The mid-January warm up had me thinking we were on the home stretch...not so much. I'm going to be right at about 5 cords total if I keep going at roughly this pace. I just put another 1/3 cord in the furnace room Sunday morning and I've burned about 1/4 of that so far this week in the Daka. She get's hungry when the wind is howling and it's below zero! We're toasty warm and not burning any LP though so I'm happy happy.
Since moving here, it was suggested that we'd probably use about 5 cords every year. That was a very good estimate. After the 1st year, I always put up more than that....just in case, plus trying to get into the 2-3-4 year plan. I put a little over 5 & 1/3 cords in the shed last year (June, I think), then added another 1/3 the day before Christmas.. I'm glad I did. We probably won't use it all, but it's nice to have it sitting there in case we have winters like these last two. I'll be putting between 6-7 cords in the shed this fall, and whatever is left over is that much less I'll need to do the following year. It'll also make room in the field stacks for a whole bunch more.
Last year was a mild winter for us, I burned a little over 3 cords. This one is even milder, no snow and no temps below mid 20s. Lately it's been daytime highs in the upper 50s, lows just barely freezing. I've burned about 2 cords so far. I've cut, split and stacked more than that since winter began. Working on the 5 year plan, just need to figure out how to stack water.
I highly doubt we'll burn this year what we did last year. It appears we will end up burning around 3 cord but naturally it depends upon the weather. By January 1, I was doubting we'd burn all the wood we put in the barn. Yesterday we put more on the porch and we are now down to one row of wood in the barn. It started with 3 rows. But, this weather can eat up a lot of wood.
It looks like I'll end up burning less this year. Probably 6 cord or less. Better than the 8 last year.
All I know is its 3 degrees now according to forcast heading for -16 by 4am. Holy s@#$&% t. Burning some well aged oak. Nice and warm. Its all good.
At this point i have burned just as much as i did all of last year, six cords. Heating an extra room tho but i feel it been colder for longer than last year. March is supposed to be warm in these parts.
Got to wait and see when the spring shoulder season begins and ends. My insert can't provide all the heat for my house, so it pretty much burns at the same rate all winter long. There is no extra consumption when its uber cold out as I'm already running at 100%. So its a matter of when the fire goes out entirely. We got a slow start, if it warms up as suddenly as it got cold then it will be over soon and my consumption will be less. If it drags on until mid April then the consumption could be about the same as last year.
Guess we'll have to see how the rest of the winter goes. I was a little ahead of last winters wood consumption until Mother Nature decided to kick it up a notch. Probably end up the same (4-5 cords), but who knows?? No worries still have plenty stacked in the old dry barn
I used 7 cord last year. Have used 5 cord so far this year. I hope one more cord does it for this year. So my consumption "wood" be down.
I'm pretty certain we'll use a lot more. Nice to not have to worry about it. We seem to be going to be brutally cold quite a while longer. I just looked at my Hydroone page: Average temps each day since the beginning of January have been scary. I'd like to know our heating degree days. I can't believe they are not a record. We are much colder than last year. Today I think is close to 40 degrees colder than the same day last year, while most days have been at least 20 degrees colder. We have hit few record lows, but almost every day has been within degrees of the record low. I'm going to try to put up 9 cords this year. Won't be easy.
Using less. December was warm and then the new stove installed on January 1st. It eats up about 1/3 less wood. It will likely do really well during the shoulder season.
