Winter Heating Challenge/Log

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cmonkey
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Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by cmonkey »

As most probably know, the world is facing a potential energy crunch this winter. Prices are at multi year (possibly decade) highs and even some talks of shortages, particularly with propane. A glimpse of the not too distant future perhaps?

We are using this as a good opportunity to push our 'comfort level' back to more historically normal temperature ranges. This will be a log of that adventure this winter and in coming years.

Last year we spent $1434 in propane from October-April, which included a lot of heating with a very inefficient fireplace. With the potential for 54% higher prices for propane, I could be looking at a $2200 heating bill all things being the same!

We kept our house at 62F last year and are bumping it down to 60F this year. I'd go lower but I have a 2 year old. So far she is handling 58F better than we are I think.

The energy crunch got me motivated enough to install a wood stove in our finished basement. I think we have wood enough at this point to start burning around Dec 1 and last the winter, but I don't know how much we'll go through yet. The stove is rated for 2200 sq feet, yet the basement area is about 300 sq feet so I believe we could get the area pretty hot or run super lean! We'll see. Some of the heat will go upstairs through our staircase also.

We haven't turned on the heat yet but I will post when we do. We've agreed to turn on the heat when we wake up and it's 55F in the house. So far we've held at 58F. That might happen this week as we have a freeze tomorrow night.


If anyone wants to participate -

Post when you turn on the heat?
What temp do you have your heat set?
What are you doing to lower your heating bill?

Blackjack
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by Blackjack »

I’m in. My house is (somewhat) passive solar, so as long as we have good sunny days, the temp inside (downstairs) has been jumping up to 68-70f by nightfall. Due to the thermal mass, this generally leaves it around 60 in the morning when we wake up (with temps dropping to the mid/high 30s at night right now).When the temp is jumping the house up to less than that in the day due to grey skies, we are trying to bake bread and make heated foods to pump that heat into two things at once (food and heating). The place is pretty small (9XX sqft), so it’s not horribly hard to heat the place up. We’ve also bumped the insulation on the roof up to around 40 something with the roof replacement this summer.

Last night was the first time this really failed to work. We were stocked on food, and it was running about 63-64 when we went to bad last night. This morning we were at around 58 when we woke up. I chickened out and bumped things to 63 with the heater, and they stayed there throughout the whole day. We have a wood burning fireplace, but 2/3 of its walls are directly outside, so it’s more of a outside heating fireplace than a useful fireplace unfortunately. I just learned there are currently massive rebates for heat pumps in my area, so it may be worth changing out my 80% efficient natural gas heater, but I haven’t run the numbers or considered the cycles / if my electrical can even handle it (thanks 1961 wiring!).

Goals are keeping it somewhere between 60-63 for the temp, then trying to game ways to have multiple gains from heating when we actually need to use it.

Last year: spent about $180 on heat at 68f.
Hopefully this year about 150 or less, but we will see.
Last edited by Blackjack on Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

white belt
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by white belt »


Stahlmann
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by Stahlmann »

Didn't read, have opinion anyway - take care of mould to avoid excess work with refurbishing your flat. Also, check rent laws in your country - mould can lead to termination of your contract.

mooretrees
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by mooretrees »

We've been exclusively wood heat for a few years. The wood burner is in our living room and some heat makes it to the kitchen and bedrooms. We don't turn the heat on otherwise. We've got two types of wood; shoulder season wood for when you want a fire in the morning and evening but not during the day. The other wood is a high heat wood that lasts forever and we use that when we're keeping the fire going all day. In our area we don't have significant types of hardwood so we burn primarily larch, lodge pole pine and rarely spruce. We cut it ourselves.

It's hard for me to think about living without wood heat, it is wildly better than any forced air heating. The whole room is warm. We purchased a stove that has a glass door so we could see the flames. It is a joy to heat with wood.

