woodheating

[shooter]

Been burning part time about a month, full time the last couple weeks.
She's a hot runner!
the propane "normal" was 66F downstairs, 60 upstairs
the wood normal is 70-74F up and down Except the furnace room, that runs a comfortable 85!!  temp regulation via fans and windows!


I used up some of the Copper sheeting for a thermal catcher.

[mresistor]

Looks nice and toasty.  I miss my wood burner from my previous house.

[John]

Probably be firing ours up Thurs.  morning to take the chill off. I've got a Quadrafire, shooter, looks like yours if very similar. I love it, burns clean, very little creosote buildup, and oh yeah, what a view on a cold winter's night.

[mresistor]

Shooter have you ever considered adding a heat reclaimer/blower on the stove pipe?

[shooter]

the stoves an Ashley.  It has a variable speed (manually adjusted) blower in back that blows across/through bent plates that heat the airgap.  The manual says not to use a cat type system in the chimney.  The reason;  it lowers the flue temp, causing excess creosote buildup.
did one clean after 4 weeks, about a cup of black soot at the base.  The main pipes were basically clear of any creosote.


It's nice being back on wood heat, instead of bundling up inside in the winter, boxer's n iced tea this winter! 

[mresistor]

That expalins it then.   We have burn bans here in the winter because when the people burn wood and we have inversions, the air quality is very bad.  So even if you have a woodstove you really shouldn't use it during those times. 
Sadly.


One reason why I haven't gotten another installed here.  But there are other solutions.

[shooter]

The fine Govmnt and Insurance folk won't let me have one here either, damn   


I skirted around the Insurance "issue" so i'm covered, don't feel I need to ask Govmnt for permission so I didn't. 

[66Strat]

What type of wood do you burn? I cut firewood out of fence rows as a teen. Most of what I cut was Locust.

[shooter]

we have 4 acres, when we bought the pace there were maybe 5 mature trees.  30+ years latter we have a good variety of black walnut, wild cherry, elm, couple types of oak, poplar, apple, and pine.
I just cleared out the dead wood last year, so this year burning; Cherry, Elm, Walnut, Mulberry and poplar.
Next year is cut from "selective harvesting".
year "3" is started, cleaning up the stumps, small logs from the brush piles, 2 apple trees and a couple small elms hit by lighting.

[shooter]

here's a few pics
the red circle is part of a lighting hit that happened this summer.  about 3 weeks after all the leaves came off, by last month the bark was cracking.  Sad, I believe it's a white oak.  The plus side, there's a new 2' shoot growing about 3' away from the parent, another 30yrs n she'll be good burnin 

[sluckey]

I'm glad I don't have to deal with that much firewood ever again. Did as a kid.

I'm still waiting to be able to turn the AC cooling off!   

[shooter]

when the last stove died that's exactly what I said!!!  15 years later n fully retired, it's just another thing to do, when it becomes a chore
the LP is still alive n waiting! 
The AC has been busted for 10 years, don't even notice 

[PRR]

There's some woodsheds in Maine. Not used to seeing an Altec in one.

We have a half-dead maple which dearly wants to fall on the living room. I can't get my arms around it. I have a rope on it and waiting for a ripe time to saw it down and up. For more fun, 18 years ago someone put a basketball hoop on and it is ingrown to the rim.

[shooter]

 
the cab is a skeet launch station 
I had the speaker in a PA cab, sadly the last time I played loud the cone turned to dust!


leave a biggish chunk with hoop in, get some yard gnome's and a plastic flamingo, walla, yard art.


The Elm I took out was a tree house, start of a couple different Zip-lines, so there's a cord of wood that won't get cut
I did etch in a Gnome door with the saw, we'll see 

[66Strat]

here's a few pics
the red circle is part of a lighting hit that happened this summer.  about 3 weeks after all the leaves came off, by last month the bark was cracking.  Sad, I believe it's a white oak.  The plus side, there's a new 2' shoot growing about 3' away from the parent, another 30yrs n she'll be good burnin 

It looks like you have a two or three year supply in the shed. The apple, cut up in chunks, would be great for bbq. It makes 'em 'ere pigs real tastyful. 

[shooter]

the "shed" is the cow part of the barn.  3 sided walk out basement arrangement, still has a couple 'ol head-milking clamps.  In the way back days the previous owners had ~~30 milking cows.
I have NONE! 
As a kid i worked on my uncles small farm, mucking stalls, feeding horses, goats, chickens, dogs n cats.  Give me firework to cut, spit, stack....ANY day over muckin stalls!

[PRR]

We have a half-dead maple ...., 18 years ago someone put a basketball hoop on and it is ingrown to the rim.

My neighbor bucking it up for firewood.

