Heating with wood

Heating with Wood
By Doug Smith









"Anyone who's ever relied on wood for heat can testify it's a lot of hard work. Still, it's one of the most cost-effective and renewable ways of staying warm known to man. A stand of timber can renew itself in about 20 years on average. Just a few trees can provide enough wood to heat an average-sized home for an entire winter. In many cases firewood can be scavenged for free at logging locations, or from landowners looking to remove some trees. Most times the trees are already down and the owner of the wood simply wants it removed from the property. Just keep in mind that all free things aren't necessarily gifts. All wood will burn, but not at the same rate and efficiency."





Read more...
http://homestead.org/DougSmith/WoodHeat/Firewood.htm

Yep i been burning wood a while now . Got the stove downstairs and the heat comes up . When i was sawing everyday i would band slabs and saw my wood near the back door .Here we got a lot of oak and hickory i leave some handy trees near the house for hard times too .

I know i need it cut a year in advance but so far hasn't happened .

Unfortunately, most of the wood we have on our property is pine. We do have a good source for pecan wood that seems to burn pretty well.

Pecan is first cousin to the hickory real good . Most sawmills will put the hickory and pecan in the same stacks too .

Pine most times will give you three heats or four one cutting it two splitting it then tossing it in the stove and go fer another stick .

Now is some good smelling wood when your are burning it .

We've been heating with wood for about 10 years. It is primarily our main source of heat throughout the winter. We do have our natural gas furnace for when the fire dies down overnight or for when we are away from home for any length of time.

We replaced a cast iron box stove with something more energy efficient a few years back. The old one didn't seal really well and agravated my asthma, the new one does a double burn thing so less smoke to cause breathing issues.

We have a small cast iron box stove and our fireplace. It really heats up our whole house, with the exception of bathrooms and bedrooms. The bedrooms we prefer cold, so that's not an issue. We have a small electric radiator in our bathroom for right now. I'm hoping to come up with a solution for our bathrooms.

We use a small fan to blow the heat through the rest of the house. If it gets really cold we kick on the furnace just to warm up the bathroom during our showers.

We heat with wood. Thankfully so far it has been free. We go get the trees that the weather has blown down or what the farmer leaves in his field. We are a 4 person clean up crew. We have a waiting list this year to clean up. We are starting soon on that project.

Well i know it is still hot out but fall is a coming . And here i sit with out two sticks . But the Lord will provide he always does .

We try to stay stocked up year round because we have a firepit outside that we use to cook with a lot in the summer.

Sonshine wrote:We try to stay stocked up year round because we have a firepit outside that we use to cook with a lot in the summer.

I have several thousand 2x1.5x33.5 oak sticks would work good in a fire pit they are about two inches to long for my stove . I was cutting special order products and this is scrap from those orders .

When we got our house about 25 years ago, one of the first things we did was put in the wood stove. Other than the wood stove and the "solar" dryer, our house is all electric. And, in all that time, I think we've bought wood 2 or 3 times. The rest of the wood has been free. That stove has paid for itself several times.

As of now, I'm the only one that does the wood. We live next door to about 33 acres of woods. Recently it was sold and the new owner wants me to take out the downed trees. (Old owner didn't) Right now I have about half a cord that I got last spring, but that's not enough to last long. So, I'll be going in there soon w/my truck, generator and 14" electric chainsaw. (I can't use a gas one-the fumes make me dizzy!) And, most of it is oak!

Our wood guy is suppose to be delivering a cord tomorrow. We still have about a half a cord from last year. We'll probably get a couple more cords to hold us for awhile.

About 7 years ago winter got here and we discovered that our duct work no longer worked for our furnace. The men who did the work had installed the soft and the cats had gotten under the house and destroyed it. So my dad found a woodstove for $165 at an auction that had only been used about 3 times. Dh got it installed and we were set.
I didn't know a think about using a woodstove. That first winter we about froze. Now we have gotten used to it, had our duct work replaced (some vents still don't work) so we mainly heat with wood & use the furnace for when the stove banks down and the temperature drops in the living room & if we are gone we will use it.
Most of the wood we have gotten was free. Last year a friend told us about a saw mill that you go load up your truck & it's $10 a truck load. So that's what we're using right now and we are going to need to go get 3 or 4 truck loads before winter gets here.
Our heating bills were anywhere from $250-$300 before the wood stove. Now, with only using the furnace a little, they are about $115-$150.

Heating with wood is great. I heated with wood for many years but now we just heat with gas. I do miss the wood heat though. I always enjoyed cutting and stacking firewood. Maybe some day in the future I'll be able to go back to wood heat.

If you weren't so far away, I'd tell you that you could come over and cut and stack some firewood for me.

Wish we could have wood heat, but I'm allergic.

Love our wood heat.