I don't mind the temperature differences between rooms as you get further away from the stove. We like a colder bedroom and we started giving our son a hot water bottle when he goes to bed to help him stay warm. He loves the hot water bottle and I think if we put it under his covers before bed that would be so nice to crawl into.

cmonkey, have you tried heating the house with it to see how much it affects the living space? How many cords of wood do you have? We usually burn between two and three with a little leftover.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by mountainFrugal »

We are nearly exclusive wood heat. We have a monitor kerosene heater that we use when we are away. Like @mooretrees our bedroom is at the other end of the house and is cooler. We plan to burn about 3 cord this winter of mixed pine and some denser doug fir rounds for the night logs. We have a small thermo-electric fan that sits on top of the stove and moves air around the living room surprisingly well. My desk is in the living room and I wear down booties all winter. Depending on afternoon solar load our house is between 54-58F, with the bedrooms a few degrees colder. I love sleeping cold so it is not an issue for me. My partner makes a hot water bottle using water heated on the stove to warm up her side of the bed before getting in. The hot nalgene water bottle technique between the thighs maximizes heat transfer by warming the femoral artery blood flow. If the water in the bottle is boiling, make sure to wrap it a few layers of a shirt to protect your skin and insulate it. If you are winter camping, this is the best way to sanitize water for the next day and stay warm for most of the night.

chenda
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by chenda »

I'm sat here shivering but not putting the heating on because of this thread 😂

Though the hood of my hoodie is now providing considerable warmth so I reckon I can hold off for another hour or two.

cmonkey
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by cmonkey »

mooretrees wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 8:43 am
cmonkey, have you tried heating the house with it to see how much it affects the living space? How many cords of wood do you have? We usually burn between two and three with a little leftover.
We haven't started yet. I still need to cure the paint. Waiting on a thermometer currently.

I have about 2 cords of wood I think and the potential for collecting another cord in the coming few weeks.

How large is your living space? How warm does your stove get the house? How often do you load more wood into the stove?

Completely agree on loving wood heat, its the best I have experienced as well even if it was a pretty inefficient fireplace. I'm super excited for the wood stove.

It's currently 58 in the main living space and 56 in the bedrooms. Only got to 49F today and supposed to be ~30F here tonight.

Married2aSwabian
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by Married2aSwabian »

Thanks, cmonkey, for starting this thread!

During winter of 2013/14, we rented a big old (1860s era) farmhouse. It was charming, but man the heating bills were terrible that year! V cold winter combined with propane shortages, almost no insulation and a thirty YO furnace made for $3500 in bills to heat it that winter…and I had locked in a good propane rate @ $1.80/ga. The spot market price was as high as 3 times that in Late Jan that year!

Our current house is 1200SF with about 600SF walkout basement with fireplace with and older insert (Nordic brand). I got a new (Airblaze) FP blower fan to circulate heat around firebox last winter. DW wants to still get a freestanding wood burner for upstairs as not enough heat makes it up the stairwell. I don’t want to spend the $ for that since we already have FP. Im intrigued by new wood burning furnaces on market now, as I’ve been thinking of way to tie into ductwork to better distribute heat throughout house.

We set thermostat to 60 at night and around 65 during day.

Turned heat on about one week ago here in Mi.

To help reduce heating bills, we use some storm windows, have good attic insulation and put on layers and long underwear.

We live on 3-1/2 acres of woods with many large red oaks and pines. We have about 2 cords of hardwood split and stacked now, but only about half is seasoned well enough to burn this season. May buy another cord, but prices are going up!

We just had a guy come to take down one large red oak (too) near house this week. We get out the chainsaws and do all clean up, cutting and splitting (rental) to save $, get our exercise and firewood.

