Quanity of wood this season

[Tar12]

5 cord of Oak so far...wood heat only...I was hoping to get by with 4 cord or less per year...I will be installing a propane stove over the summer to ensure that I keep it at or under 4 cord per year...thats all the more that I want to process.

 

[spudman99]

Not even close @Woodsplitter on the oil calculation for Ashful. Around here oil runs $3.25 per gallon delivered from a service, could be higher if your not locked in. Figure 225 gallons for a delivery, perhaps 16 deliveries over a 20 week period (Nov-Apr) that equates to 3600 gallons. That equates to $11,700 in oil.

In my 4,000 sf quadplex, 1/2 of which is 100 years old with no insulation I use 1,400 gallons of oil (includes domestic water). I spend close to $4k for oil and am half the size of Ash's place.

 

[JRHAWK9]

I’m not sure this is accurate, either. But you’re right, closer than just 113 gal per cord. I’ll burn about nine cords this year, before I need to let the stoves go cold and get on with spring time stuff. It’s about 90% oak, with other misc. hardwoods, but without knowing the MC% of each species (namely the oak), you’re still guessing at BTU’s. It’s just not worth the effort to figure it out, IMO.

It seems pretty close in my situation. I have 5-6 years of LP records to look back at to compare. I have also compared the total weight of a known stack of wood and it was surprising dang close. My wood is also all under 20%. If anything though, I'm actually getting more BTU percentage out of my wood than I was out of a gallon of LP. When I look at the total number of computed gallons of LP I've saved over a heating season, it pretty much falls into what I was using before heating with wood, but the house is warmer (hence why it seems like I'm getting better efficiency out of the wood).

I've averaged ~1,300 gallons of LP a heating season over those 5-6 years. INCLUDING LP drier and LP water heater usage. Seeing I keep track of them as well, they account for ~100 gallons a year between the two. Just two of us in the house. We kept the house at 68° with LP and did not heat the basement. Since heating with wood we keep it 70°+ and the basement gets heated solely with radiant heat off the furnace (stays around 66°-68° all winter long).

Here's my computed LP savings since burning wood, since I started keeping track and weighing my loads.

2015-2016: 1,223 gallons (6,549 HDD's)
2016-2017: 1,217 gallons (6,716 HDD's)
2017-2018: 1,419 gallons (7,603 HDD's)
2018-2019 (so far): 1,177 gallons (6,530 HDD's so far, on track to be colder than last year)

 

[Woodsplitter67]

5 cord of Oak so far...wood heat only...I was hoping to get by with 4 cord or less per year...I will be installing a propane stove over the summer to ensure that I keep it at or under 4 cord per year...thats all the more that I want to process.

I agree I like to keep it at 4 cords or under.. if i had to do 5 to 6 cords... I probably wouldn't be so enthusiastic... i went through a phase where I was sitting on over 14 cord... I said to myself WTF are you doing....

 

[JRHAWK9]

I went through a phase where I was sitting on over 14 cord... I said to myself WTF are you doing....

I'm sitting on ~60 full cord.....I haven't asked myself that question yet as I know the reasons why I am doing it.

 

[Ashful]

Lol... guys, i never knew there would be so much interest in this!

I’ll try to tally it this evening. Cast your bets, now!

 

[Tar12]

I agree I like to keep it at 4 cords or under.. if i had to do 5 to 6 cords... I probably wouldn't be so enthusiastic... i went through a phase where I was sitting on over 14 cord... I said to myself WTF are you doing....

There are several reasons I want to limit how much I have to process..one my kids have left the nest and they helped me a lot...2 they both blessed me with grandsons this year..3 neither one lives very close to me so travel on weekends it is..4 I like to hunt and fish a lot with my son..5 this old body is getting wore out!..6 I wanting to start enjoying what is left of my life!

 

[Ashful]

Ok... Im guessing 4000 to 4500 for an oil bill. Thats not terrable..
I have a friend that has a propane bill of over 5k.... in a modern home.. so looking at it that way ASH your not doing that bad...

Okay, I have only had one winter period in this house where I had zero wood stoves running, winter 2012. If I look at my monthly oil usage at that time, and scale by the heating degree days for that date range versus our climate average for the same date range, I can give some rough numbers.

I used a scale average 8.72 gallons of oil per day that January. In other words, my real usage was 6.7 gallons per day, but we were averaging only 28 HDD per day versus our normal climate 36 per day for that month, so 6.7*36/28 = 8.7 gal/day.

In 2015, when I was still running the old Jotuls, I peaked at 8.8 gallons per day WHILE burning two 3 cu.ft. stoves 24/7. But it was exceptionally cold (averaging 46 HDD/day), and those stoves weren't very good at keeping this joint warm. I was burning a half a cord per week, while simultaneously burning 8.8 gallons of fuel oil per day, but again... those Jotuls weren't the greatest stove for this house.

I got lazy entering my oil receipts this year, but since switching to the BK's in the fall of 2015, my usage per HDD has been trending downward. This graphic shows the oil usage over time, for the Jotuls (blue) and BK's (orange). The high points are always in summer, when the denominator (HDD/day) goes real small, and the low points are always exceptionally cold periods (big denominator).

An easier way to look at this, for some people, may be this:

My oil usage hits a floor at 1 gal/day, our usage for DHW.

 

[Ashful]

Oh... all that data, and I forgot to answer the question. Well, that's a screwy thing.

