reduce heating bill with Wood Stove

[Wesdor]

CrazyAl sums up my feelings:
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I hate wood stoves. I hate them with a passion. They are dirty, from the dirt on the wood to the ashes you need to clean out of them. That being said I have one and it's got a nice warm fire in it right now.
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Last summer the draft of the Cap and Trade bill had language that was not good for wood burning stoves. As others have said, ***** is doing an end run around congress with the EPA and who knows what they will do. With that in mind, we purchased a Pacific Energy Summit which is rated for 3,000 square feet. Our home is a little over 2400 and the stove has done an excellent job.

We don't use it as the only source of heat, although when we are home on weekends and during Christmas holidays we ran it continuously and the furnace (propane) never went on.

We do have 45 acres of hardwood timber and I had lots of firewood already cut up. Part of our objective is to use the trees that have been blown down in windstorms and any that have died and are still burnable. We have no intention of cutting down healthy productive trees, but we have a significant number of trees that need to be removed as part of a timber stand improvement cut. (yes, we are working with a forester).

In summation, burning wood is indeed a lot of work and it does require that you put up with more dirt, but it gives some real warmth and IF (emphasis added) you have wood available it might be a good solution.

 

[pat32rf]

We started out 12 years ago with an old 800sq ft house into which we stuck a Drolet that was on sale (end of season) at Home Depot. Basic stove. Due to its location at one end of the house the temp fluctuated almost unbearably. We then added another 700sq feet behind the stove and went for an additional name brand good looking stove (with ash drawer)in the addition.
Two years later we sold the new stove and moved the old Drulet to the living room (addition). We now heat the whole house (including basement) with the Drulet, plus a fan system that blows the woodstove heat down to the basement ductwork. A thermostat senses when the woodstove is putting out heat and turns on both the extra fan plus the furnace fan. About the only time the electric furnace comes on is when the temp remains below minus 25 C for a couple of days, or when we go away.
On cold (below freezing) nights I top up the stove when we go to bed and close the damper. Most nights I wake up about 3-4am and add a bit more wood, open the damper and go back to bed.
I don't remember the "burn time" for our stove, but we can leave it for 12 hours, and still have enough coals that we don't need kindling to restart. Most winters we burn about 3 bush cords of maple, oak and birch, mostly windfalls......and shovel ashes about once a week.

 

[yomax4]

When we built our new home we had a Vermont Castings Higher End Fireplace installed. What a Piece of Crap. It heated the house kind of but we loved the Wood Heat. We have endless wood so it made sense at the time. We had already installed an Arrow Wood stove in our cabin and loved it. At home in the end yes things got messy with ash dust, Smoke turning our curtains black, Carpet too as well as a couple burns from poping wood. When the time was right I installed an outdoor wood boiler. Heats the house and shop. no mess no dust or smoke. Outside is a different story. She puffs pretty good on startups but I have no mess and buy no Propane. Do have to cut wood but it's good exercise for now. Do I like the Outdoor Wood Stove? You bet I do.

 

[Bison]

After reading these posts i have to conclude there is different strokes for different folks.
Here is my stroke


IMO there is no nicer heat than from a woodstove but if one has to go to great expense to have it then it might not be worth it.
You've got to weigh the costs against the benefits.

I got a woodstove in both my 2200' house and the 1500' shop and go trough 16 cords a year to heat the both of them.I have nat gas backup as well but burn mostly wood.
My wood is free as i own the land it's on and felling,bucking and hauling takes only a couple days of my time.
I got the tractor and other equipment allready for the farm,so no extra investment is needed for the firewood part.
I only use deadfall or dead standing trees,mostly pinebeetle killed pine.Is dry allready so i don't need to cure or split it right away.I hate splitting large quantities at once,so i split daily as needed with a maul(gives me some exercise).I don't have a woodsplitter or need one.

For the house the wood is stacked in the garage and it's nice and dry and warm there so i don't have to go out in the cold to get it.
If i had to buy the wood or had to travel to get it or had to buy equipment for it i would not do it.(can't see the savings).

I live in a area with a long cold winter.
In my house i got the biggest Yotul avalable,it has no stones in it either so there is nothing to break or replace.It is the best stove i ever bought.
I start the stove up when it gets colder in the fall and it'll burn continuesly till spring.There is enough coals left in the morning to get it going again in a minute just by opening the ash door a crack.I load trough a side door.
I made an extra ash pan so spill of ashes has never been a problem cause what ever falls out when pulling the full pan out ends up in the one underneath which then in return gets placed in the stove.
I'e had other (plate steel) stoves,some had these itty bitty ash pans and basicly they are a joke as the ashes had to go trough a offset hole in the stove bottom and it always resulted in ash and coals spilling over the sides.(engineering at his worst)

I have not had to sweep the chimney in the 3 years i've had this stove,its always clean.
I also made a wood box which keeps everything nice an tidy.

