congrats Rangerbait on deciding on a quality wood stove to purchase. I dont own one but for 24/7 burning a beast like that will do you well. If you keep the stove going which is easy in a blaze king then you will heat the mass of your house and the heat will spread more readily then if you do lots of cold starts. I have a 2cf PE stove and Im able to have amazing results at cold temperatures if Ive been able to heat the thermal mass consistently. I do agree though that three levels will likely be a challenge. Im not a believer in put the stove where you spend most of your time as that would make my rec room to darn cold and my kitchen living room to hot (my opinion only) I may have missed it but where is the location of the stove going to be?
I have pretty much unlimited access to premium hardwood around here...I have a few friends with farms that have hedgerows full of locust and mulberry, and my sister/brother in law have 8 acres about 20 min away full of oak, shagbark hickory, and probably 20 cords worth of dead or dying ash. Another friend has about 12 acres of heavily wooded acres with lots of shagbark and oak as well. A co worker just invited me to help him take down a grove of cedar at a friend's farm who wants to convert the land into a hayfield...looks like I have a kindling source now too! Honestly, I have access to more wood than I know what to do with, which is a great problem to have
Sweet I doubt you need to worry since the constant influx of wood comes from trimming trees that bounce back well. Its unlimited in that regard absolutely. No split too small unless its a 4mm twig set. But the small stuff seasons well so makes for better tetris as some of these guys say. Im glad Im not the only one getting a stove installed this summer, still wanting another estimate for the install of the pipe. Other than that, its wait for the wood to snap crackle and pop dry again this summer and FIRE IT UP! Have fun! Will be posting pictures of the build!
Yep, I'm heating 5600 with my KingUltra, no problem.. I have a pretty open floor plan, stove is on 1st floor, house is 2 story.. I burnt about 3 cord this winter, from late November till it warmed up,lol..
As another poster has mentioned, I would definitely buy a load or 2 of logs. Even though you have plenty of wood available, that would give a base supply of wood to get started-and then you could get the local wood as you had time. Will
A friend was moving and needed the rest of his firewood pile removed so he could get his security deposit back...he had about a cord of 4 year old Oak and Ash there for the taking! Most of it was still perfectly solid, but a few were south of prime and full of bugs. RIP, bugs Edit: the pile in the foreground is Poplar, not the stuff I picked up from him.
Very nice bit of flaming splits there and good on you to pick uo the oak! I gather you'll be burning that first upon the cold season start!
Yep, that and the other logs that had been felled 3 years ago that I harvested back in January are going to be at the front of the shed (when it gets built). I'm looking pretty good already for 2017/18 as well as 2018/19.
Thankfully no...that's just my Poplar pile that I still need to move and stack over by the fenceline with everything else. Next season I'll have my game a little tighter; I handled my wood way too many times...euphemism unintended, although entirely true
Get out your old power bills and look at the KWH numbers. KWH is energy so you can find out how much "fuel" you were using. Now look up the BTU/cord ratings of what you will be burning and it will get you a lot closer than any wild guesses. Don't forget the heat pumps put out about double the heat that they consume in electrical energy so you will need to double whatever answer you come up with.
Nat. gas here, but the idea is the same. I converted BTUs used to compare gas to firewood. Came out pretty dang close. This is a great idea.
I handled my wood way too many times...euphemism unintended, although entirely true And once again my wife gives me a funny look... Because of my load outburst of laughing
Ok, I'll play... The delta between my shoulder season consumption (1,750 kWh) and my dead-of-winter consumption (7,000 kWh) is 5,250 kWh. 5,250 kWh x 3,412.142 BTU/kWh = 17.9 million BTU/month...then multiply by 2 to account for the heat pump kWh:BTU efficiency, and I need to produce 35.8 BTU/month from my wood stove. For ease of calculation, I'll assume that this consumption level is maintained from Nov-April...better to err on the side of too much wood That leaves me with a demand of 214.8 million BTU for the season...with my average BTU rating across all species I am currently seasoning of 25 million BTU/cord, I'll need just over 8.5 cords. Now, since the Blaze King model I'm installing is "only" 88% efficient, so that 8.5 cords will actually need to be 9 3/4 cords. Of course, in reality I'll still be using the heat pumps to supplement the wood stove, so I'll bet my actual wood demand will be closer to 6 cords.
As big as your house is, that does not seem too far off to me. Does your present heating system cut in resistance duct heaters when the heat pump is having trouble keeping up due to low outside air temps? I know my ground source pump can go into that mode when the load is just too heavy for it. Resistance heaters are notorious for poor electrical efficiencies so maybe your 6 cords becomes 4 or 5. Actually you should be able to find the right factor for your present heating system because heat pump guys love to brag about how you can get more heat than you are actually consuming and they put their numbers out there for you to use. My 2 to 1 factor was a major round off of numbers I have seen quoted but you have an actual system with real world claims.
Yes it does, the heat strips are called if I increase my desired temp by more than 2 degrees at a time (I validated this by my inline ammeter that gives me a real-time graphic of my consumption...with both pumps calling the resistance strips, I pull almost 30kW, which literally kills my soul). I'm planning to put in an outdoor thermostat to program this behavior, but haven't gotten around to that project just yet. We just moved here from California a year ago, and have an absolute sh1t-ton of stuff to do to optimize our winterability.
Also, I did a bit of rounding myself...just trying to get into the ballpark of how much stove-ready wood to have on hand come the frosty season