Wood heat is the best!

mooretrees
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by mooretrees »

Our upstairs is about 900 sqft, the stove is pretty centrally located and heat does make it to the kitchen and the bedrooms, though not a ton. We can see temps in the upper 70's F quite easily, though we don't try for that. I don't know how often we load it, but several times a day if we're burning all day. Right now we'll have a fire, let it burn and then usually die over night. Come really cold weather, we're loading it up during the night to still be warm in the morning. We did get a gate to keep our kiddo away from the fire, but I'm not concerned about his safety now as he's shown he understands how hot the stove is. I think you have a two year old? Do you have plans to keep her away from the wood stove? I think kids can learn pretty quickly not to touch it, but I felt better with a solid gate around our stove when he was younger. We borrowed a friends gate that had a door that easily opened to load the stove.

I pull a clothes drying rack next to it and load it up too. It's much faster to dry clothes that way than hang in our basement. We haven't bought the fan that mountainfrugal mentioned, though I can see how it would be useful. We have a ceiling fan that we will run to move the heat around. We are flexible about when we start burning wood, this year there were a few days that dipped into the low 20's so that's about when we had our first fire. We'll all put extra clothes on if it's not cold enough for a fire, it doesn't occur to us to turn the heat on anymore. It helps that both my son and DH run pretty hot.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I currently reside in a tiny 2nd/3rd floor apartment just north of 43 latitude. I haven't turned my heat on yet due to benefit of occupants of lower/adjacent apartments almost certainly making that choice, and the fact that I prefer very cool environment. My first floor landlady is extremely frugal herself, so we'll see how long I can get away with this practice :lol:

cmonkey
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by cmonkey »

Married2aSwabian wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:13 am
Wood heat is the best!

Of all the heating systems I've had, agreed I like wood the best as well. It's very satisfying to know you provided for yourself!


We turned the heat on Saturday night. It was 53F in the morning Saturday after it dropped to 30F that night. We were gone the entire day otherwise we would have turned it on that morning.

So far having the bedrooms set to 57F at night and the main living area at 58F is comfortable. Burning about 1.6-1.8 gallons of propane per day to maintain that. We also ordered some thermal curtains (finally) for our main living area so we can cover our 3 giant 50 sq foot (each) windows. Should make a bit of a difference.

cmonkey
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by cmonkey »

mooretrees wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:19 am

I pull a clothes drying rack next to it and load it up too. It's much faster to dry clothes that way than hang in our basement.
We have a giant clothes line strung in our basement, so I imagine we can run the temp a little lower on those days we do laundry due to the increased humidity.

Still waiting on the thermostat. Apparently it's coming from Hong Kong, which I didn't notice until now. Ugh. Had I known I would have just gotten the one from our local hardware store for a couple bucks more and settled for a little devil face staring at me.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

What about stopping air infiltration and making sure there is enough insulation? In old houses these are often bad. When done right apparently the difference in energy usage can be noticeable. I sealed a lot of gaps in my house and it seemed like it made a difference but its hard to say.

cmonkey
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by cmonkey »

Our insulation is pretty good, the attic has about 2 feet of insulation in it from what I can tell. Overall the house isn't drafty, it's just way too big by ERE standards. We like room to run around though, keeps us warmer. :lol:

theanimal
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by theanimal »

Wood heat is great. I heat exclusively with wood in a 320 sq ft house. I have a massive Blaze King that is meant for 2000 sq ft houses, so getting the place warm enough is not an issue. Currently, we are only having a small fire once a day in the morning. Temps at night have been 14-20 F and upper 20s, lower 30s during the day for the past few weeks. We deliberately try to make a small fire, otherwise the house will quickly turn into a sauna with temperatures in the 80s. Temperature first thing in the morning is usually about 50-52, rising to near 70 by the peak of the fire and then back into the lower 60s by evening. Once the temperatures drop closer to zero we'll start burning more continuously. We will burn about a cord of wood this winter.

I know quite a few other people up here that heat exclusively with wood heat, including larger houses that are 1500-2000 sq ft. I think he key is to have a way to allow the heat to travel throughout the house. For example, if the house is multi storied, having vents in the floors above the woodstove to allow the heat to travel more easily. But as with everything, the more you have the more you need. You are able to heat a large house exclusively with wood heat, you'll just need to have a lot of wood.

