wood burner experiment

[j706]

I have a wood pellet stove. Purchased a Lowes about six years ago. I normally buy 250 gallons of propane a year as a supplement and have not used more than 250 gls for the past three years or so. I use about 4 to 5 tons of pellets per season. This pellet stove has 9 blower settings and 9 heat (feed) settings. Normal winters I run it at 1 or 2 on the feed side and 4 blower. The past few days I have run the feed up to 4 and the blower on 8. It keeps the house around 70 or so. I set the furnace on 70 so it has been running more than usual (to keep a little heat in the crawl space). The down side with a pellet stove is the maintenance and the dust. They do make a fine dust within the house that my wife hates. Other than those issues I like the thing and it saves us $$$.

 

[asevans]

Had my regency fireplace insert for 3 years now. i love burning wood. I chop and split and stack all year long. The furnace rarely kicks on. i run my furnace fan on circulate and it moves the air around pretty good. Got a fan in the living room with my insert.
Last night at around 9 pm. the power goes out. Figured it would be off all night. We set up in front of the insert with the whole family. two kids and wife and Me. The house got cold. It was 55 when the power came back on at 3 am. The insert just couldnt keep up with out the fans to move the air. Im still glad i had it. i ran it hard last night. getting up every couple hours to pull the coals to the front and load a few more pieces in.
during this cold spell my furnace has came on quite a bit. my house is around 1900 square feet. two story. old windows. im in the country. only farm fields around. no wind breaks. I still cant believe that those linemen were out there at 3 am. in -10 degree temps fixing our power. Thank You

 

[IndianasFinest]

Our house was new construction in 2007 with a heat pump, and back up electric coil heat. Our winter heat bill was astronomical ($300+) so I installed a Englander 30 wood burning stove. I couldn't tell you if the electric heat still works anymore, and I could care less. We heat solely with wood which keeps our home nice, and toasty.

 

[iceman7668]

We heat with a Vermont Castings Defiant. 1200 sq. ft one level. Have been burning wood for 10 years. I set the gas furnace for 60 degrees in case the fire goes out. Our natural gas bill stays the same summer or winter. If I run the damper open, I can get a 60-70 degree rise from outside temps. I usually burn only Oak, Hickory, or Cherry. I have scrounged all my wood for free, I have 10 cords split and stacked for 1 year right now, and currently burning off 3 cords of 2 year old Oak I put in the Wood shed this fall prior to the damp weather arriving.

 

[churchmouse]

We just installed a Fisher in the living room. It will keep the entire house (1650 sg,ft) right at 70 degrees if I use the furnace fan on Circ. and a small fan to move the heat into the bedrooms.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Just saw this thread.... I have a KozyHeat Z42. I heat 4000 SF plus my garage when I'm out there working in it (leave the door open). I made it through the cold-snap just fine. I wanted to "get ahead of the curve" a bit so I started out Sunday night peaking at 78 degrees (we normally keep it 68-75). I woke up every 3 hours Sunday night & Monday morning to keep the fire going hot. By Monday morning we were down to 74. Monday evening down to 71. Tuesday morning I somehow slept through one of my alarms to add wood to the fire so it went about 6 hours without wood. I woke up to 67 degrees. By the time I got the fire going hot it had dropped to 66. By Tuesday night I had things back up around 70, and we've been fine since then...

I LOVE my Kozyheat... the only thing I don't like is that it doesn't have an ash cleanout so I have scoop it up off the floor of the firebox and the ash buildup takes up firebox volume. That's a problem when you have weather like we had. You're continuously adding wood to keep things warm so there is always a coal bed that is way too hot to scoop through to get the ash out. Yet, you have to get the ash out somehow or you won't have room for wood after 2 days of continuous burning like we had. I made do by taking advantage of the 6 hour burn-down that I didn't plan into things. That let the coals burn down just enough that I could get some of the ash out of the firebox and get some more wood in. But in an extended cold-snap I would be screwed...

How much wood do I burn heating 4000 sf with it (no supplemental heat, it hasn't been turned on since we got the wood-burner)? 2-1/2 full cords on the most mild winters (winter 2011/2012) and 3-1/2 on the coldest winters. Although I think this winter is likely going to be the coldest since I've had my fireplace (4 winters now) so I may break 4 cord this year. Especially since I've been working in my garage more (takes more wood to keep the garage warm too)...