Filled Up The Hearth

Figured I would give an update I am 4 days into burning off of the filled hearth and it is still more than half full. Should easily get ten days off of it this time.

 

Filled up the hearth again today so I made it about 12 days since the last fill up. This time around I brought in a bit more since the temperature is supposed be near zero for a lot of the extended forecast and I am having a surgery tomorrow and they say I am not supposed to be lifting anything more than a milk jug for the next two weeks.

I will probably burn through this load a little quicker than the last load with the cold snap we are having. This load was all 4 year old white oak and shagbark hickory so it is some primo BTUs!

 

Good thinking, nice looking 'filled up' hearth.
I think I may take your advice and do my own tomorrow morning.
We are expecting another foot or more saturday into sunday.
Which also reminds me, I think I need more snowblower fuel.
Went through 5 gallons in 3 weeks time.

 

Sounds like you are ready for what ever the Good Lord brings Certified.....I can see some of the channels from those hickory borers on a few of those pieces, I have a touch of that in by the stove too.

 

One other thing Certified....I'll add you to my prayers for your surgery brother.

 

Better stock up, this next one's gonna be a doozy. I'm going to spend Saturday bringing 7-10 days worth into the house. That way I won't have to worry about digging through piles of snow to get at my wood.

 

Thanks man, everything went fine. It really wasn't that big of a deal. I ruptured a cyst and it was really bothering me.They ended up saying I must have ruptured it prior to this last time as there was a lot of scar tissue. Ended up taking longer than they expected and they had to go deeper than they thought. I have a 8 cm incision right between my shoulder blades so I need to be careful with lifting for a while.

 

Cert, I envy you having that much room for wood storage on your hearth. Have enough inside for several days, and a few days safety net I never touch. Am down to bottom row on one end of a stacked cord. The wood is sitting under the snow, and seems wet and heavy, even thought the snow is very dry and easily brushed off. I've decided to leave the bottom row, finish the rest of the stack, then stack the bottom row on the top of the 2/5 cord of Ironwood that I left for next year (2/5 of the first cord I burned from.....it's the only Ironwood I'll have for next year, unless I cut some more that is down in the woods).

It doesn't appear we'll have a thaw for quite a while yet. Glad I still have plenty of wood stacked. I generally get 2 to 2 1/2 hours per split, a bit more if it is milder and I let the coals burn all the way down. Pretty happy with my stove's wood usage.

 

everything went fine

Praise God

 

It has been exactly one week since I filled the hearth the last time and for the past week the temps have barely reached 15° during the day and been near or below zero at night. Anyhow I have burned about 1.5 rows of wood and the house temps haven't been below 70 yet. Pretty happy with the results as that is a lot less then I would have burned last year.

 

Me too ! I wish I could go 1-2 weeks on that amount.

 

I would have burned through that a lot quicker last year but the insulation has helped out a ton.

 

When I first moved into the house that extra section of hearth wasn't there. One of the first things I did was to add the 5 section to the left of the hearth so I could store a lot of wood inside. It has worked out really well especially since I put the wood door in and I can load from outside straight on to the hearth.

 

Yeah I hear ya. I have been wanting to get the attic done for the last month but with the weather we have been having here I haven't been able to get it done. Hopefully within the next couple weeks I will get up there and get er done. Time will tell.

 

That is really nice looking dry wood you have there, and big splits too. Premium BTU's for sure, and that's probably helping keep your usage down a bit also. Really great efficiency on your wood usage and this is interesting to follow.

I'm curious how many of those splits do your think your going through in 24 hours?

 

Right now 12-16 splits per day or roughly 7 cubic foot, may be a little less as you can never pack the stove perfectly. If the weather is above 20 outside 8-12 depending on what type of wood it is. I am heating. I am heating around 2600 sq ft not counting the basement, with 100% the wood as the furnace isn't even hooked up. I did a lot to tighten the place up this summer and the house is 2x6 construction.

 

I think that's fabulous! Your splits are definitely on the larger size, but all things considered your home is obviously very well insulated now. Doesn't hurt your now burning white oak and hickory.... Tonight will be the test...

I think you have seen my place, I have about 2100 sq. ft and r30 in the ceiling and 2 x 6 r19 in the exteriors walls and I need more heat (btu's) to heat my place than you do. Not sure exactly why, but my lower level is on a slab and I think that sucks up the heat..... Windows are tight, so I'm thinking the slab is the culprit.

 

My splits are on the large size, 4-5 year old white oak and Hickory and are probably some primo btu's at this point. Like I said I made a lot of changes this year to get my wood consumption down as I was concerned about another cold spell like this one. My total house size is roughly 3600 sq ft and my basement has 4-5 foot of exposed concrete walls. Last year I noticed I was having cold air billowing out of the HVAC vents and returns on the first floor (My basement is about 40 degrees right now). So this year considering that I don't use the furnace I made a plug for every return and supply register by putting rags into trash bags and stuffing them into the vents to seal them up. It made a HUGE difference this year along with going from less than 2 inches of insulation in my attic to over 18" everywhere. I also insulated and sealed my attic access and re-shimmed and sealed the doors on the house. If I can get the sliders on the back of my house replaced this summer I will be about where I want to be. Also I don't try to heat the house to 80 dgrees and actually prefer it between 70-74. In this cold spell it was 69-70 this morning depending on what room you were in and right now the living room is sitting at 73 with the upstairs being about 71 on the far end from the stairs.

The fact you are on a slab probably doesn't help you much as I am sure there is some pretty decent heat transfer through that concrete! I just noticed that you were from Hocking Hills and had a WS Ideal Steel. If you ever feel like letting another FHC member check your stove out shoot me a PM as I would love to see one of those up close and in person! . I never thought I would see one around these parts and depending on where you are I am about 25-30 minutes from Old Man's Cave.