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Author Topic: Wood usage for the season?  (Read 9685 times)

Pointblank

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #15 on: February 13, 2019, 05:50:17 PM »

When I switched from conventional to a gasifier I went as far as doing heat loss calculations on my house and 30x48 shed. I then took the btu requirements of the buildings, combined with the heating degree days of my area to come up with a total yearly btu requirement. Guestimating the stove running around 70℅ efficient, i could look up btu values of firewood and figure how many cords of wood per year I'd need.

Theres alot of variables at play here, but overall, i think my calculations have been pretty accurate. This is my 4 season with the upgraded stove.  Warmer years I've came in just under what I guessed at. This year is much colder and ive kept the shed a bit warmer. So probably on pace to be a cord or two over this year.
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hoardac

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #16 on: February 13, 2019, 08:17:12 PM »

That seems like a lot of work.
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greasemonkoid

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #17 on: February 13, 2019, 09:00:07 PM »



Greasemonkoid- do you have to set an alarm every 3 hours or how do you keep up feeding that thing with 5-10% MC poplar and cotty? Holy crap


No doubt that stuff wants to burn hot and quick, the flue temp controller cuts the blower when it hits 550*, it's plain to see whats burning because that light flashes when it's coasting back down. I definitely don't put much of that junk in before bed, it's not much shy of saw dust.
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heat550

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #18 on: February 13, 2019, 09:36:51 PM »

I'm going look in to this closer . Because I think average degrees days for Minnesota has to have one mean swing . Closes weather station that has records for longest time comes to play . I'm right between Duluth and twin cities so I can average between the to. There the ones with oldest records. 8600 degrees days maybe . But that degrees days website pretty awesome. I got a weather station all set up so . Still need boiler data logger yet from RSI I'm getting there . Once I know boiler temp drop with weather temp . I can nail down my pounds of wood per degree right now Math is saying 8-9 pounds per degree .
That one polar vortex day math says 1250 lbs of oak slabs  that's pretty dang close .

Heat550
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heat550

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #19 on: February 13, 2019, 11:43:44 PM »

Math revisited... Ok Nov 16th 2018 to February 12th 7634.9 degrees days . Total wood burned 43,130 lbs so each degree takes 5.64 lbs of wood . Now I'm burning slabs 14-20% figuring 7100 BTUs per lb . 40,044 BTUs in to boiler per degree . So if I need 9000 degrees for total season. I need 7699.16 pounds yet that's 3.39 bundles  now that sound like not enough .. so the issue will always be how many degrees days are there perseason . Kinda like a horoscope reader.

Heat550
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jreimer

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #20 on: February 14, 2019, 12:12:19 PM »

Cool.  Using that site we can establish definitive bragging rights to see who has the highest degree days!  My 12 month total is 10,317 at 63 Fahrenheit base temperature.
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heat550

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #21 on: February 14, 2019, 03:12:25 PM »

You know when you open that can of worms there is a Canadian or Alaskan that's going make us look like a bunch wimps lol  :bag:
2014 was some real degree days
Heat550
« Last Edit: February 14, 2019, 04:12:06 PM by heat550 »
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RSI

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #22 on: February 14, 2019, 04:41:03 PM »

I was just thinking another variable is heatloss in the ground. I would think that is somewhat constant throughout the heating season. That may be need to calculated separately.
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heat550

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #23 on: February 15, 2019, 12:48:15 AM »

I found a better site weatherdatadepot.com to figure out heating degree days . Yes in ground heat loss is evil . I'm loosing 2.03 degrees in 274 feet in the ground 3 zones. This charts at 63f and just look how nasty 2013 and 2014 was.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2019, 12:50:20 AM by heat550 »
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jreimer

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #24 on: February 15, 2019, 10:09:23 AM »

Using the Heating Season instead of Annual gives a better indication of the winter.  For me it looks like 2013-2014 is the worst with 10,760.
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Shindaiwa 488
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heat550

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #25 on: February 15, 2019, 12:17:56 PM »

I like how you can really nail down the worst winter . It justifies why certain years took so much wood. Looking like 2018-2019 going to be for sure be in top 5 of last 20 years.

Heat550
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wreckit87

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #26 on: February 16, 2019, 08:41:16 AM »

That heat loss in the ground is precisely why I've decided to put a plate exchanger in the back of the boiler cabinet and pressurize my underground lines with glycol with another pump in the house, so the underground only circulates on call for heat. Which, on sunny days, is never. If I can drop my circulation time from 24 hours to 12 hours, my math says that comes in at roughly 2 cord of wood saved per season. That's with Logstor
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braveblaster

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #27 on: February 16, 2019, 03:59:04 PM »

That heat loss in the ground is precisely why I've decided to put a plate exchanger in the back of the boiler cabinet and pressurize my underground lines with glycol with another pump in the house, so the underground only circulates on call for heat. Which, on sunny days, is never. If I can drop my circulation time from 24 hours to 12 hours, my math says that comes in at roughly 2 cord of wood saved per season. That's with Logstor

That would be genius, how would you accomplish it?
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heat550

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #28 on: February 17, 2019, 03:18:24 AM »

Great idea .  But if it's loosing heat for the 12 hours you use it . Why not just Insul seal it and be done with it .  I have 50 feet of Insul seal on one of my zones temp drop is undetectable .  And a 130 foot run sprayed in polyurethane 4 inch on 3 side 10 inch on top with pex Al pex .looses about 1.2 degrees after 23 years in heavy clay .  Other run I have is 110 feet looses 1.1 degrees after 23 years .. So story is you need 2-4 inch polyurethane and water tight once have that you can bring heat Los to minimum.  I tested mine in winter . Not on hot summer day . Cold penetrates a lot better than everyone thinks. 👍😳 It's shocking .
I feel pretty lucky spray in polyurethane still hanging in there after 23 years .  Back when I installed spray in polyurethane was cutting edge .

Heat550
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wreckit87

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Re: Wood usage for the season?
« Reply #29 on: February 17, 2019, 07:52:48 AM »

Braveblaster- I will have a 50 gallon water heater in the house as a buffer/storage tank with gas backup, also providing DHW, the tank has 2 sets of ports so I will hang a 40 plate exchanger and a pump between the spare 2 ports on constant circ with a Ranco controller regulating tank temp. When the tank falls below 130, the Ranco activates a pump to circulate the underground across both plates and reheat the tank to 160 at which point the underground stops flowing. On a call for heat, another pump will draw from the 40 plate in the house (same one used to heat the tank) and send hot water to the air handler. I've got all the parts here, just haven't had time to execute the plan yet.

Heat550- Because Insulseal would cost $6000 and take 100+ hours to complete, versus $600 and 8 hours, And my current ground loss is only 2.5 degrees in 350 feet with the Logstor. If I had it to do over again the first time, I'd spray it in the trench. But seeing as 50 feet of my Logstor is under a concrete slab and the boiler is on the far end of that slab, that's not an option now.
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