Fewer and fewer people are using wood heat in stoves or furnaces for their main heating. The stove and wood furnace industry ( like Tarm ) don't see the impact of using wood as in the 70's so-called oil crisis. Do you keep your oil/gas/electric thermostat at say 65F and supplement it with wood heat ? Is it accepted to keep a house always in all rooms at 72 F ? In the singles F or below outdoors, morning temps in this place can be in the low 60's or 50's, but reloading brings us back to comfort in the 70's. Curious. Most of our local friends who HAD to use wood in pre EPA stoves and furnaces in their youth, now don't want to go back to a tough life pulling firewood out, cutting, splitting wood to keep warm. Can't blame them.
I think our furnace may have run 3 times since October. Until I have a stockpile of Shoulder season wood, the furnace can run for the 2 months or so that it's too warm for a fire.
We have 2 stoves, I’d say they do 95% of our heating. Backup is a LP furnace. We have a 15 month old and a 4 year old so our thermostat is set at 69. Before they came along the furnace was turned off. Most of our people are to lazy to deal with the wood. They love the heat but won’t do the work to get it.
I have an oil furnace that came with the house. I have only put 30 gals of oil in it so far this year pretty much only when we go away for a few days. I think as far as fewer people heating with wood that varies allot by your area. In this area it has been pretty steady since the mid to late 90s. Some people stop as they get older other new people start. But I know other areas are very different.
I keep my PTAC (Package Terminal Air Conditioner/heater) thermostat at 68 degrees. The unit is backup heat and the air conditioning for the downstairs in the summer. Our home does not have a distribution system or furnace. We have base boards which we used the year we moved in only. Wood heats 95% of the time. We had a LP wall heater and it started to give off a VOC smell while on. I cleaned it twice and could not get the smell to go away, so I tore it out. I now use the 100 lb tank for the grill. Most in our area use natural gas or propane. With the prevalence of fracking in south east ohio heating gas prices are at an all time low. Paired with push button ease of propane I don't blame anybody for overlooking wood heat. Personally I'll heat with wood until I can't.
Natural gas is not available in most of our area. Only a few towns have it. If it was more widely available I am sure that would change things. I know I would probably burn less wood.
We have an oil furnace and at the beginning of October we had 3/4 of a tank. We still have 3/4. I turned it on each month this season just to be sure it works. In the mornings our downstairs thermostat in this drafty stone farmhiuse has been below 55 at times. We have one woodstove. I get up at 4:30, reload and by time wife and kids get up, it's nice and warm. The upstairs isn't as cold in the morning. I guess my back up is the furnace or just putting heavier clothing on. I'm amused by the number of comments people make when they come into the house and feel thr warmth from burning wood. It's work but I will continue until I can't. The farther I get on my 3 year plan, the easier it seems to get.
Natural gas. Insert stove not big enough to heat whole house. Furnace runs sometimes, but the insert prevents it from running much. It will always come on in the early morning after the stove has stopped giving off much heat overnight. Natural gas line stops two houses to the west of me. Just made it. After that people have propane or electric...or wood.
I have a propane boiler. All the old circle thermostats are turned all the way down, and only move when I go out of town. Basement needs a pellet stove. It gets heated by the boiler, but I only turn the heat up when we're down there.
NG furnace is my back up heat source. I think around here you need to have a source of heat that isn't wood/ pellets. I think I recall hearing about that. That said, our quadrafire wood insert handles well over 95% of our heating duty. Whether the insurance company thinks my furnace is the primary heat source I couldn't care less. Our house is about 1700 sq ft. Our t stat for the furnace is set at 67°. It goes on from time to time, usually in the am once if it's under 25° outside. Under about 5°, it goes on from time to time. Even at that 67° setting, my NG bills are rarely much over the minimum charge which is ~ $10 a month. That's with a NG water heater, a NG clothes dryer, and a NG oven and cooktop that gets used A LOT, daily pretty much. 4-5 cords of wood is what I use a year in the quadrafire. I burn all sorts of species of wood, so it would be hard to determine how many BTU's I use each year.
Sounds about like my house. Considering you're only a few miles from me, that makes sense. Inserts are not the most efficient heaters, but they are the cleanest looking way to fill an open fireplace and do a good job of heating with.
Oil furnace backup here. When I bought the place in '98 oil was the only heat source...and it was set to 65* at night, 68* days...my feet were always cold. I started my wood heat journey late '08 or early '09 (08 I think) and have been through quite a number of changes along the way, but since that first winter there has been very little oil burned...still have (2) 275 gallon tanks with 2/3 or a bit less oil in them. My latest, and hopefully final central heat/AC configuration now consists of a newer fuel oil furnace (with AC coil) tied into the ducts with my Kuuma wood furnace acting as the "primary" furnace...I have a gravity damper and a powered damper in the ducts that make the switchover from one fuel to the other automatic (other than loading/lighting the wood obviously) Since finishing this new setup last fall I plan to just run the oil during "shoulder season" days where it is just more headache than its worth to keep a small wood fire going...or building another one once every day or two. The normal temp around here now is low to mid 70s...much nicer...and my feet are cold a lot less now! Its kinda funny...if for some reason the temp ever drops much under 70*...68* for sure, its like a major emergency to get the fire going again! We have a NG line running right across the street from us, but since it is a "high pressure" line, they won't let anyone tap into it. And what's even funnier is that we are less than a mile from a decent sized city, and live on the second busiest county road in this county, but cant get cable here...that's ok, I'd tell 'em to pound sand anyways
Yes. I am not too far from Walworth County which is where you are I believe. When we bought the house it had an old Heatalator in it which, of course, did not heat. It was set in a real fieldstone facia and so could only put in what would fit. Cutting the full size field stone and making it look right just did not seem possible.
Wish I could do better with wood heat, but from the basement install I have, it seems the NG furnace still runs a fair amount. Averaging $95/mo thru the winter in addition to the approx 3 cords I’ve burned each year. Gonna try something different next year I hope. Oh well, big old house, updated windows, but I doubt there’s much insulation in the walls. Attic is well insulated though. po said the exterior walls he opened up were completely full of bricks. Otherwise I’d look into getting walls foamed I think. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I'm in Ozaukee county. But close enough, still SE Wisconsin. The old open FO had a heatilator wood rack, and it was better than no blower. Our insert actually heats, which is more than the FP did. I mean the FP did feel warm in the room that it's in, but in reality probably lost more heat than it made.
We have electric wall heaters in most rooms. Breakers have been off for about a decade. We never used them to heat the place since we moved here in 2006. All wood. 9 month heating season that isn’t bitter cold but is so very long.
