supplemental wood heat

[looch]

A cord here is a "face cord" (4'x8'x16"). The price can range from 40 up to 65$ CDN. Price isn't always the deciding factor - type of wood is really important. Most people around here will pay a premium for beech - It burns nice and hot and doesn't make a mess in the house.

January and February get mighty chilly around here. Minus 30 Celcius is not uncommon. We can keep the (1200 sq ft) house nice and toasty with the wood stove. Our oil furnace has a low speed fan which we can turn on to circulate the air so it's not 80 degrees near the stove and 55 in the bathroom.

Last year was a pitiful winter. Didn't use the stove much, heated mostly with oil instead and only ended up burning about 2 cords. In previous years, we averaged between 8 and 10. That's from October until March/April.

 

[beenthere]

To be technically correct (if I may), a 'cord' is a 'cord', and it is 4'x4'x8'. A 'face cord' is 4'x8'x(whatever length the firewood is cut). In the south US, a cord is sometimes 4'x4'x4'', or a half a cord. There can be lots of confusion, and it is worth knowing what the seller is up to when they list wood for sale.

I have heated with wood for 30 years, and come very close to 6 cords (yes, real cords) of dry white and red oak firewood per year. That wood is burned in a hot water 'boiler' (doesn't boil though) and the hot water is pumped around the house in baseboard radiant heaters.

 

[looch]

Thanks beenthere. What I was trying to say is that here, when the term "cord" is used, it means "face cord." I have never seen or heard of anyone from the US border north to Chibougamou selling or buying a cord of wood that wasn't, in reality, a face cord.

It is for this reason that I completely agree that it is important to find out how the term "cord" is translated in your area, but only to figure out how much you should order. I would be quite surprised if within that same area there would be more than one interpretation. So, if everyone is interpreting a cord to mean the same thing in a given geographical area, then the text book definition of cord becomes somewhat irrelevant.

 

[MossRoad]

Around here a CORD of wood is still considered to be 4 feet wide by 4 feet high by 8 feet long.

A stack of wood 16 inches wide by 4 feet high by 8 feet long is called a RANK. A RANK ends up being 1/3 of a CORD.

It usually runs around $45.00 delivered(which usually means dumped) and you have to stack it. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[heehaw]

if you go with a pellet stove, go the little extra $$ and get one that will burn corn; i always worry about lack of competetion on the price of the pellets..
heehaw

 

[MossRoad]

Will a cron stove burn pellets and will a pellet stove burn corn? I have been interested in the corn burners because they can be direct vented through the wall. Can the pellet stoves be direct vented too? The only advantage that I can see for wood is that around here I have a free supply. It seems it would be much easier to lug corn or pellets than wood, but you have to pay for the convenience.

Does anyone have a corn/pellet stove that would care to share some experience?

 

[dmccarty]

B249,

Another thing to consider with a wood burner is to use
OUTSIDE air for the combustion air. Fireplaces, stoves, etc
in the house are going to take your treated inside air and use
it for the fire combustion and send it up the chiminey. This
can be a real problem in a air tight house.

My father in law has a huge masonary fireplace to heat his house. He put a PVC pipe in his slab that goes from the
outside of the house to a vent right in front of the fire place.
When he is burning a fire you can feel the air move from that
vent....

We are going to use a soap stone stove in our new house,
maybe two, and they have a connector to "pipe" in outside
air for combustion.

Another thing to consider for fireplace burners. Make sure you
are not running the clothes dryer, oven vent, or some other
device that move lots of air from you house when you are
starting your fire. These things can cause negative pressure
in a tight house and cause the chiminey to back draft......

I have had a few problems starting my fireplace and I never
understood WHY I would have a back draft every once in a
while. Everything was fine once the fire was going but I would
get smoke in the house sometimes. I went to a Solar House
Design class earlier this year and they mentioned how much
treated air a clothes dryer moves from the house into the
outdoors... The light bulb went on about the fireplace
backdraft.

FYI. For those who are building a house, its good idea to
put the clothes dryer in its own room with a door to minimize
how much treated air is thrown outside....

Later,
Dan McCarty

 

[Daryl]

Does anyone know anything about the wood and coal burning stoves that are out side of the house and hook up to your central heating and cooling system?

 

[beenthere]

The outside wood stove work well and often heat water. The hot water is pumped inside to go through a heat exchanger for forced air systems or into the radiant heating system if the house is heated with water. They are great, keep the wood smoke and debris out of the house, and usually allow the burning of larger pieces of wood and some even burn wetter wood (although it is less efficient that way). The ones I know that have them like them very much. Usually fire them up once or twice a day.

I have a wood 'boiler' in the house, but now the "we know best" govt. requires that all wood water heaters be certified boiler proof which raises the expense to the point they are no longer affordable or on the market. The ones outside don't need this certification. (I imagine the domestic hot water heaters inside will soon require the same certification, as they are the same setup as my wood hot water heater). Both are protected by a safety relief valve, if the water might get too hot and 'boil' over.

 

[bpence]

Just a couple of thoughts on heating with wood.

We've had an add-on boiler attached to our oil boiler for almost 20 years. We live between Flint & Pontiac, MI so our wood burn rate should be close to Lansing for comparable sized homes insulated about the same. To heat 75-80% with wood, which is what I used to strive for, burn rate was about 10 full cords of good quality mixed hardwoods. Oak, maple, beech, etc. That was to heat a well insulated 2,000 sq. ft. cape cod style home. We now try and heat about 50% with wood, and our burn rate is down to 4-5 full cords per year. We found that the wood boiler had the ability to consume mass quantities of wood, especially in below 10 degree weather.......but that would be true with any heating fuel.

We cut back simply because cutting, splitting, stacking, moving 10 full cords of wood every year became a full-time part-time job, and I got tired of moving that much wood times two (this year's and next year's). I buy 8 ft. logs by the semi-load from the upper penninsula. Have a load delivered every July/August. Spend the fall and early winter cutting, splitting, and stacking for the next year. Now that we don't heat as much with wood, I find I can sell about half of the wood I cut each year and pay for the whole semi-load. That has improved the economics and my atttitude toward cutting and stacking 10 full cords year after year.

If you're going to go into heating with wood, my only caution would be that it's a lot of work.....more than you might imagine. I'd do it all over again without hesitation because I love the work and it does help keep one in some kind of shape. Cutting, splitting, hauling, moving, cleaning the stove, cleaning the floors, cleaning up the outside storage area every spring, keeping the pile covered through the winter, etc., etc., etc. Best kind of heat there is, no doubt about it, just be aware of the work involved in getting that nice heat.

There's an old saying about wood heat - it heats a man three times. When he cuts the wood, when he hauls the wood, and when he burns the wood. It's definitely true.