[shooter]

'ol guys with chainsaws!!!!


Now your Living room is safe til a NorEast'r dumps 4ft of wet snow on it!


I did a shift at the B.B.G. this morning, got to talk with all the cutters.
The winner was a Army Warrant Officer, he just finished up with 30 face cord!!
us slackers usually do 15 - 20 face cord each season.  Next year I think we'll do propane til November!

[shooter]

can't help myself, it's the geek Engineer in me 
found a formula that calculates required BTU to heat "your garage"
took the data I've been collecting over the past month, plugged it in and have a BTU range of 65K to 147K
The part that messin me up is Time.

currently it takes ~~ 2 hours to get 9400CuFt 67F air to 72F.  Once there I can maintain it.


so is time just a "constant"?  (it takes what it takes based on the supplied BTU??)


Heating 9,400 cubic feet of air
Average temp – ambient    = 50F           45F
Average temp – heated      = 72F           70F
Differential                        = 22F           25F
Insulating coefficient               .5            1.0
BTU FudgeFactor                    1.6
1 Cord (4’ X 4’ x 8’)              128 CUFt = 20,000,000 BTU
 
Required heat source in BTU
Math;
(.5 x 9400 x 22) / 1.6           = 64,625  BTU
(1 X 9400 X 25) / 1.6            = 146,845 BTU

Average Burn (measured)       ~ 6.75 CuFt / day (.053 of a cord) (1,060,000BTU)
                     (math'd)          200CUFt /month (1.56 cord) (31,200,000BTU)
 

    Wood
   1 cord = 20,000,000 Btu⁵
       Propane
   1 gallon = 91,452 Btu
    the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of liquid water by 1 degree Fahrenheit at the temperature that water has its greatest density (approximately 39 degrees Fahrenheit).

[acheld]

so is time just a "constant"?  (it takes what it takes based on the supplied BTU??)

Yes.   That's a simplistic answer,  but close enough.  The amount of time required to heat an enclosure depends on the amount of heat supplied, as well as the heat loss that is ongoing.

  'Ol guys with spreadsheets! 

[shooter]

I like simplistic answers 

[PRR]

There are two heat loads. And so there are two Sample Cases.

1) Lightweight well insulated box held at constant temperature
2) Heavy stone church only heated on Sunday morning

It may take more BTU to warm cold stone than to hold temp in the box.

I had a similar case. Over-sized furnace would bring the air in a cold house up to warm in 20 minutes, shut-off, only to re-start in 10 minutes. Air is thin and easy to heat. Drywall is dense and hard to heat. There was no great point in flooding the house with BTUs faster than the drywall would accept it. (And the ducts were too small to convey all those BTU, the furnace cooked itself.)

Your garage is probably an in-between. You won't keep it warm day and night(??). Or when you spend the whole day hunting for moose or porcupine. (Unless those fokkers have got in the garage...) When you want to polish some chrome, you run a hot fire for a couple hours, then cut it way back.

It is very possible you "never" fully heat a garage. Like I don't heat my cellar. The cold wet soil under the cold damp concrete would take months @ 50+kBTUh to come up to 70 degrees. Maybe more when the underground water is carrying heat away faster than hot air can put heat in.

Yes, observation is a very good guide.

[shooter]

Cold, windy, rainy, bone chillin day.  I get home from the B.B.G. , hot coffee, hit the recliner and
BAM, God goes n throws this outside my window for 5 minutes!.  I’d made the decision to make the Cherry next year’s big cut last week. Hmm..
 
If you zoom in you’ll see a few 5-10” diameter trees, those are Sassafras, one has a 14” base.  I want those to become a focal spot and “pull” the Poplar forward
 Yard Art

[shooter]

yesterday was a rare climate event here;  SUNSHINE! 
I went out and cut down a tree so I could cut it up.  The English language is so weird!


finishing the heating season, the biggest surprise was how much the stove ate!


the deer wanted the winter apples!

[rake]

When I lived in New England I burned a lot of wood.
House came with an oil fired hot water boiler and baseboard heat.
I put in a wood fired boiler in tandem with the oil boiler.
I found that if I opened the wood fire up and let it roar full air
for 5-10 minutes a day my chimney had virtually no creosote buildup.
I miss cold and snow about as much as I'd miss syphilis! 

[acheld]

Just noticed shooter's deer.  Big and fat!  Here in MD, at least where I live, they are not as big and are skinny.  I suspect (no, I know) there are just too many of them. 

Moved from MI to MD 20+ years ago.   I don't miss too much about MI, what with the crappy road surfaces due to the even crappier winter and endless days w/o sun.   

But, it is fair to say that folks know what to do with deer in MI!    Not so in MD.  And I do miss that.