zero like I can with oil, though. The main thing will be to keep my initial costs down. When I looked into solar energy two years ago it was very expensive for materials and labor.
Valhalla said:
Oh, they will work 24/7 if you supply them with good quality fuel 24/7... it is all about placement I believe. Now, to get the energy back down to earth from space is going to be a challenge...
Gonna be going back into 24/7 mode with the week ahead we're supposed to have. I'm running precariously low on wood so I may hafto enlist the furnace to help out..........
WoodMann said:
I expect there is a fair number of folks with that problem now. I remember how about this time last year I realized that I could see the end of my wood pile and it was much closer than I ever expected it would be.
We still haven't stopped 24/7 burning here - had a bit of a slowdown as I'm only doing 2-3 loads/day vs the 3-4 during the colder period but still quite happy to keep it going. Reduce fuel consumption by about 30% which is nice. However I wouldn't mind having a down day to really clean out the stove and check on the cat (will be due in 2 weeks but I like to do it earlier than 'due date'). I just don't see a warm day in the forecast.
Slow1 - wish I could share the 55-60 degree day we are having here. Is this really February? No stove running overnight or today and the house is still at 69 degrees. The shoulder months are not ahead, they're here.
Well.. if you add up our high and low maybe we get near 55. Predicted low tonight of 20, high tomorrow 26... oops, I'm still about 10 degrees short. No complaints really though, I rather like the cold better than being hot.
Where you at bvnu? You never know, winter may just be on vacation and headed back to you in a week or so... it happens I hear.
Where you at bvnu? You never know, winter may just be on vacation and headed back to you in a week or so... it happens I hear.
20 miles west of Portland OR. We usually get a few nice days in Feb. just to remind us that it doesn't always rain and that there really is a sun. Hope this isn't like the year we had summer in Feb and a wet grey June. And yes, winter could be hidding around the corner ready to pounce - so my kindling is dry and my splits are ready to go - although I'm swapping out the oak for fir. And what I don't use this year I'll just add back to next year's pile. That's a win win for sure.
BrowningBAR said:
If you are heating with oil, that electricity bill is a bit high. We are all electric and heating with a heat pump and my worst winter time bills are only about $300 (like last month and probably this month). We average $180 with heating, AC and everything. You must have a really big house. Ours is about 2400 square feet.
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