Wood Heat Thread ~ post pics

Great part about a wood stove, in a efficient house....the heat is great!....I feel like cold air is blowing on me, with geo-thermal. The r values really help.

 

What's not "green" about a wood burner? You're not burning fossil fuels and it's renewable. And if you draw combustion air from outside as Maticuno pointed out even more energy saved.

My Harman pellet stove popped its GFCI the other night. After a VERY thorough cleaning and a discussion with a service rep we decided the ESP (thermo-couple) went bad. $60.00 and good to go.

 

Wood is more or less carbon-neutral. As others have said, get an OA kit and you'll be golden.

When I build, I'm planning on essentially building the house around a masonry fireplace, with that as my primary heat source. And with new green insulating techniques and super efficient windows it should be ridiculously easy (and inexpensive) to keep the house warm that way.

 

My masonry chimney and stone veneer is completely inside the building , the heat storage capability of the thermal mass makes a huge difference on keeping fhe house warm after the fire has gone out

In my opinion , a standard 2x6 exterior wall with batt insulation or 2lb foam and an exterior layer or 2 of mineral wool comfort board insulation plus high insulation values in your roof is the way to go .

 

We're actually looking at going with a Post & Beam with 6" XPS SIPs instead of the conventional 2x6 construction, but depending on the R-ratings that we find we may put the extra layer of exterior insulation on top of that. But most of the 6" XPS SIPS we've looked at seem to be in the R-30 range, so it probably wouldn't be necessary.

Post and beam works best for our design, since we want an open concept around a central fireplace/chimney, with almost the entire downstairs as one large room, and the upstairs with a couple of bedrooms & a bathroom on a balcony looking out over the kitchen & living room.

 

What dimensions are you considering? (sorry if I missed it) Our *future* home I would like to be the same size as we have now but Timber-frame with 6" XPS SIPs, 24'x40' 2 story, 3 bedroom 1 office/guest, 1.5 bath.
*edit - to include a bonus room/ green house with large stone/brick hearth and wood stove.*

*oops I thought we were in the Home Improvement section...

 

I want a 30x40 with a 30x20 upstairs (room for a master bedroom, bathroom, and smaller guest bedroom), but the GF wants a smaller footprint. I've told her that I might be willing to move down to something like a 26X32, but that a full cellar would then be a must-have (we're 90% on a slab if we go with the 30x40).
Since we're planning on the central fireplace being the primary heat source, a squarer house would heat more evenly than a more rectangular one. Although obviously we'd need a ceiling fan or two anyway, to move the heat away from the ceiling, lol.

 

SIPS do essentially the same thing as exterior insulation over conventional framing by insulating the frame and eliminating thermal bridging , and are a great solution with post & beam / timberframe construction , I meant for more conventional framing with services in the stud bays

 

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, if we were looking at conventional stick-built designs then we'd definitely have the exterior insulation. But with what we want for a design/floorplan, really the best construction methods that would really work well would be either timber frame or log construction, and log houses (even though they're beautiful if they're done right) really don't insulate well enough for Maine. My cousin has one and even with a pellet stove as a supplement he burns an unbelievable amount of oil in a year keeping it heated, and it's not an overly large house; maybe 1800 square feet. The R-value of a log just isn't high enough, and it seems like your entire house is essentially a thermal bridge.

 

Yeah , I'm not a big fan of log homes , total thermal bridge and wood is only R1 per inch so basically you have R10-16 walls versus R20/22 in just a regular 2x6 wall

I've done hybrids that utilize large timbers for big spans integrated into conventional framing , that system also works well

 

Admittedly we also really like the aesthetics of a timber frame design. Coupled with the R-value you get from SIPs and how they address thermal bridging issues and we were sold. There's a local timber framer I went to school with that said he'd frame up a 30X40 barn-style unit like we want for about $20-25k, labor included (but not including the SIP panels, obviously)

 

Timbers included ?

 

Yep, planed pine. Mortise & Tenon w/hardwood pegs.

Edit- It should be noted that he quoted at a discount. His normal quote would be around $32k, for a two-story barn design with a full upstairs. But he quoted us at a discount because we'd only be using 1/2 an upstairs worth of materials. And because he and I know each other.

 

Sweet

 

Splitting wood in the blowing fog. I suppose it's much better than doing it when it's 110*F in the summer, I just wish I wasn't racing to keep ahead of the coming storm pattern.

 

Looks like you live on a compound nice splitter BTW

 

We had freezing fog here last night

 

Two acres, cross fenced and livestock corrals. And thanks, splitter is a home build I did last year, saves time and my back.

 

So I've considered getting a log splitter at home and for awhile decided to wait because I am planning to get a tractor one day, and wouldn't it be nice to get a splitter hat ran on tractor hydraulic lines? I also read that while it can be done, the tractor will burn more fuel to run a hydraulic pump than a gas engine on a more portable and towable unit.

While at the big kids cheap stuff toy store (aka harbor freight), I saw a splitter they have in store. I started reading reviews on HF website and it is rated about 4.7 out of 5 stars by users. It has a nice feature that the splitting blade cuts both ways, so there is no running the piston out to split then pulling it back for the next piece. It is a 20 ton unit, powered by a gas engine. Regular price of $999, sale price of $749. At another local store, it's about $1200 for a mostly comparable unit, except with traditional one way cutting, and I think it can split vertically. I know that for the heavy pieces, it will be a bit of a MOFO to put onto the horizontal setup of the HF splitter, but the biggest stuff I get is usually pine, which I can always split in half by hand then put each half up.

Any thoughts from the wood burning gallery?

 

Tractor mounted units are less efficient because you're using a larger engine to pump the hydraulic fluid that runs the splitter. They also generally mount on your 3 point hitch, and are heavy enough that unless you hook them up to the tractor you're not going to be able to move them out of the way if you need to. Also, while they're hooked up, you can't really use the tractor for anything else. Also, if you want to let a friend borrow it, they'll need a tractor of their own, or they'll have to borrow yours.
On the other hand, they don't have their own small engine to keep maintained, which makes them simpler and easier to own in the long-term.

Personally, I'd opt for a splitter with its own gas engine. That way you're not putting the extra hours of idle or low-rpm time on your tractor, you're burning less fuel, and you've got the tractor free for other tasks while you split. For instance, when I was younger and lived at home I'd run the splitter while my brother loaded the split wood into a tractor bucket and shuttled it over to the woodshed to stack, or vice versa.