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[willieG]

sorry imissed your question on the heat values of the pine and others

dry wood ...pine 10 million btu per cord
                    oak 18 million
and hickory 20 million

hickory being the best and pine is about three or four from the worst
basswood is worst at about 9.4

[mober]

thanks willie for all that info.
i was kind of hoping it wont be more than 10 cords
so ill need about twice the wood if it will be pine compare to oak.
thats a lot of floor space
i dont know if any of you guys pay attention to it but maybe a rough estimate on the diffrent in use between keeping the house on 68 degree to 74 degree?
im sure it wont be as bad as if it was propane.

[willieG]

there peopel here who use as low as 4 or 5 cords  but i think the aerage is much higher. I live in ontario canada (what is called the southwest) near the mouth of the st. claire river where the lake huron empties..we get quite cold winds and low temps and i live in a century old farm house (although i have done my best to rebuild and insulate it) and i figure i use 10 to 12 cords and burn wood from  late october until early june most years. i burn nothing but  dead elm and some spruce 2x4's from the local truss builder ( iuse this for a quick hot fire in the mornings of early fall and late spring) my elm wood is high on btu's but im not sure that when they are as dead as i cut them that some of the btu's have been used up in the start of decomposition.
when i burnt a lot of white oak i got by on about 8 or 9 cords but now i try and cut only dead trees, and the elms here die from disease  faster than  i can use them up.

your 100 gals may cause much more cycles than most..you might consider adding a holding tank into the system  that would increase that. This would quite likley lower your cycle times (and that is where a lot of folks including me think we waste a lot of btu's)

[mober]

hi willie
you might be right with the water capacity but i kind of like thinking about shorter cycle because it wouldnt take as long to heat my 120 gallon comapare to a 300 gallon less smoldering wood.
i think if i had 1000 gallon for example it will have a bigger surface area wich will loose more btu than a smaller surface area,just like a heat exchanger.
and with as much insulation you will put in it they all loose btu.
i think there is no real exact science about water capacity its just important to keep happy medium.
one day we will all be doctors of those wood boilers and maybe start a school for that special trade

[willieG]

i agree, we all think differently about how and why. that is where building your own comes in..we all incorporate our own ideas and really..even when it is "finished" and in operation..we the builder can make changes as we see fit or wish to try fro one reason or another.  we are always in the "research and developent" stage

i am thinking (rethinking) that i may in fact dig up and replace my underground pipe as when i put it in it may have been the best available then but now i think it is quite inferior.  and if i do this, after heating for ten years with the same stove i will have a real good average of wood usage to compare with the nest 10 years and will be able to see if there is much of a wood savings

my son has also judt bought himself a place in the country and i will be starting a stove for him next year...more changes coming..lol

[vinrum]

bruey, thank you for the post..It was very helpful..You read my mind, the amount of wood to put into the stove was my next question..Is it good to mix hard and soft wood together or does it matter?

[maine owb]

Are you out west? Some of the best wood to burn in the northeast is white ash and red oak, red oak needs two seasons to dry correctly, white ash has the lowest moisture content of good burning woods when green and will be ready after one season, the most readily avaiable wood here in Maine is red maple and that works pretty well. If your OWB is a gasification type(like mine) then you must burn dry wood, 6" round logs are perfect. If it is the old style single burn type, people do burn larger wood with more moisture in them, you will get much more smoke.But it is silly to burn green wood because you will burn a lot more of it because the heat is first used to boil off water from the wood then you get the extra heat.

[yoderheating]

Maine owb, I am curious what type of gasifacation furnace you are running that will burn only dry wood. The new G series that HeatMaster is putting out run better when the wood isn't completely dry.