If it's cold where you live, what are you heating with and what is it costing?

[LouNY]

Here in this side of world energy costs was REAL roller-coaster
Pellets from 150 €/T went to 450 €/T. Electricity (for industrial customers) from 0,04 to o,5 €/kWh
LPG I even dont want to know. But to keep warm average house it used to be like 100 - 150 €/m for gas, now people are paying near 1k €



I have wood gasification furnace (or boiler ? I am a bit confused about terms you use).
It has 20 kW power and is connected to 2000 liters big heat accumulator. Every second day I am filling boiler with ~ 30 kg of wood and fire it up. wood burns like 5 - 6 hours, warms up accumulator from 30 C to 80 C. We have underfloor heating, so to go down till 30 is ok
/ Little break for ranting - SI system makes much more sense - 1 W is needed to warm 1 liter of water for 1 C /
Keeping that in mind we can figure out that my accu contains ~ 100 kWh of energy. That's enough for 48 hours. At least it was so till this fall


This year I have made extension for house and obviously now house needs more energy.

And parallel to wood boiler we have installed air - water heat pump
It is efficient is it has to go till 35 C max, which is ok for me. And if temperatures are negative, then as well efficiency is falling. I have used heat pump till + 5 and I have noticed ~ 3,5 COP, which is less than promised but still rather nice



View attachment 771868

Nice looking setup. Especially the little electric fork lift for a pallet mover.

 

[LD1]

Nothing really burns good green.

But if given a choice due to no other options, ash is what you want because "green", it has a much lower moisture content than most other species.

Wood has a lot of water, you have to turn that water to steam to burn the wood.

Dry seasoned wood is usually under 10% moisture. For reference, kiln dried lumber is usually around 6%

Anything under 18-20% usually burns without much fuss. Ash is right there around 20 when green.

Some of the wetter woods like maple....40+ I have seen. And yea, that don't burn.

Obviously don't burn green wood unless you have no choice. But I think you will find you have a lot better success burning fresh cut ash as opposed maple or elm.

 

[not2old]

A couple who go to our church built a house on a farm they bought close to us. Over the years they have built several houses, lived in them for a while, then sold at a profit and built another one. This was to be their retirement house and it was planned over years down to the last detail. They have an open geothermal system that works on well water instead of the pipes buried in the yard. Water goes thru the system and drains down a rock covered culvert into a pond. Don't know the figures but he says it is the most efficient, cheapest to operate system they have used. And they have used several different types of heating cooling systems over the years. They are on city water for drinking, cleaning, etc. and use the well water only for the geo system and watering the few animals they have.

Does anybody else have a system like this? My sister is planning on building next year and she is looking for info on different systems.

RSKY

My house has an open loop system like you described. I think the biggest advantage it has over a recirculating system is the installation cost but it is possible the water carries more heat than the water that needs to have the heat transferred back into it from the ground. I do know that it is even more economical on cooling rather than heating.

 

[Helogabals]

Nice looking setup. Especially the little electric fork lift for a pallet mover.

that neat thing is unbelievable handy and useful not only for mowing firewood
As we are in TBN, I will give to you tractor related example: with help of that little f-ker attaching implements on rear 3p is kinderspiele

 

[Jstpssng]

Nothing really burns good green.

But if given a choice due to no other options, ash is what you want because "green", it has a much lower moisture content than most other species.

Wood has a lot of water, you have to turn that water to steam to burn the wood.

Dry seasoned wood is usually under 10% moisture. For reference, kiln dried lumber is usually around 6%

Anything under 18-20% usually burns without much fuss. Ash is right there around 20 when green.

Some of the wetter woods like maple....40+ I have seen. And yea, that don't burn.

Obviously don't burn green wood unless you have no choice. But I think you will find you have a lot better success burning fresh cut ash as opposed maple or elm.

I've actually had better luck burning beech which was just off the stump than ash. There was one winter years ago when I was self employed and wasn't getting paid in a timely fashion, so went through my wood faster than I'd intended. I had just bought my lot here so was cutting beech and ash, hauling it to my pickup with my snow sled, and burning it that week.

 

[Oaktree]

I've actually had better luck burning beech which was just off the stump than ash.

I like beech, doesn't always split easily but it's nice dense hardwood.

Yes - wood prices vary by region - here in NH a cord of seasoned wood is $375 green $275. You can copy that table into excel and calculate for your area.

Wow, wood's pricey down your way. I don't get it cut & split, but from talking with neighbors who do, it's about $100/cord cheaper here in the north country.

 

[5030]

{Problem with roasting wet wood is the creosote that collects in the flue.

 

[Carl_NH]

Yes it does creosote more, and wood is pricey down here on the coast of NH, and the only reason I mentioned green wood is the cost difference and if I need to buy, I get green and season for a year. I usually have enough logs here down or dying to cut a fresh cord a year.

I keep 2 cords dry and burn one cord in the central fireplace a winter. it's more for ambiance and heating up the central mass of stone in the house on cold winter days.

 

[5030]

Fireplaces are notoriously inefficient producers of heat. Most of it goes up the chimney. Why in early times rooms had a fireplace on both ends of a room so the owner didn't have a cold backside.

 

[stumblinhorse]

All you eastern folks are lucky. Our government would rather put money aside for putting fires out than bringing firewood out to consumers. Never understood it. But around here there is pine and that is all for local firewood. Any other wood species is trucked in and over $4-500 a cord.