Burning through wood like mad. How are you doing?

I don't have a gauge because I also supplement with a heat pump but I have used more wood this year than ever. Id say 2 cord. My house had newspaper as insulation when I had it checked. I had cellulose blown in to R19 and it made a huge diff!

I wonder if foaming the rafters in the attic would help even more?

 

I think in total I started with 2.25 cord in the shed, and 1.25 cord outside (that was designated for this year). There's about a face cord outside, and 1 cord in the shed now. So I guess burning like mad when you consider the size of my stove. As a general rule, every time I burn a cord of wood, that's 100-110 gallons of heating oil I don't use. By all accounts, this winter is colder than the three previous winters, and surprisingly, I've used less heating oil to date than any of those years, but obviously more wood

I have more wood, but it was designated for next year, so just have to wait and see. I can always go cut small deadfall around the sloughs once it warms up a bit. A half cord of that rocket fuel makes a big difference once the weather is not so cold.

 

Here’s how I started this heating season. Every year around the end of December/ beginig of January I start to worry that I’m burning through the wood too fast and I’ll run out.i then twords the end of January I’ll calm down and realize I have enough. I hope... heres where I’m at now. Please don’t mind my junk the basement becomes a catch all during the winter months.

 

Currently somewhere into my 4th cord.
Depending on when winter quits, I expect to burn about six cords.
Last year we did about 5, I've got 4 left after the current one is gone, and a huge pile of rounds to split

 

MikeInMA that's a good idea - with the amount I put into the system I certainly wouldn't mind getting a little bit of it back in the form of some insulation or sealing.

Although I would rather spend time on free wood than money on insulation, the floors do get pretty chilly. I should at least insulate under the first floor. Or look into firing the old wood stove down there... hmm...

 

I'm nearly through a cord of pine that I put on the porch for this season. When the weather is good and the ground is dry, I've been bringing up wagonloads of mixed elm/sweet gum/ cedar/ pine/ oak/ tree of heaven chunks, uglies, and shorts. Maybe 1/2 a cord of that so far.

 

Only thing I can chalk it up to is finally having truly dry firewood. But I wouldn’t think it would make that drastic a diferance.

 

This is what I have left in the shed, which will probably take me through February. After that, it's scrounge around the yard time...a pallet of hawthorn, broken down oak pallets, some stuff stacked beside the shed that's dry, some red maple split last spring that may be ready....
So far I think I've burned about 2 cords.

 

Every winter I say I need to insulate more..... every summer I tell myself, “self, it wasn’t that bad”. Ultimately, insulation and air sealing, add value to a home and buy you time, that may have been spent scrounging, to do other things... I’m sure there is a calculation that can be done... in the northeast, I would think that labor costs are far more than materials cost when fine tuning the insulation in a home.. if that assumption is true, then performing one’s own insulation upgrades really makes sense. Ultimately, our “free” firewood isn’t free... (neither is freedom, which has been said to cost a buck ‘o five). Free firewood costs something.. I think I figured I had about $20 into each cord of wood (mostly fuel for truck, chainsaw and splitter) not taking into account depreciation on equipment. So if $1000 in insulation saves me a cord of wood a year, the simple math says the payoff time is around 50 years... that is, however a very simplistic look at it... being more comfortable also has intrinsic value.. reducing the temperature variation in the house, or having warmer floors can be reason enough to make a small investment in time and materials even though the payoff date seems to be far away... I have made a promise to myself that come this summer, I will no longer put off my insulation and air sealing projects...

 

WE're at about 2.5 cords now. Started the winter off slow, but now we are burning through the wood pretty good. We're on track to use 4-5 cords, especially now that the groundhog saw his shadow

 

into the 7th face cord, probably closer to the 8th....So about 2.5 cords so far. A lot more than I anticipated for this winter.

 

We typically burn between 3-4 cords Year. I'm figuring that we are right at about 2 burned so far. 15-18 cords of ready to burn in reserves. Seeing this typed out explains my wife's expression when I mentioned I wanted another saw.

 

I'll be looking forward to shutting my neighbor's up who think I have a "lifetime supply of firewood" stacked at my house...Actually it's about 1.5 years worth after this winter. And there's plenty of room for more!!

 

I am at about normal maybe a little more.

 

we are on normal pace from last year. but then again, we only chooch the stove pipe on the weekends when we don't have a fire in the fireplace. we let our 96% natural gas furnace take care of the heat during the week.

 

We had a person (community activist type) question my wood reserves. After explaining why nobody is ever seeing any smoke from my stack and pointing out that the people with the little stacks of newly delivered wood are billowing away he came by at a later date with "your right, I never noticed".

 

that's dead on. This is really the first year that I have had truly "seasoned" wood and after much learning here, its still not as dry as it needs to be but I have no smoke. All you can see when you look up there is the Heat coming out. I feel accomplished as well. It was 77 inside when I went home for lunch. Its pretty chilly here today too.

 

It has been a weird year for me, we have broken the heating of our home down to heating with wood/coal/propane and so with all three types, none have been really affected too bad. i got plenty of each to carry me through the winter. Definitely more than enough wood.

In some ways it seems cold, but really it was just a cold snap around the first of the year that took a hit on the heating requirements. here we have had a rollercoaster temperature ride: 2 days of cold, followed by three days of warm. Averaged out, it has not been a really bad year.

 

Thanks for the testimonials on insulation projects. Don't think I will have the $$$s to get the walls blown this year. I do plan on doing some insulation in the basement.
Had to pass on a scrounge today. Nice pile, about a cord, of maple. My truck is down with a broken tie rod. My daughter said there was a guy with 2 small kids getting the wood. I figure I will drive by in the morning and see if any is still there. Maybe he just collected the cream. If there is any left and my grandson is free, we will noodle the large pieces and haul it home in his truck.
I am noway in danger of running out of wood though.

 

We are about the same as last year. Maybe I’m burning better stuff than last year?