Somethings gotta give ya'll

Just now it's 5°F outside. It's 78° and rising on the sunporch, and the doors are open to let that into the house. At night I'll close them and not loose heat that way.

I've got a UMaine handout with a design for a solar collector to be used as a grain dryer heat source. It's essentially a 20x96 greenhouse without a frame. Turn off the fans and it collapses except for the tapered 4' tall endwalls. The floor is black poly. Turn on the intake fan and it inflates, with intake air coming through 24" poly tube greenhouse vent duct, which runs the length of the collector. A piece of black 60% shade cloth covers this duct, supported by a wire. So the air comes in the intake, is warmed by the black poly on the ground, is warmed as it rises through the shade cloth, and then exits into your area to be heated.

Of course just now I've got 18" of snow, but if you could keep it clear...

Otherwise, figure out where to install drains in all your pipes before you have to let the house freeze up and retreat to one or two warm rooms.

Dan

Stonykill - "I will never be persuaded that the smoke from my woodheat polutes more than the entire process of getting oil from the ground, to the tank in the house does. Look at the entire picture

Now, correct me if I'm wrong. This is a homesteading forum, and with homesteading comes work. Carrying in wood once a day, is one of the easiest things a homesteader has to do. If carrying a little firewood is too much work, then homesteading isn't for you."

Stonykill, Ouch! I liked what you had to say about the bigger picture. Yep. From that perspective, we may have chosen the lesser of two evils...

As for the exercise of stocking and carrying wood year after year, etc....I'm not complaining. (I actually call the wood shed "our exercise gym").

I was only comparing our experience with our city friends, who think a fireplace is a quaint luxury. They are forced to refrain from their aestetic pleasures at times when a burn ban is enforced to preserve air quality. (It happens around here, about once or twice a year). Only those like us who rely on wood for heat are allowed to continue burning. You KNOW we get the criticle glares from all the tree huggers and 'global awarmists" then! Not that I don't think global warming is an issue...all I'm saying is heating by wood carries its own issues .. and for us, its not as 'quaint' as it is 'essential' . Maybe I should have clarified.

LF

there is no may about it, a chainsaw and one vehicle produce a lot less emmisions than several fleets of vehicles

if you're not looking at the bigger picture you're following what you are told by the media like a sheep.

Every aspect of life should be looked at from the overall picture. Simply ask yourself, what is the real cost, or effect or both of the situation.

Global warming, we need some of that up here. Its after 2 in the afternoon and still only 5 degrees without the windchill. I guess AlGore forgot to tell NYS about global warming.

Between the fireplace and green wood, I doubt you get much heat at all for your efforts, it would be much better to season your wood and get a woodstove. Even if you had to wait a year.

I agree. I think it's up to US to do something about this. Insulate, heat with alternative methods, move to a warmer climate, whatever it takes.

Fuel is not going to get cheaper, and it's up to us to take care of ourselves. "They" won't be able to fix this problem (rising fuel costs and poor economy) any time soon.

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Our homestead-in-the-making: Palazzo Rospo
Eating the dream

Guess that global warming does not sound so bad right about now.

I agree.
It's going to "heck in a hand basket". It will be really bad if the temps across the country don't get up a little. I know the east is going to warm a bit next week. But have you all seen the Epic storms coming to the Pacific side of the country. They are gonna be measuring it in feet..... At pass level they could get 5-8 feet. That is too much.

No rest for the weary. The cold will return to the North East around the 12TH.

My stove has a catalyst, so the amt. of smoke generated is only when the stove is running below about 600F. Usually when starting a fire from dry, seasoned wood, there will only be smoke for less than about an hour before the temp. gets high enough and the smoke is 're-burned' and goes away. Maybe a good option for places where there is too much smoke in the air. I chose it not for this reason, there isn't generally much smoke around here, but instead in order to keep my own smoke emissions down and so I wouldn't have to breathe my own smoke.

For those who have some money, you can often get wood stoves with catalysts cheaper if you buy them during the summer, saving money right there. Catalyst will have to be replaced about every 5-10 years at a current cost of $150. The stove and pipe, etc., will pay for itself in just a few years at current fuel prices, and if you had to buy a replacement catalyst every 5 years, that's still really cheap to have a clean burning heat source.

I wonder what the fuel prices are doing to wood stove sales right now?

Hello all, I just had 300 gal propane delivered. It takes 400 to get through the winter (on a mild winter that is) in our little 2 bed, 1 bath house. I had 100 gal still in the tank from a late spring delivery. Our bill for 300 gal was.......drum roll please.....$977.00!!!
That's not even enough to heat our house for one winter, here in KY!
And yes, our thermostat is set at 63 degrees day and night. We are not living a life of luxury here. I hope one day to have a wood stove, currently have a chimney needing repair first.
I know there are alot of folks out my way who will not have heat this winter, they cannot afford it. I can relate! And by the way, yesterday AM was 9 degrees, this AM was 13! Its cold! I don't know what will be done about it. I imagine I will have to find a way to live without propane heat. Possibly rely on a wood stove only one day. Take care and keep warm. Mary.