My oil usage while burning 6+ cords of wood per year (occasionally up to 10 cords) is 1000 gallons per year. I just did a crap ton of simple arithmetic and found that my oil usage without wood is only 400 - 600 gallons higher. At first, not stepping back and really thinking about it, I was convinced I made an error. But every which way I came at the numbers brought me back to this same, irrefutable answer.

Here's why: When I heat the house on oil alone, I bring certain parts of the house up to just 70F for an hour in the morning, and maybe 6 hours in the evening. The other 19 hours per day, all of the thermostats are sitting at 62F. But when I burn with wood, I keep most of the house at 73F all day every day, and that accounts for about 20% higher heat loss over every 24 hour period.

What did I learn from all of this? If heating with wood and chatting with you guys wasn't so fun, I'd be wasting my time.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

I'm sitting on ~60 full cord.....I haven't asked myself that question yet as I know the reasons why I am doing it.

You live in Wisconsin. Once I saw that, I didn't think it was crazy at all.

You can always sell some, and you'd be the unicorn wood seller selling truly seasoned wood. I'd wait until the dead of winter and sell at a premium to help pay expenses of your hobby (addiction?).

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

Oh... all that data, and I forgot to answer the question. Well, that's a screwy thing.

My oil usage while burning 6+ cords of wood per year (occasionally up to 10 cords) is 1000 gallons per year. I just did a crap ton of simple arithmetic and found that my oil usage without wood is only 400 - 600 gallons higher. At first, not stepping back and really thinking about it, I was convinced I made an error. But every which way I came at the numbers brought me back to this same, irrefutable answer.

Here's why: When I heat the house on oil alone, I bring certain parts of the house up to just 70F for an hour in the morning, and maybe 6 hours in the evening. The other 19 hours per day, all of the thermostats are sitting at 62F. But when I burn with wood, I keep most of the house at 73F all day every day, and that accounts for about 20% higher heat loss over every 24 hour period.

What did I learn from all of this? If heating with wood and chatting with you guys wasn't so fun, I'd be wasting my time.

I enjoyed your two posts. First, because you referred to your house as "this joint".

Second, because when I got done reading the first post, I was like, wtf. Then you resolved the tension with the second post. Good writers do that. Doesn't matter if it was accidental.

Third, your conclusions. I actually don't agree that you are wasting your time at all. 73 keeps me a lot more comfortable than 70, even though it doesn't seem like a lot, and if you kept the house at 73, you'd be burning a lot more oil. There is something about these old stone houses that makes that little difference very meaningful, both in comfort and fuel use. But, your conclusions showed some humility.

Other ancillary benefits: Who knows what mischief you might cause if you didn't have this outlet; You are teaching your kids a good lesson, by example, about self sufficiency and the value of hard work; Finally, your wife probably likes you more, as there is just something about a lumberjack...

 

[happycamper]

burned 3 to 4 cords

 

[Woodsplitter67]

So look like im going to pull a little wood out of the shed..im going to be over the 3.6 cords.. been cool the past couple of days

 

[JRHAWK9]

As of last Sat.

~4.2 cords of mostly red oak by volume.

-or-

15,253lbs, which comes out to 4.18cords of red oak by weight (using 3,650lbs/cord).

 

[billb3]

About a cord and a half + of oak.
About a cord of maple
A cord and a half of eastern white pine.
A little more than last Winter ( which didn't seem to end until May ) but the house was often 73 or 74. Plus we used a LOT less HHO.

 

[happycamper]

burned 10 cords

 

[Ashful]

burned 10 cords

Same. Last year was 9 cords red oak + 1 cord ash and maple + 1100 gallons heating oil + 3200 kWh electric. This year will be the same wood usage, my burn rate is dictated by my schedule and not the weather, my oil and electric use will vary accordingly.

 

[Gearhead660]

Got about 6 cord. Mostly Ash, some Walnut and Maple. First year with new burner, not sure what my usage will be this season. Trying to only use propane when leaving town.

 

[johneh]

This will be my last year burning wood
Doctors orders

 

[thewoodlands]

So far this year we've burned just under four face cord of shoulder season wood (white pine), after tomorrow you can add a face cord of cherry and some yellow birch when it was colder.

If we have a warmer winter, we'll burn 12 face cord of hardwood but if we have a colder winter we'll burn just under 14 face cord.

About every three years we'll get 125 gallons of oil which will fill the 275 gallon tank.

 

[Sawset]

As of last Sat.
~4.2 cords of mostly red oak by volume.
-or-
15,253lbs, which comes out to 4.18cords of red oak by weight (using 3,650lbs/cord).

About the same average usage here:
15253lb
4.18 cord
7200 heating degree days for 18/19
2.11lb/dd
According to that I should have used .6 cord so far.
We've used 1cord so far.
It's been colder so far this year compared to last. We'll see how it plays out in the end.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

This will be my last year burning wood
Doctors orders

Sorry to hear it, johneh. I think I'd probably just ignore those orders, but I'm no MD.

 

[JRHAWK9]

About the same average usage here:
15253lb
4.18 cord
7200 heating degree days for 18/19
2.11lb/dd
According to that I should have used .6 cord so far.
We've used 1cord so far.
It's been colder so far this year compared to last. We'll see how it plays out in the end.

Here's the end result from the 18/19 heating season.
17,091 lbs
4.68 cord
7,994 HDD's (includes part of September and all of May)
2.14 LBS/HDD

I've burned 2,785 lbs so far this heating season and 1,464 HDD's so far.