A good looking stove not only provides exellent heat but can also be a great focus point in a living room + it'll keep the house warm even when the power goes out,in which case one can cook food and brew coffee on it as well. :thumbsup:

My 2.. ehh, couple more ..c

 

[shane]

Bison, I think you hit the nail on the head and if I had the same situation as you, I'd be swinging the same hammer. Good post.

 

[Michelle K linnane]

I did not realize so many people would post on this.

There are two different thoughts here to heat with wood or not.

Love to burn wood or hate it.

If you can make easy for yourself and have free wood. Well then it makes sense sometimes to heat with wood.

I am also a little concerned with a power outage. And when it is really cold there is nothing like a nice hot fire to come into.

For me what it comes down to if I get a pellet stove I still have buy wood pellets after I spending money on stove and chimney the same thing
with propane and if I choose to purchase tanks to get propane cheaper, there is no savings.

The way I look at this is after I buy the stove and chimney and pay to have them installed, I do not want to buy the fuel source or I might as well stick with fuel oil.

Like I said I think the stove and chinmey will pay for themselves in 3 years max. But I live on 106 acres and have a life time supply of wood. I have tractors, chain saws, wood wagon and gator, ATV to help drag them out.

 

[Bison]

I did not realize so many people would post on this.

There are two different thoughts here to heat with wood or not.

Love to burn wood or hate it.

If you can make easy for yourself and have free wood. Well then it makes sense sometimes to heat with wood.

I am also a little concerned with a power outage. And when it is really cold there is nothing like a nice hot fire to come into.

For me what it comes down to if I get a pellet stove I still have buy wood pellets after I spending money on stove and chimney the same thing
with propane and if I choose to purchase tanks to get propane cheaper, there is no savings.

The way I look at this is after I buy the stove and chimney and pay to have them installed, I do not want to buy the fuel source or I might as well stick with fuel oil.

Like I said I think the stove and chinmey will pay for themselves in 3 years max. But I live on 106 acres and have a life time supply of wood. I have tractors, chain saws, wood wagon and gator, ATV to help drag them out.

Michelle,
There is not much more agravating than to wake up to or come home to a cold house and no power.With a prolonged power outage in the winter life gets nasty in a hurry and becomes quikly a scramble for survival,more so if one lives out in the country.
Any other source of heat but an indoor wood stove requires power to operate.

A good cast iron woodstove will last a lifetime so the initial investment compared to conventional heat sources becomes peanuts as the years go by.There's no electric components to burn out and/or costly visits from a technician in case something fails.
There won't be a montly bill for fuel or electric either ever again.
The savings on that alone will pay for that stove in two years.

You say you got the wood and equipment to get it,so what are you waiting for.
Unless you are a compulsive neat freak, you WON"T regret it.

 

[Car Doc]

Speaking of power outages....IMO having a generator is just about as necessary and just as needed as a heater of any kind you cant live very long w/o water but you could curl up in a sleeping bag for quite awhile and stay warm and eat candy bars inside a house just my 2c.

With that said a wood stove with a flat top on it or even a fireplace insert you can cook and heat but w/o electricity you still wont have H2O unless you are a very well prepared individual and have survival supply's.

I personally don't think pellet stoves are all that great any more. I have a multifuel and corn is very high now and has been for a few years and once someone found out we were saving money burning wood pellets they went up so bad its no savings any more.

 

[Scotty370]

Listening to Car Doc And Bison, They bring up a great points on the 'Electric' part of the equation.....! I'm very fortunate, in North Buffalo, to have very dependable power. I'm on the same trunk line that serves a Senior Housing Complex, so even if we go down, we're back up and running quickly! My neighbors (across the street) are not as fortunate, and from time to time, extention cords, across the street, were not uncommon! This thread seems to have 'morfed' from a heat source to a self-sufficiency issue, but that's not a 'bad' thing! I think that your 'dollars-spent', should cover all your eventualities.~ S

 

[Bison]

Speaking of power outages....IMO having a generator is just about as necessary and just as needed as a heater of any kind you cant live very long w/o water but you could curl up in a sleeping bag for quite awhile and stay warm and eat candy bars inside a house just my 2c.

With that said a wood stove with a flat top on it or even a fireplace insert you can cook and heat but w/o electricity you still wont have H2O unless you are a very well prepared individual and have survival supply's.

I personally don't think pellet stoves are all that great any more. I have a multifuel and corn is very high now and has been for a few years and once someone found out we were saving money burning wood pellets they went up so bad its no savings any more.

Being this a tread on heating,i just mentioned the extra benefits of having a woodstove to help one out in case of power failure,i wasn't really thinking of longterm survival.That is a whole diff can of worms

Ofcourse a standby powerplant is handy to run the fridge and the freezer and water pump in a well if the grid goes out,it wont do any good though if one is hooked up to town water me thinks.
In any case a healty supply of fuel onhand is a must also cause the pumpstations might be dead as a doornail as well if a power failure affects a large area.

I'm lucky again in that, cause i have a year round artesian well.

But to get water in the winter, a pail of snow on the woodstove can solve that problem in a hurry ,just don't use the yellow stuff

A pellet stove uses electric too,it'll give about as much heat as an ice berg if the electrons stop flowing.