question, where is your wood burning threshold?

I start to reach my threshold in March. I get tired of burning wood and Winter for that matter by then so I may take a few days off and burn some gas.

 

February. By February I start yelling at the weather report "SEASONAL TEMPS! WHERE ARE THE SEASONAL TEMPS!?"

 

I keep both my stats set at 60F and they haven't kicked on in about 3-4 weeks now. I have a propane furnace so I try to use my furnace as little as possible. This is my first winter in this house so it will be interesting to see how well the stove can heat it through out the winter. So far with this first big cold snap of -3 this morning the house only dropped down to 64 upstairs and 72 downstairs. When the stove is cranking the downstairs stays around 85 and upstairs around 70.

 

Coldest night of the year and I shut down the stove last night to conserve my limited supply of wood. Got the electric oil filled radiator going in the bedroom at 66 degrees. This morning when I fired up the stove again it was 43 degrees in the rest of the house. -6 degrees outside with no wind. Exterior walls were 37 and the front door was 23 degrees on the IR thermometer. And yes, those are all fahrenheit. I had to start the heating oil fired boiler twice last night (total of about an hour). Once around 8:00pm and again this morning around 4:30am. Both times because some pipes in the basement were at 33-34 degrees. After I started the boiler last night, I placed a oil filled electric heater in the coldest part of the basement which helped a lot. Then I ended up with another cold part of the basement. As of 7:00am, the wood stove is fired up again and warming things up, coffee pot is on and I'm back in bed waiting for the magic to happen downstairs.


Does that make my threshold high? Time to get working on my stacks for next year and future years.

 

Medium. Would be high if you weren't using space heaters

 

If it was up to me, I wouldn't be using space heaters... It's the four others in the house (youngest 16 months) I have to think about. Keep telling the wife that eskimos didn't have space heaters.... She doesn't buy the argument and I have a low tolerance for other stuff!!

 

I have not turned on the oil boiler in two years now for heat, other than testing it for 5 minutes only twice. I will turn on the oven and bake something to help take the chill off.

 

I started my oil furnace once this season to make sure it would work if needed. The thermostat for the oil burner is set at 58. The only time the oil burner runs is if we're away for a weekend.

I have the same pellet furnace as DexterDay. Best money I ever spent. It usually runs at a fairly low setting and I use the wood insert to keep pellet use down. By the time March comes around I'm usually pretty tired of loading the wood insert and use pellets exclusively.