Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => General Outdoor Furnace Discussion => Topic started by: cimalt on June 16, 2008, 03:32:22 AM
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Hi all,
Some of you will recognise this question from elsewhere but...
For those of you who have used oil in the past and have swapped to an OWB, how much wood do you use compare to heating oil? In other words, if you were using say 500 gallons of heating oil before, how may full cords are you using now as a replacement (also what OWB are you using). I know they eat through the wood, but just how much?
There are loads of 'equations' out there that will 'help' you work out how much wood equals how much oil etc, but this is theoretical BTUs and not real life experience which we all know is a completely different thing.
By the way, I'm not putting any numbers here as I'm yet to get an OWB, this is all in the name of ressearch for me and informing others.
B
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When we bought out house we were told that we would use 500gal of oil a year. With the OWB we use about 10-12cord.
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2 years ago, used just over 1000 gallons. Now use approx. 10 - 12 cords.. Accidentally hit the zero.
sorry
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Wow, 500 gallons at 10-12 cords for RX7415 and 1000 gallons at 120 cords for Husky455. A variation between 50 gallons per cord and 8 gallons per cord!
Was one a typing error or are OWBs just so varied in their wood guzzling?!
We had been led to believe that 2400 gallons would be replaced by about 15-20 cords about 120 gallons per cord! Big difference.
Any more out there who can shed light on this massive difference between a cord of wood in an OWB being somewhere between 8 gallons of heating oil and 120 gallons?
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:bash: Opps !!!! Fixed my prior post. NOT NOT NOT 120 cords..... 12 cords at a high estimate, more like 10 cord.
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Ahh! 1000 gallons at about 10 cords. That more or less ties up with my 2500 gallons estimated info (research only) being in the region of 20 cords but I still look like it could be more like 25 upwards!
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I heat a 2000 sq ft house and a 24 X 30 pole barn (temp in the barn kept around 50 degrees) and I use around 8 cors a year. We burn year around for hot water and this morning we ran the furance. Last winter we had several days that stayed below 0 and had many nights that were 10 to 20 below.
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Hmm, we also have a 20-25,000 gallon swimming pool and after seeing this post at YouTube http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NlVon8q6LMU&feature=related (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NlVon8q6LMU&feature=related) we figured we might be able to do the same. Bet it gulps wood though. Wish I could get in touch with that chap and find out some more!
Anyone here heating a swimming pool and how much wood does it gulp?
We by the way are not in the cold climate that James U is in so wouldn't use as much but it still gets a bit chilly in the south west of England (UK).
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Probably won't go through much wood to heat a pool because in the summer, even if your using it for hot water in the house, your not really drawing that much heat out of the stove on a constant basis, so the stove won't call for that much wood. Probably once a week or so once the pool is at it's desired temperature.
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Hmm, we also have a 20-25,000 gallon swimming pool and after seeing this post at YouTube http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NlVon8q6LMU&feature=related (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NlVon8q6LMU&feature=related) we figured we might be able to do the same. Bet it gulps wood though. Wish I could get in touch with that chap and find out some more!
Anyone here heating a swimming pool and how much wood does it gulp?
We by the way are not in the cold climate that James U is in so wouldn't use as much but it still gets a bit chilly in the south west of England (UK).
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if you now heat your pool with gas..compare how many btu's you are now using and compare to how much wood it will take to = that many btu's
remember you must allow for the efficiency of your wood heater (likely around 50 or 60 percent)
100,000 btu = 1 cubic metre
so it would take about 15 pounds of dry hardwood to equal this
double this amount to 30 pounds for inefficiency of a wood stove
or we could take a guess like this....
1 BTU equals the amount of energy it takes to raise one pound of water one degree...
your pool is say 20,000 gallons and for easier figuring...water weighs 10 pounds per gallon, so you have 200,000 pounds of water,
you need that amount of BTU's for each degree you wish to raise the temp.
i have read a guys story some time ago about running his wood ehater for 2 days straight wide open to raise his pool from 65 to 85 and with the use of a solar blanket only using 1 full cord of wood all season...this sounds low to me but i have no real proof either way
bottom line.....average cord of dry hardwood produces 20 million BTU...compare that to your gas consumpion at an average of 100,000 BTU per cubic metre and double the amount of wood needed to represent the 50 % efficiency of a wood stove
that should get you close