About 75% wood heat here. Raised ranch, the insert is in the lower level of a finished walk out basement. 1 garage is off the basement and below the far bedrooms. Below 25 or 30 we need a little heat in the far upstairs bedrooms (I have tried the fan trick pushing away from the bedrooms) not much help. We have natural gas hot water boiler on 2 zones so the zone for the back bedrooms is the only one that is needed and we installed a new boiler about 5 years ago. I have a perfect set up for an OWB but don't want to have to cut more wood nor do I want to have to go out and feed the fire. I cut my wood usage from 6 cords to 4 or less with the cat stove.
60% because when it's this cold I'm at work for longer days. I work for a class 8 truck dealership (Peterbilt). Gelled up trucks 24/7.
I'm trying to get all I can, say 95%. I'm ok with the oil furnace kicking on during those cold spells (single digits and windy) as the wood stove is burning down the coals. Or letting the furnace run 100% if we go away for a day or three. So I'm good with using a quarter tank of oil per year just for the convenience. Been three years now since we bought any HHO. I figure I've saved about $10,000 in the last 5.5 years.
Roughly 90%. We have a 4 month old and a 3 year old. The wife won’t let the temp get below 70 without the furnace coming on. She was a city dweller until 10 years ago. She is on board with heating with wood. Furnace also runs if the temps are over 40. They are calling for -40 windchill this week. We will see if the IS will need any help. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Let’s just say we run the stove as much as possible. Obviously it goes out while at work, but go for a relight as soon as I get home . Stove runs 24 over the weekends. Also running the garage stove as much as possible.
99.99% firewood, heating from the basement. Not really a backup, but the pellet stove in the LR gets used periodically (still wood, right?). Only recently bought one of those Eden Pure style heaters- had to go visit my folks but couldn’t bring the dogs, so I plugged the thing in and kept ‘em comfy. That’s where the .01% difference comes in.
We heat with wood about 5 months of the year. Our winters are mild. The stove heats so well that we taper into wood heat at the beginning of the season and off of wood at the end. One good load in the AM can heat you out of the house in the shoulder season so sometimes we use the electric furnace briefly in the morning! I would guess that for 5 months we use about 93% wood heat. During a cold winter, though, my Wif views the woodstove kind of like a Bessemer Steel blast furnace. Once put into heat, you don't shut it down ever for 5 months!
Our house is total electric. When we first started out, the A/C unit made out bill over $450/month, we went to levelized billing, which averages usage over 12 month span. That helped, but after several years with both A/C and furnace, it climbed back over $400/month, even using the factory mobile home fireplace. 5 years ago, we took out that fireplace and installed the wood stove, it took a year or so, but now our bill is no more than $215 in the summer, we're saving enough in the winter, we have a credit by A/C season...
Is there some way I can get the wood stove to cool the house in the summer like the old propane powered refrigerators? Then, I could really start putting all this wood around here to work for us.
95% from october until i run out of wood in Feb. Wife is home during the day and keeps it nice and toasty. Gas furnace only kicks on in the AM when its really cold out. I am going to try to cut enough this year so that two years from now i will have enough to get thru march. April here is so hit and miss with temp, i usually just run the furnace. NG here is super cheap so i probably only save 500-1k a year by burning.
100% here. Switched from owb to ideal steel this year, couldn't be happier. There's an oil furnace downstairs, but haven't messed with it since we moved in. Haven't paid for any wood since year 1, either.
80° is not what your home was? It had to be hotter than that!! It felt like the surface of the sun. But that's better than the back of my truck!! To the OP - We are 100%. We have not bought "ProPain" in 9 years. So without wood (or Pellet heat) our house would freeze. Our Propane furnace is off and has been for years. February marks 9 years (may be 10?? I think it is actually because of the market downturn 08/09?) That we 100% heat our home. Pellet furnace in the basement Wood stove in the basement Pellet stove upstairs (just fired it today for the 1st time). Cold temps coming and we want to make sure our back up is ready if something happens to the pellet furnace.
Want to be 100%, but Guessing 70-90%. Close to 100% except for January and February. NG furnace will kick on in the morning before I get up in real cold days and before I get home from work. If I could reload often I can keep the furnace from kicking in unless it’s colder than 0. I’m ok with 65 in the house, but prefer 70. High of -10 on Wednesday, will be fun to see how much I can burn in 1 day! Betting on 1/2 of a face cord!
Pics above were old (except the free standing upstairs pellet stove) and the pellet furnace was not even plugged into the outlet. This is a recent pellet furnace pic.
100% wood for 5 years now, except an electric heater in the bathroom. Adding an electric heater in the current kitchen remodel, and I expect that to get a little use. I have a plan to add a heat pump sometime in the next 5 years. But I intend for the stove to remain the main source (90% plus) for some time yet. We keep temps 70-72.
100% wood heat through 3 air handlers. 2 for shop & 1 for house. Got a vent less propane in the house for emergency heat for plumbing etc. New boiler this year & man are t -stats a nice thing LOL. No issues so far. Been heating 100% wood for 12 years.
