Who heats with wood?

[P0234]

Curious who heats with wood as their primary heat source. Where are you, how big is your house and how much do you usually burn per year?

Me: Northern Virginia, 3500 SQ ft, about 3-4 cords a year. I do have a heat pump that fills in the gaps when I get lazy, it gets really cold or we go away. Also house has a ton of passive solar heat (by design).

 

[Sumboodie]

Used to. 1400sq ft, used ~2.5 cords a winter.
Blaze King and well insulated house.

 

[chris142]

We are this year due to propane and electricity cost. House is 1007 sqft but the fire place will only heat the 20x12 living room. Bought 1/2 cord of pine about 8 weeks ago and we are down to about 1/3rd of it.

 

[Copymutt]

40 yrs. 1400sqft. +- 2.5 cord of pine/ aspen. Gas stove on thermostat for when were gone.
Attached greenhouse helps a bunch. Garage is gas in floor but relies heavily on passive solar.

 

[u2slow]

Southern gulf islands, BC. 1600sqft and 2-3 cords/year. Could be better insulated. I turn the heat pump off below 12°C because it can't keep up. No nat gas here, and I refuse to pay the propane mafia.

 

[1blink]

Northern Colorado, 7100 ft elevation. I burn mostly lodgepole and Ponderosa pine since that's what grows here on the mountain. I heat 1900 Sq ft of my house with the wood stove. I burn 4 cords on the average winter, with R55 walls

 

[jack stand]

5-6 cords a year for my indoor gasification boiler for the radiant tubing in the concrete with a little area in the ceiling.
Big shop with a little house.

 

[Yankeefarmer]

Is it considered “primary heat” if it supplies half your heat? Forty years ago we heated primarily with wood in a basement hot air furnace, using 6-7 cords per year until Mrs. Yankeefarmer revolted because she was sick of feeding the thing, and I was away at work. Nowadays we heat the great room and adjacent kitchen/dining with a wood stove burning about 2 cords per year. The rest of the house is kept at lower temps using oil with the hydronic system I installed to replace the old inefficient hot air system. Our oil usage is half what it was during the winter we heated exclusively with oil due to my son and his family living with us while building their new home.

Our wood all comes from our property and is a mix of red oak and silver maple.

 

[jonathco]

First year heating with wood as primary source. I'm heating a 2700 sq ft cape cod with a Drolet HT3000. We'll hit 5 cords easily by end of season.
We have Geothermal, but try not to use it for heat, as it's so expensive. We keep the Geo set at 60, in case the stove burns out in the night. Otherwise, all wood heat.

 

[P0234]

First year heating with wood as primary source. I'm heating a 2700 sq ft cape cod with a Drolet HT3000. We'll hit 5 cords easily by end of season.
We have Geothermal, but try not to use it for heat, as it's so expensive. We keep the Geo set at 60, in case the stove burns out in the night. Otherwise, all wood heat.

I have the cousin to the HT3000, the Osburn 3000. Man does that thing put out some heat if you run it hot, I've had guests complain..lol. We only run it when it gets cold here (under 20). Have you had any luck going low and slow? I'd love to be able to load it up and let it run for 12 hours but I can't get much more than 7 before reloads become needy.

My primary heat comes from a Vermont Castings 1280, probably the most hated insert on some of the wood burn forums but I really like it, you have to keep it hot and just control the airflow for your desired heat. It will literally eat anything you throw in it and you can also make it just chug along super slow. That said eventually it will probably get replaced with a Blaze King Princess.

 

[P0234]

Is it considered “primary heat” if it supplies half your heat? Forty years ago we heated primarily with wood in a basement hot air furnace, using 6-7 cords per year until Mrs. Yankeefarmer revolted because she was sick of feeding the thing, and I was away at work. Nowadays we heat the great room and adjacent kitchen/dining with a wood stove burning about 2 cords per year. The rest of the house is kept at lower temps using oil with the hydronic system I installed to replace the old inefficient hot air system. Our oil usage is half what it was during the winter we heated exclusively with oil due to my son and his family living with us while building their new home.

Our wood all comes from our property and is a mix of red oak and silver maple.

