Ready for winter?

[chevybuytroy]

Been cutting wood all week so far for us, grandma,the shop, and the neighbor. We use big metal crates to store wood in as we split. This year I bought my wifes old rav back and converted into a wood hauler. I'm going to keep it full and park it behind my house for the winter, that way all the wood will stay dry. The rav and one metal crate should get me through the winter. Our main heat is gas but if were going to be home all day I will burn wood to save. Gas when I filled was only $1.09 a gallon at the moment but I'm sure it will be $4.00 a gallon by January. Our poor woods got the Ember Ash Borer a couple of years ago and killed about 40 trees so we are trying to get the wood cut and cleared out before it rots.

It doesnt squat to bad for being loaded up.

[Barry Donovan]

I miss the hardwood stoves..
that will be nice burning.

in contrast to self sustaining, I am in a 25 unit building going industrial on a main entrance door bottom and an air conditioner cage. there is so much heat, by the time september rolls around, last winter just left the building.

The freedom of your own place..priceless.
maine is headed for the coldest spot in the world again.

[STINEY]

Love it. That RAV doesn't really look squatted at all, amazing!

Wish we could get natural gas. Pursued it, not going to happen unless I want to spring for 16,000' of gas line. Umm, no. Went Geothermal 3 winters ago, best thing we could have done. Timing was perfect as the last few cold winters really advanced the return on investment date by several years. We supplement with a pellet stove when temps drop low enough for the electric resistance heat to kick in.

We already had 3 tons of pellets stocked in the basement from a local TSC presale deal on them in August. Good feeling to have them all in and ready way ahead of winter.

Snow mover SkidSteer loader is all serviced up and ready to do battle in the driveway.

Bring in on Winter!

Ready for ski season again!

[Deaf Bob]

Burn 7 cords a winter.. Have 3 ready.. So NO, not ready!

[chevybuytroy]

Burn 7 cords a winter.. Have 3 ready.. So NO, not ready!

You better get going!! Its already getting colder here. 64 degrees today with rain.

[chevybuytroy]

Stiney I followed when you did that. It made me think about it but its a no brainer when we own 3 woods to cut out of. My wife loves her gas stove and as long as we fill up during summer rates its really actually cheap. We go through at the most 700 gallons of gas a year.

[Deaf Bob]

That cold here but no rain yet...

[Dan Barlow]

No rain in Indy yet
.Temp about the same . Thats a awesome Side by side .Even has a roof and heat !

[chevybuytroy]

No rain in Indy yet
.Temp about the same . Thats a awesome Side by side .Even has a roof and heat !

We just about knocked the windows out of it until we thought of the one word you just said. HEAT. It still runs really rough but it manages to get from one place to another. Just gotta keep it in low gear. Might tinker with it more next summer. My wife bought it brand new off the lot in 2000 and has 325,000 miles on it. I sold it for 600.00 last year but it started to act up and the guy didnt want to mess with it. I bought it back for 150.00. I think it might be the ECM.

[nesabo]

put 3 tons of pellets in my basement this monday. only really used to heat the family room. Natural Gas prices are low enough now it cheaper to run the furnace.

[Deaf Bob]

I don't have any heat but wood..
Would love an alternate source as I am getting too banged up to keep up this stuff..

[squirrel]

We only have 16 bags of pellets....guess we'll be buying another ton in January.

[STINEY]

I don't have any heat but wood..
Would love an alternate source as I am getting too banged up to keep up this stuff..

I grew up shoveling coal, hauling klinkers, and cutting-splitting-hauling-racking wood. Dad took a running chainsaw to the face one day while we were cutting when I was 10 (he was too busy yelling at us kids and it kicked on him) Just hard for me personally to get excited about cutting wood nowadays.

Its hard work, can be rewarding but takes a fair share of time as well.

The house I grew up in had no insulation and original turn-of-last-century doors & windows. We simply complete filled the basement with tightly stacked wood and tried to make it last. Was always cold anyways. Looking back I bet we crammed about 6-8 full cords in that basement - and it was never enough.


On a somewhat related note Bob...........we did a "energy" audit on our current house last fall. The audit part was government BS, but the thermal imaging part was uber-cool.

Found enough places in our walls that were missing blown insulation to equal a 8x8 garage door.

Think about that. Kinda a large leak, eh?

