Category: Firewood

Merry Christmas and Happy Big Chill

12/23/2022

Hello and Merry Christmas 'Adam'. LOL... tomorrow is Christmas Eve and Adam comes before Eve (in the Bible).

The Big Chill
The BIG CHILL of 2022 arrived in North Georgia at around 4:00 AM this morning. I woke up at 2:00 and we were still in the mid 30's. With temps dropping but the ground still warm, the fog settled in. The blue LED lights looked really amazing in the fog/mist.

It wasn't worth starting the wood stove so I went back to sleep until 4:00.

At 4:00 the temps were down to 18 degrees so I dragged my lazy self out of bed and started burning carbon.

We hit our low for the day of 1 degree F around 9:30 this morning and we are now at a balmy 5 degrees. So, we did not break the record of .1 degree set back in 2014.

As a Rational Prepper I'm happy to report, with the combination of the woodstove and passive solar energy, the heat in the west half of the house shut off around 1:30 this afternoon. In spite of near-record cold (and a lot of wind) it is now 4:00 PM and the heat is still off. It is 77 in the Great Room and 75 in the basement... we're wearing T-shirts.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

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The Great Reset - Europe Is So Screwed - Part 4

9/29/2022

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Recap
I really did not plan to continue this topic beyond Part 3... but here we are.

In the previous three segments I talked about the expanding energy crisis in Europe, which continues to get worse, and the continuing drought.

Nord Stream Destroyed
The Euro energy crisis is now guaranteed to last until 2024 at the earliest... perhaps until 2026!

The Nord Stream pipelines were blown up in what seems to be an act of sabotage by unknown actors. It is known that both of the Nord Stream 1 pipes were destroyed. At least one, and possibly both, of the Nord Stream 2 pipes were damaged or destroyed.

Evidence for sabotage comes from the Swedish Seismic Network which recorded two large underwater explosions in the area where there is now a massive gas leak roiling in the Baltic. (Click the pic) The leak is so large that there is a churning bubble of methane 1/2 mile in diameter.

What Next?
There is no immediate effect on Europe since Russia had already shut off the flow of gas in retaliation to Euro-American sanctions. (Note, the pipes had to remain pressurized although no gas was being delivered).

However, the destruction of the pipelines means that there is no possibility of re-establishing the supply if Europe were to reach a reconciliation with Russia. Since Europe previously received about 40% of its NatGas supply from Russia, the coming winter will be bleak and many key industries (and jobs) will remain shut down indefinitely.

In an act of irony (or Karma) the Europeans are devastating their forests in a desperate attempt to stockpile firewood. They are quite literally destroying the Environment today because of their misguided policies to save the Climate of the future.

I have my theories on who is responsible.

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Snowpacolypse 2022

1/18/2022

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We get snow a few times every year, but this storm has been especially beautiful.

We had three overcast days and some high winds so it was a good occasion to fire-up the wood stove.
I brought in two loads of logs from the woodshed and burnt it all on Sunday and Monday.

I really enjoy sitting by the fire basking in the free heat.

It's so nice to live in the forest!

Today is bright and sunny. Yesterday we had freezing fog/mist that left all the trees coated in frost. The sun on the trees looks amazing.

This ancient tree died a couple of years ago in a drought. The top broke off in a windstorm last summer. Miraculously, the owl house survived.

I can't believe this palm tree survives in our climate. This is it's fourth winter.

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January 2018 Energy Report

2/20/2018

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I'm getting away from doing monthly energy reports and will only be writing seasonal and annual reports instead. However, in the 2017 Annual Summary report last month I promised that I would review the results from using the wood stove to supplement the heat pumps. I will cover that in this post.

Energy Report

At 952 Heating Degree Days (HDD) this past January was the coldest month in the three years we've lived here. With the help of the wood stove, we only used 1012 kWh for heating (more on that later in this post).

