At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

It has been a cold winter. We burned all the firewood I had stored in the pallet crates. We've started burning wood from the round stack.



On the weekends, I've been filling a couple pallet crates with firewood from the round stack and moving them closer to the house. Once a day we fill up the wheelbarrow full of wood and move it into the garage. A wheelbarrow full of wood will heat the house for a little more than a day. Throughout the day we load the fireplace with one log at a time. At night we fill the fireplace full. When we fill the fireplace with oak, we can wait overnight for up to 10 hours and still have enough coals that we don't have to rebuilt the fire.

 

[Obed]

We got some snow yesterday. I had to park my car at the bottom of the street after work. I could not make it up the hill. I should have driven our Subaru to work but I didn't. I worked from home today.



The temps at night are in the low teens. It certainly is nice being in a house and not in our camper. You may remember that while building the house, we had a couple weeks in the camper when the black tank froze up. We had to do our business in freezing temps using a hole in the ground in the woods for that 2 weeks. No issues now. Our basement has stayed a steady 55 degrees with no heat down there.

 

[tony Cecil]

do you augment the fireplace on these extra cold days? We turn on the heat pump and set the thermometer to say sixty and the house , with the fireplace burning, stays above that number, but occasional on and off with the fan keeps the warmer area near the fireplace more evenly distributed....It sure has been a cold winter here in Charleston S C , and right now the mountains are a distant memory , and a further thing is how amazing the human body is to adapting...You would be freezing in the summer at what is a comfortable sixty in the winter. Tony

 

[Larro Darro]

At night we fill the fireplace full. When we fill the fireplace with oak, we can wait overnight for up to 10 hours and still have enough coals that we don't have to rebuilt the fire.

Obed, back when we used to heat with wood, anytime there was a knotty piece of oak that was hard to split, we called it an 'all nighter' and tossed it on the stack no matter how big it was There is a use for everything.

Larro

 

[clemsonfor]

do you augment the fireplace on these extra cold days? We turn on the heat pump and set the thermometer to say sixty and the house , with the fireplace burning, stays above that number, but occasional on and off with the fan keeps the warmer area near the fireplace more evenly distributed....It sure has been a cold winter here in Charleston S C , and right now the mountains are a distant memory , and a further thing is how amazing the human body is to adapting...You would be freezing in the summer at what is a comfortable sixty in the winter. Tony

Im from charleston, those temps are nothing compared to the upstate of SC that i now live in , not a huge difference but enough. These cold mourning are too much for my heatpump to overcome. The best thing i ever did was install an insert and stopped buring in an open fireplace that is such a waste of energy time and everything. Obed has a high effencicy fireplace which is more like a stove insert than a fireplace. When i burned in the fireplace i could have all the coals in the world and have it warmish infront of the FP. I would pile the wood in and it would be out cold at like 3am and all my heat up the chimney. Now the same amount of wood that i use to use from say 4pm to 10pm will heat my house for more than 12 hours!! and actually heat the whole house not just 20% of a 450sqft room like the fireplace. I am heating 1500sqft on cold nights and will heat closer to 2500sqft on the mild nights.

Obed, back when we used to heat with wood, anytime there was a knotty piece of oak that was hard to split, we called it an 'all nighter' and tossed it on the stack no matter how big it was There is a use for everything.

Larro

I now have big saws..those pieces just get noodled now (split with the saw)!

 

[Scooter78]

Obed

Same story on this side of the state. I have almost burned all the wood I had slated for this year and fixing to start burning next years wood.

Scooter

 

[drajj5]

Our home is on a slab and block foundation, and for years- a gas furnace was used. During the winter months, we would hear the furnace kick on and cycle till the temp in the house reached it's mark to cycle off. The house would, "Wick" out any heat the furnace produced resulting in more work for the furnace. My wife would walk through the house in socks because the floors would be cold both day and night. I am sure that there are those who still do this in their own home as they read this thread.
A friend of mine helped me with the installation of a wood burning stove within our home..... I must say, there is nothing that compares to this type of heat. Three years has passed now and we have yet to turn on the gas furnace. There is something very primitive and satisfying about this process, I know that it is a LOT of work to owning/maintaining a wood stove, but somehow I don't mind. My wife enjoys the heat it produces because it not only heats the air, but the floors, furniture, and most importantly- the toilet seat

 

[Scooter78]

A LOT of work is right but could not agree with you more. Plus you don't really need a gym membership if you own a wood stove. I have two in my house. When we were having our plans drawn I picked out stoves first and we laid house out based on the stoves. In the winter I put a curtain up at stairway and that's how we regulate heat. If it gets a little warm open curtain up and the heat is sucked up the stairs. Even when curtain is closed it still stays pretty warm up stairs. The only bad part is when the humidifiers can't keep up with how fast the stoves dry out the air man that can make for one bad head ache. Speaking of it burning all night long getting mine ready to do just that.





As you can see even the dogs love it.

 

[Obed]

do you augment the fireplace on these extra cold days? We turn on the heat pump and set the thermometer to say sixty and the house , with the fireplace burning, stays above that number, but occasional on and off with the fan keeps the warmer area near the fireplace more evenly distributed....It sure has been a cold winter here in Charleston S C , and right now the mountains are a distant memory , and a further thing is how amazing the human body is to adapting...You would be freezing in the summer at what is a comfortable sixty in the winter. Tony

Tony,
On the coldest days the 2 BRs at the end of house got down to 62 at 6 am. My wife then put oil filled electric space heaters in those rooms, purely for comfort, not necessity by any means. One night the outside temp was 1F.

Our furnace stays off when we are burning wood. We set the HVAC fan to "circ" which causes the fan to periodically turn on for a few minutes to recirculate the air in the house.

Obed

 

[Obed]

Obed, back when we used to heat with wood, anytime there was a knotty piece of oak that was hard to split, we called it an 'all nighter' and tossed it on the stack no matter how big it was There is a use for everything.

Larro

Larro,
I leave some big pieces for 'all nighters' too. Yesterday we were gone from the house 11 hours and still had plenty of coals and heat in the fireplace.
Obed