24/7 starting in September or when air temp is below 50ish. We have a Avalon Spokane 1750 upstairs and a Lopi Liberty in the basement. The Lopi is used when it’s below 20 for a high or when I’m home and want the basement toasty. We have propane hot forced air as a backup... set at 60. We run that 2-3 times a season or if we are gone. Stove room is always 70+. Whole house is warmer with the Lopi running. 4ish cords per year- scrounged, cut from land, or delivered by tree services.
Pre-retirement I ran 50% electric and 50% wood. Post retirement I am able to meet my needs with 100% wood. Life is good!
95% wood, usually going anytime the outside air is below 40º If above, normally nothing. We do have 2 Gas ventless heaters, "They look like a wood stove" and they are only turned on to break chill in house in morning if fire goes out or were restarting Grandma Fisher after "cold iron".
We have a Woodstock IS in the basement of a Cape Cod. Heat the basement up and let the air flow upstairs as well as use registers in the ductwork to pull the hot air from the basement and feed the rest of the house. Works fairly efficiently but we use about 40-60 gallons of oil a year as well. Pretty good balance between low cost and not a ton of wood. I'd venture a guess that 85-90% of our heat is via wood.
South of the Mason-Dixon line ( e.g. Arkansas ) you are all excused. Besides you all ( "y'all" ) have for some unknown reason, the better hardwood species thasn those of us in the more temperate sophisicated north. Now for the rest of you who state that you are "almost pregnant" using only 10 gallons of oil per year, or that the furnace only kicks on 2-3 x per year, you are forgiven and will be awarded a Pinocchio. BTW: I am extremely biased against basement wood stoves, unless it is well insulated and where you spend time watching our Patriots win ....again. Though "heat rises", if the cellar foundation is not as insulated as the upstairs, you are basically heating dirt. JMNSHO
You are heating the soil, but you don't have to keep heating the soil at the same rate over time. Once you get the dirt heated the heat required to maintain that heated soil becomes less and less as soil has mass and can retain heat. Soil is also an insulator so you are heating a lot less soil than you might think. You have to think of the soil on the other side of that R1 concrete as a buffer you can use. It is more effective if it is dry, which is why it is so important to recharge collected roof rain water as far away from the cellar as possible within reason. If the soil is dry then the spaces where the water would be are air pockets and if you've ever built an igloo and been warm inside you know how important air pockets in mass are. Compressed snow is just frozen water and air but acts as an insulator to keep you warm. Even worms have to come up for air when it rains as the water displaces the air they need. Geothermal greenhouses use soil to store heat energy produced on a sunny day by storing it in the soil under the greenhouse and then recovering that stored heat during the night to heat the greenhouse area. It works. They do make efforts to keep that soil under the greenhouse dry and contained. If earth wasn't an insulator and could retain heat resist heat loss your frost line would be miles deep instead of around four feet. There are materials that are better insulators in which one can build an improved shells or barriers to heat losses, but they are better systems and improvements over what nature provides. The worst heat losses in a concrete wall in the ground is where the concrete is not in the ground and there is no earth insulation and retention. You don't need fancy instruments to prove this, all it takes is your hand when it is 0ºF outside.
100% OWB since '95, 2 little wood stoves before that. As a kid, mom and dad started with a Ben Franklin stove, what a wood hog and no heat monster. When mom and dad went to a store to buy a stove the measurements said to buy the Baby Bear, mom and dad wanted the Papa Bear but the lady talked them in to the Mama Bear. What a difference in technology! Mama Bear never ran to capacity, had to open the windows! Should have bought the Baby Bear.
No, No, & No. Think "heat sink". Think where heat migrates. You want to spend BTUs heating dirt, fine. Dirt is what ? Is it dry below x feet ? Not my dog in this. Besides, when has it ever gotten to 0 F in S.E. Mass ? Tell.