I can certainly appreciate Mrs. Yankeefarmers perspective. There are times I've had enough too. Especially when running both stoves, it just gets to be too much work. Sometimes Mr. Heatpump gets a workout.

I burn wood from our property too, its either burn it or pay to take it to the dump. The previous owners left me a lot of dead wood. Last year I had 28 trees dropped, I still have about 6 cords that I have stacked but haven't split yet and probably 2x that in dead trees that need to be dropped.

A wood boiler would be cool.....

 

[larry4406]

We heat with wood.

House is about 2000SF main level finished with unfinished basement of same.

We go thru about 4-5 cords a year.

Northern VA.

 

[scooby074]

Wood for primary. About 8 cd. Not sure what im saving if anything considering labour and log cost now

 

[Ton ton]

We have plenty of wood on our land but it's still labor intensive. I like burning wood.

 

[PCustoms]

Southern VT, 1300sqft.

Furnace kicks on at 62F when I'm lazy or traveling, the wood is basically free so I try to use that all the time.

I burn about 2 cords per winter, mostly oak and maple.

 

[jonathco]

I have the cousin to the HT3000, the Osburn 3000. Man does that thing put out some heat if you run it hot, I've had guests complain..lol. We only run it when it gets cold here (under 20). Have you had any luck going low and slow? I'd love to be able to load it up and let it run for 12 hours but I can't get much more than 7 before reloads become needy.

I can load it up and still have a coal bed in the AM, but 8-9 hours is max. It definetly does a good job for a single stove with no blower, maintaining heat in a two story, 2700 sq ft house. Very happy with it!

 

[demarpaint]

I did for 25 years, we stopped about two years ago when age made going out to get wood a PITA, and the price to buy it made using gas heat cheaper. I burnt between 4 and 6 full cords a year. I miss the fire, but not the work.

 

[bassJAM]

This is the first year I didn't heat with wood. I replaced my heat pump in 2022 and realized the new one is efficient enough I was only saving like $40-50/month by heating with wood, which just isn't worth it to me for the time and effort.

But before that I burned 3 cords of hardwood, 1900s sq ft house but with the partially finished basement it was 2600 sq ft of living space. Located in soutern ohio. Mine is a wood boiler located in the basement, which was nice because I could start a fire in the morning and it heated enough water to last for 24hours so maintaining it was easy. It also controlled the temp with a thermostate so every room felt the same, I grew up in a house with a wood stove and absolutely hated the 80° living room and 60° bedrooms and fans blowing cold air around to even manage that.

I'm planning on ripping out the boiler this spring. It's about the size of a VW Beetle and I could sure use the space for storage!

 

[isb cornbinder]

A friend told me, "If I have wood, it just feels warmer."

 

[P0234]

It also controlled the temp with a thermostate so every room felt the same, I grew up in a house with a wood stove and absolutely hated the 80° living room and 60° bedrooms and fans blowing cold air around to even manage that.

You know I though we'd have an issue with uneven temps, and we do, but it actually works out well in most places. When someone complains that its cold, the answer is go down to the den where it's usually almost 80. The bedrooms are on the outer areas of the house and are much cooler, which I like for sleeping.

 

[TractorJeff]

I've lived in a Wood heated house since the 1972 Oil Crisis.
Three 16 inch "Face Cords" equals One Full Cord.
I would guesstimate 4 "Full Cords" a year now.
Used to run 2 stoves - Upstairs/Downstairs (8"Full Cords").
Run 1 stove upstairs now and heat the downstairs with HE Gas Furnace.

 

[NUTTSGT]

I heat the garage with wood and have a fire going everyday. sq ft, I forget but I have a DAKA stove. My firewood usage just depends on amount of heating days (working OT) and weather.

This year, I burned through more because I was burning up a large cottonwood tree. . . .stoked every 2 hours.

 

[bassJAM]

You know I though we'd have an issue with uneven temps, and we do, but it actually works out well in most places. When someone complains that its cold, the answer is go down to the den where it's usually almost 80. The bedrooms are on the outer areas of the house and are much cooler, which I like for sleeping.

It's the 80° living room that I hate the most. When we visit my parents with their wood stove we know to dress in layers and we're still normally sweating once we're down to t-shirts. My little kids have tried to strip off all their clothes before!