We used a total of 2065 kWh so about 49% was for heating. The heating cost was about $91 (1012 kWh at about 9 cents per). All other items were pretty typical for winter use.

The Economics of Heating with Wood - Part 2

In December and January I burned roughly 1 face cord of mixed wood each month. As you might expect, both months showed a reduction in electric use. With two months of data I can now compare the results against past months that had similar heating loads.

First, I'll explain a bit about the two month experiment. If you're heating with propane (for example) the comparison is easy. You can just compare the cost of propane to the cost of an equivalent amount of firewood.

Liquid propane produces 91,500 BTU per gallon. If propane costs $1.60 then one therm (i.e. 100,000 BTUs) will cost about $2.19. Mixed firewood produces about 24,000,000 (yes million) BTUs per cord. If you can buy the firewood for $250.00 per cord that comes to about about $1.25 per therm. At these example prices the firewood is clearly less expensive than propane.

Note that firewood, propane, natural gas, etc will always produce a consistent amount of heat regardless of the outside temperature. In other words, a gallon of propane always delivers 91,500 BTU no matter how warm or cold it is outside.

Heat pumps, however, are more efficient at warmer temperatures and less efficient at colder temperatures. In simple terms, this means that the colder it gets, the more expensive it is to run. The following chart shows the efficiency of the Diakin mini-splits taken from the Diakin Engineering Manual.

The chart is a little hard to read but it is showing efficiency from 5 degrees F (on the left) up to 60 degrees on the right. The solid orange bars show the actual efficiency at the Diakin engineering test points of 5, 14, 23, 32, 43, 50 and 59 degrees. The efficiency is about 1.5 at 5 degrees and is an amazing 2.82 at 59 degrees.

The hollow orange bars are from my computer model. I have decreased the efficiency by about 10% in a rough attempt to account for defrost cycles.

The next chart shows the cost per therm at outside temperatures from 5 degrees to 60 degrees. This chart assumes that electricity costs about 9 cents per kWh and firewood costs $250 per cord.

The orange firewood line is flat and costs $1.25/Therm regardless of outside temperature. The Diakin (yellow line) ranges from $1.73/Therm at 5 degrees down to only $0.85/Therm at 60 degrees.

At 25 degrees they are equal and at temperatures above 25 it is cheaper to run the Diakins. I should also point out that even at 5 degrees the Diakins are less expensive to operate than burning propane!

Results

Based on the theoretical performance outlined above I decided I would use the stove only when the temperature is below 30 degrees. I used about .75 face cord in December and about 1 face cord in January (which was colder). We have a small pile left for February.

By comparing to previous months it appears that this saved between 30-40%.

For example, in January 2018 we had 952 HDD and used 1012 kWh. The closest previous month was January 2016 at 912 HDD and 1507 kWh. January 2018 was 5% colder but used 1/3 less energy. The wood stove saved abut 550 kWh.

December of 2017 showed similar results. December 2017 had 785 HDD and used 799 kWh compared to February 2016 where we had 747 HDD and consumed 1139 kWh. Here again the savings is about 1/3.

Although the results are good, it shows that we are only saving $45-50 per month from an amount of firewood that would cost about $80 if I had to buy it. I suspect that my free firewood is pretty low quality and that all oak or hickory would do better. In any case, it's a free resource so I will continue to use the woodstove in the future.

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Fall 2017 Energy Report

12/14/2017

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Winter will officially start in a few days on the Winter Solstice, December 21st, so this is a good time to review the first two months of the 2017 heating season.

Fall 2017 Energy Use

The first chart shows the Heating Degree Days this year compared to the historical average. October was almost perfectly average and November was slightly warmer than the historical model.

The second chart shows the actual energy use compared to last year. As mentioned in the previous report, we are using about 100 kWh ($10.00) more per month this year. Some of this increase is due to running dehumidification on the lower level and some is due to additional appliances, equipment and lighting.

The third chart is the most important as it summarizes the heating energy efficiency.