We are heating only with wood because of our ductwork falling apart. We haven't had the money to fix it. So our gas bill is $45.00. But, our bedrooms are so cold you can see your breath in them and I imagine our bedroom was 25-30 degrees last night. The woodstove only heats our living room and kitchen. The bedrooms and bathroom and office are out.

Oh and if I remember correctly the year we moved in, the tank was empty. 400 gallons to fill it cost a bit over 600.00 then (2004). What cost 600.00 then would be over 1000.00 now. Mary.

It's freezing here in NJ, too... and we have to keep the house at 68, I don't feel right having a baby in a house any colder than that. Gas is so high... and it's not like we get to choose our provider, the landlord does. We just get to pay the bill. So we probably aren't getting the best deal on heating oil.

Unlike 2-career families, we are home 24/7. If we all went off somewhere else during the day, we'd shut off the heat entirely till an hour before we were due back home, and save money that way.

DH nearly puked when he opened our first heating oil bill. He turned white as a ghost and had to sit down. He wouldn't tell me the dollar amount, but I'm not sure I even want to know.

If you put in a wood stove try to get one that you can cook on. doesn't have to be a cook stove, just a flat top that can have 2 or 3 soup sized pots.
We cook most of our soup, rice and beans on ours. could put a roast there too, I guess.

One other thing I would add. After read some of the posts.

Insulate. You won't imagine the difference. We live in a 170 year old farm house.
It was drafty to say the least when we got it. We now have all new windows/doors, R 26 for the walls (2" tuffr over the exterior/R13 in the wall cavity.), and r50(about 20" of blown in.) in the attic. The next thing is the floors. I'd like them to be r25 also(r19 in the joists, 1" of tuffR.

The tuffR is sealed at all the joints. So the house is pretty draft free. Now.

We went from using the stove "damped" back half way and still being cold to the stove all the way back and being warm.

we found a used woodstove that is very efficient for $500, but the stove pipe was pretty expensive. I'm still glad we have it though because this year the wood was "free" thanks to a storm that came through.

We carry in wood for many days and start by putting it in the mud room. Then some gets moved near the wood stove to dry out a little more. Wood is usually in the house 3-5 days before it makes it to the stove. We don't have to go get it every day, but usually do. I try to break up a basket of kindling a day and that really helps stretch the greener wood out. As the fire dies down I just feed it kindling during the day. It's also nice at 3 in the morn to get the fire going quickly. Because of the storm, we have more kindling than wood.

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Our website promoting the use of Missouri Herbs. www.MissouriHerbs.com

I agree! We also have an old farm house and when we moved in started the insulation project. We haven't replaced all the windows yet so the single pane windows have blankets over them and it makes a world of difference.

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Our website promoting the use of Missouri Herbs. www.MissouriHerbs.com

Wood is the way to go. We have an insert that goes 24/7. When it gets very cold, the gas heat will turn on in the middle of the night (we keep the thermostat at 62, bedrooms are colder typically 58 or so). If I got up to feed the insert, the heat would probably not turn on at all. We will be installing a second wood stove in a few months. Get all of our wood for free - managed to scrounge about 5 cords. Took a lot of work to get it, cut it, split it, stack it, move it but it is so satisfying to know that the house is warm b/c of these efforts. Regarding pollution, most stoves now are EPA certified and burn clean (except at start up or with wet wood).

Why do people insist on doing things the hard way. Heating oil and electric are OMG expensive. Wood heat is hard work. Why don't people use solar heat? Its free (once you get set up) pollution free and its easy.

Check this out.

http://www.jrwhipple.com/sr/solheater.html

You can build it yourself. I can't imagine that it would cost more than $50 max. If you have a south window why not take advantage of it?

Solar heat is great in some areas and certain times. Cloudy NE Ohio when it's 10F without windchill and snowing? Better find another option. Wood heat is as hard as you want it to be. You can buy wood already cut and split and have it stacked. You can buy it just cut. You can buy logs and cut/split/stack yourself. Those options cost money. You can also always keep gloves and a chainsaw in the truck and scrounge on the way home from work! Get a workout and heat the house for next to nothing.

why? Because it won't work here in upstate NY the way it will in TX. Today, the high so far is 5 degrees f, with the windchill -18 f . The sun is not out, and really hasn't been for a few weeks, other than a peek here and there. If I had solar heating only in my home, I'd freeze to death, after my pipes froze, toilet froze and broke, and all the contents of my fridge froze.

It's right back to look at the entire picture/ situation.