There are even more people who have Toyo stoves (oil) along with a woodstove. A common strategy is to set the Toyo to the lowest setting (I think its something like 48F) and supplement with wood heat when necessary. This is more common in dry cabins though. The efficacy in a house with plumbing would probably be subject to the amount of insulation and quality of building.

cmonkey
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by cmonkey »

theanimal wrote:
Mon Oct 25, 2021 12:44 pm
Currently, we are only having a small fire once a day in the morning. Temps at night have been 14-20 F and upper 20s, lower 30s during the day for the past few weeks. We deliberately try to make a small fire, otherwise the house will quickly turn into a sauna with temperatures in the 80s. Temperature first thing in the morning is usually about 50-52, rising to near 70 by the peak of the fire and then back into the lower 60s by evening. Once the temperatures drop closer to zero we'll start burning more continuously. We will burn about a cord of wood this winter.
This sounds like what I want to achieve! My goal is to heat primarily the basement living space and with the minimum heat upstairs. If I could get by on 1 cord per year that'd be fantastic since I have about 5.5 cords ready for this year and next.

rube
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by rube »

Burning wood is probably okay in for areas like where @theanimal is living. Not so much for dense populated areas (suburbs, cities) imo. Imagine if everyone would burn wood there...

The path I have taken a technical one and probably less resilient than relying on own body heat etc. But nevertheless, it is very comfortable, healthy (clean air inside) and, after initial investment, cheap.

Key points: solar panels + insulation + air to water heatpump + floor radiation heating + ventilation system with heat recovery.

I expect to receive from our energy company on annual basis > 1000 euro as we're (year round) a net energy producer. Previous owner paid around 2000 euro per year.

Investment (money wise, not own hours) is probably earned back in a little less then 10 years (with current energy prices even much faster).

theanimal
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by theanimal »

Most places in Alaska, yes no problem. However during the winter my town is often top 10 in the US for most pouted air. A combination of climate and terrain trap particulates in the air leading to "ice fog," or really just particulates from wood smoke, car exhausts, the local coal plants and exhaust from all buildings. The airport will go under instrument restrictions a few hours into the morning, even though there are zero clouds and clear skies above, due to the jet exhaust lingering over the airfield. It all mostly occurs when it's really cold, -30 F and beyond, and everything is trapped by the local inversion. It's as pleasant as it sounds. I live a few hills beyond town center and am thankfully not subject to this at my home.

Most places do not have an abundance of wood stoves or woodsmoke in the US. I don't think any individual using woodheat will result in a major pollution increase in their town.

The costs for heating with other sources are also often out of sight compared to that of woodheat. For example, natural gas as a result of fracking or electric heat powered by coal plants. Everything has a cost.

rube
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Re: Winter Heating Challenge/Log

Post by rube »

theanimal wrote:
Tue Oct 26, 2021 2:01 am
Everything has a cost.
True, but wood heat is often very inefficient and polluting compared compared to several other methods, like burning natural gas. Perhaps not so if this is obtained by fracking though...fracking is not so common in Europe.

In any case, we first reduced our heating needs (insulation), then followed up by recovery (heat exchange ventilation system) and for the energy we still needed for heating we acquired by using an efficient method, i.e. heat pump. Here the efficiency is roughly about 4 times that compared to simple 1:1 electrical heating. And offset this need by producing the energy through solar panels, though admittedly we have a couple of months per year we production is below the usage due to the seasonality. And of course this isn't possible in every situation.

My personal preference is passive solar housing. Simply making good use of insulation, solar heat and thermal mass. Resilient, simple, long lasting and comfortable. But often very hard to accomplish for many existing buildings. At least insulation can be improved in many situations and is the best way start.

Btw, my son is often taking cold showers, his method might be more in line with true ERE principles :?

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