As in previous reports, the dashed grey line indicates the theoretical efficiency with no solar energy based on the historical average temperatures for each month. The dashed yellow line shows the theoretical efficiency with solar gain. Recall that lower on the chart indicates better efficiency (i.e. less electricity used).

This month I have added a new element to the chart. The light orange line shows the theoretical efficiency (i.e. the computer model) based on the actual temperatures recorded for the month (rather than the historical average temperatures). In the future I may just remove the dashed yellow line since it isn't as useful as actual data.

The darker orange line shows the actual efficiency recorded for the month. Except for January, the house is performing better than the model. The heat pumps are probably operating a bit more efficiently than the values I used in the model. In March, April and October we were not using the wood stove so I plan to adjust the model to line up better with the actual results.

The Economics of Heating with Wood

We installed a wood stove last December but didn't use it much. This winter I plan to burn two face cords of seasoned wood to get an idea of how much energy we can save.

A cord of wood is a stack that measures 8 feet wide by 4 feet high by 4 feet deep. Thus, it is approximately 128 cubic feet of wood.

Firewood is typically cut 16"-18" long so it will fit into a fireplace. A face cord is 8 feet wide by 4 feet tall but only one log deep. In other words, a face cord is 1/3 of a full cord (about 43 cubic feet).

The energy content of mixed hardwood is about 25,000,000 BTU per cord (i.e. 250 Therms). A high efficiency stove is about 80% efficient so we might expect to get about 200 Therms of heat from one cord.

The cost of firewood varies a lot from on area to another, but here in the woods of North Georgia a full cord of split firewood costs about $250 - $400. Assuming that you're a good negotiator (and buy off-season) this equates to roughly $1.25 per Therm.

Based on our computer model and two years of actual heating, the cost with the air heat pumps is $1.46 per therm.

Surprisingly, heating with wood is only slightly less expensive than running the heat pumps. Considering the inconvenience of stacking the wood, tending the fires and cleaning the stove, I probably would not use the stove if I had to pay for the wood.

However, we live on six wooded acres and get a fair amount of free wood from dead-fall and natural attrition. It will be interesting to see how much electricity can be saved using this free resource.

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Winter 2016 Energy Report

6/4/2017

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As usual, I am way behind on updates to the blog. The heating season ended in April and it's June already. We have been busy working on the basement and I've started on design of a solar panel array that will go on the roof... but that's a topic for a future post!

Wood Stove

We installed an Osburn Matrix high efficiency wood stove in December but, with the basement still under construction, we hardly used it this past winter. We consumed roughly 1/2 face cord of mixed hardwood from January through March. That's so little I'm not going to try to calculate the effect on our energy use until next winter.

On a side note, our heating cost has been so minimal that the stove will never pay for itself in reduced heating bills. However it has 4 big plus factors:

It provides a backup heat source if the power goes down.
We live in the forest and the wood is free.
It heats very quickly
Great ambiance

We used left-over / scrap galvalume siding to make reflective panels behind and to the side of the stove. I really like the way it turned out and I'll post more details in a future blog.

2016 Heating Season

This year I've decided to include October and April in the heating season report. We don't use a lot of heat in either month but they average about 250 HDD each and together account for 10-15% of the annual heat load.

For comparison the following graph shows HDD by month for Winter 2015 and 2016.

Both of the past two winters have been warmer than average with winter 2016 being close to record warmth. For comparison, the 2015 heating season had approximately 3413 HDD while this past heating season was only 3022.

The second graph shows the energy used for heating by month for both years.

The total energy used for heating was 3330 kWh in 2016 compared to 4358 kWh in 2015. Put another way, our total cost for the 2016 heating season was less than $350.00.

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Merry Christmas and Happy Big Chill

The Great Reset - Europe Is So Screwed - Part 4

Snowpacolypse 2022

January 2018 Energy Report

Fall 2017 Energy Report

Winter 2016 Energy Report

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