About 2 months ago there was a post here that I and a lot of others responded too regarding the mild winter and how much less everyone was burning. I figured about 2/3 of normal. But, mother nature had different ideas and a much colder April than normal and much, much colder May to date. Even snow flurries here in Central PA just a week ago, unheard of. Long story short, now finally about the end of burn season and I'm right back to the normal avg. of 4 cords+ burnt. Everyone else in the NE burn about the usual? Good thing was with mild open winter, was able to get in the woods all the time and CSS more than I burnt ! Picture of some of it.
I had the same experience of being able to get in the woods more with milder weather. Helped the hoard!
Saddly it was the opposite here, we got a big pile of snow right away and after deer season I was not able to get in the woods at all with the snow. Temp wise it was milder that was nice but could not get around... Need to get a snowmobile lol.
I still think I used a little less than normal, wood wise. Yeah, April and May were colder so far on average. I was able to get out and cut in winter as I always do. There were a few times that even with the 4wheeler, that the snow was too deep. I then worked on other piles that were already hauled in from the woods.
We had similar weather in southern Ohio, warmer winter and one of the coldest springs ( weatherman said coldest spring in 15 years). So burned less this winter but quite a bit more than usual this spring. Cutting wood most weekends and I seem to be cutting about twice as much as I'm burning this cold spring... Burned more wood in May than I can ever recall...
My burning was a little bit less this year, but not much. Kinda hard to figure exactly, because I burned a bit more than usual in my stove and a bit less in my furnace.
Seemed to use more wood in April into May. Near ran out of kindling and paper ( no, not TP ) cause of those short morning and evening fires. Almost done for a couple of years except for softwood blowdowns mostly for the hot tub. Black flies are flying and teasing, no blood...yet. May hit 70 F this week. Added----since we don't need the 24/7 heat in Spring, the house can be in the 50's at zero dark hundred when at least one of us is up . So, morning fire starts so that SWMBO has a warm get up and her coffee.
I've burned a good bit less than usual here. We have been using about 3.5-4.5 cords per year. this year we are at 3.25. We did burn up all our kindling for fall SS just to get rid of it. That was at least half a cord but most was small chunks that had to be shoveled into the stove. I think we burned almost 100% red oak this year that was dried close to 4 years. The IS gets every last btu out of the wood. And the cat only got cleaned once during the year.
Indeed the amount of wood we burned in March, April and so far in May we caught up and I think we ended up maybe a bit more than normal wood burned.
I burned a lot less during the winter, but I burned a lot more during the spring. All in all, I would say that I used a bit less than averge.
I do need to add that we did a ton of improvements into the house. Insulation, properly vented roof, windows, tyvek wrap in spring last year... So my house should be a lot more efficient than prior seasons.
Here in the NW we burned slightly less than normal. Although the Wif is still trying to get me to build morning fires even with a 53* overnight!
I had a small fire going last night. Probably we'll Tonight as well. The low has been 48° or so. The rain doesn't help. That's fine. I've got the two side "towers" of my patio stack left, along with a couple of carts full of apple, honey locust, and ironwood splits in between those 3' cribbed towers. Those towers are all silver maple, and ash. So I don't mind burning them.
Not as much as last year but about the same as other years past since putting in the cat stove. Did use more kindling this year especially this Spring.
I have a long, tall row of oak left stacked along the basement wall. It was two rows in the fall. I burned a lot of shoulder season wood in early winter, waiting for the deep cold. It never came. By March, I started burning the oak, to make room in the basement. So, about an average amount was burned, but soft maple in January and oak in March and April.
I just stopped burning a few days ago and we burned about 4 cord, one less than last year. The season was long on the back end and not as cold overall, and last season we started a few weeks earlier. New windows helped quite a bit also. I’m planning on 5 cord every year unless this trend continues...
Maybe 1-1.5 cords here, so less than normal 2-2.5 cords. Need to get the IS crated up for it's trip back to fix the crack in it. I think it was warmer overall for the season.