Learned to speak "blower-door energy score numbers" from the audit. (Kousma Insulation in Willard Ohio is great to work with by the way, kinda far away for you though)

The actual blower door test came in at 4950 cfm leakage @ 50 - they want to reduce that number to 3750 cfm @50.

The energy score scale goes from 0 - 200 with 200 being the least efficient. The childhood house would have been pushing 200 for sure. Average Ohio Use Home is a 127 and we scored a 58 with our current house.

The way I understand it, 40-45 is the range where a house starts to get TOO tight and requires air-to-air makeup systems and more expense for that.

Their recommendation was to get us to a 49, and they based their proposal on that goal.

Anyways, the real cool part was the quote to improve our house. $2600 for everything to get to a 49. Not bad, right? It gets better.

Broke it up into 4 jobs for quoting.

1. Air sealing. They set up the blower door again, then thoroughly prowl through the house "air-sealing" leakages. For example gaps where plumbing, ducting, electrical, or chimneys penetrate the "insulation envelope", they would seal with mastic or silicone or whatever was appropriate. Seam rim joists, top & bottom wall plates, knee wall floors, etc And build a foamboard "coffin cover" for the attic pull down stairs.
Cost $450

2. Attic insulation. We have about 8" but need about twice that. So they propose adding 975 sq ft on top for another 8" and R-30
Cost $925

3. Wall insulation. Now our house is approx 1900 sq ft okay? Get this, they propose adding 900 additional sq ft of wall insulation. That is 1/2 of what is in there already, and other than the missed places visible on infrared camera and some settling our walls are fully blown insulated! When I asked how on earth they could possibly get that much more in the walls, he grinned and said "we can really pack it in ". The look on his face sold me at that point, was like one of us smirking about how we tweaked more power from our cars.
Some procedure called "dense packing" lets them far surpass the typical blown in job, but its not foaming the walls.
Cost $1230

4. Basement Rim Joist foaming. Simple, they spray foam the wall to the floor, covering the rim joist in the process.
Cost $450

Now I know this all adds up to a little over $3000, but there is a local electric utility rebate of $500 that kicks in for the attic insulation and air sealing portion. So $2600.

I told them to go ahead and schedule me for the basement rim joist foaming, it was done for last winter. Made a MUCH larger difference than I expected, I highly recommend it, especially for the cost.

The rest has had to wait for me to finish tearing out the bathroom upstairs and getting new drywall up over the lath boards from the old plaster. Can't dense-pack with exposed lath boards, it just blows through the gaps and makes a rather large mess.

I can't wait to see what a difference it makes this winter.

Perhaps you can get someone local to give a reasonable insulation quote? Might make it much easier to cut wood for a few more years if you only need a couple of cords instead of 7?

I was really surprised at the cost. Have heard some outlandish quotes given out for insulation jobs.


Outside basement entryway foamed


Rim Joist foamed


Voids in blown in usulation visible on infrared screen. (he let me take pictures of his pictures) The camera is showing the wall visible in the background, the dark places are non-insulated voids.

[chevybuytroy]

I'm gonna use that type of insulation in the shop where I'm putting my lift at on the roof part.

[Deaf Bob]

Built my wood stove 34 years ago.. The old farm house was a cold reefer! ..
Idea was to brick the sides but leave a spot to radiate heat immediately.. Never got to the brick work..
Moved into this house 33 years ago..
When the stove was built, I made the outlet too low in back, smoke came out when the door was opened..
So I built a pipe chamber with an open center.. The main pipe chamber got clogged.. Cut that out.
Noe for the last 31 years it's served us well.. Until 2 years ago when cracks developed.
Fixed that with plate and it immediately made a difference
Firebox takes up to 30" long but I use 18" for ease of loading.. Ad is 1/8-1/4" thick.. Door is 3/8 with angle to keep warpage down and a channel for rope insulation..
Top is 5/16" remenant from work, the upper chambers are 1/2" and hold heat long after the fire is out
2 chunks together makes the house pretty warm, one is ok if I help it with pellets (bean can at a time)
I light the stove maybe 2-4 times a year from Nov-April, rest of the time, like now, will light a fire in the morning awith small scraps then let it go out till evening or next morning..
We cook soups-stews on it.. I have 10" rounds of 3" thick drops I torched out when I was running a burn machine making tower bases. They hold heat ad help keep the fire steady..
Have 2 "ovens" one tin, one thicker.. Neither seem to work great... House gets too hot.
If we lose power, we have no water (well) but can always find rain water for flushing.