How Much Wood do you Burn in a Week of cold Weather?

[Will C]

I’ve not worked it out in kw/hr but we burn 12-15 cube (stacked) of mixed logs a winter to heat our place with a 8kw stove. 

[Billhook]

4 hours ago, Big J said:

 

I think you misunderstand.

 

30 kwh is the total electricity usage for everything. That's 98% of our heating too. Our house is about 240 square metres.

Our house is about 240 square metres as well , and has modern insulation, icynene foam in the loft, which is water based and breathable, four lots of underfloor heating, two bathrooms , a conservatory and a kitchen.

The Aarrow Stratford is linked to the gas boiler with a Dunsley neutraliser, but we have not had the gas on at all.  Two hot water cylinders, one heated by solar tubes which does all our Summer hot water.

I am becoming progressively creaky so I need a hot bath every evening.

My wife has had an operation and is housebound while she recovers, hence the heating is on most of the time.  One benefit of the Lockdowns was giving me time to build the Lockdown Splitter and make a good heap of split Ash and Sycamore

[Billhook]

This was taken in March so there has been as much again so I hope not to run short this Winter!

 

[Billhook]

17 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

 

 

I wish your wife a speedy recovery

Thanks for that  Big J,

She was under anaesthetic for over an hour and it seems to be lingering in her brain leaving her feeling too dizzy to drive, even though the op was some time ago.  Anyone else know someone who has been affected in a similar way?

[Billhook]

8 hours ago, Big J said:

 

Nice. You've hit the nail on the head I think. The heat source is secondary in importance to the insulation. The UK has never had the incentive to insulate properly because of the relatively mild climate and ample supply of North Sea gas. Times change though.

 

Here, highly effective insulation is none-optional. Your typical Wimpy home wouldn't last a single winter here, and we're in the mild part of Sweden!

 

I wish your wife a speedy recovery

We live on top of a hill in a very exposed position.  When I built the house in 1983, I was very aware of this and doubled the amount of fibreglass in the loft.  The first floor is a dormer roof and the regulations said that I had to have soffit vents all round.  The force of the winds actually forced cold air through the soffit vents and under the fibreglass insulation, freezing the ceiling panels and the secondary double glazing was moving away from the seals due to the air pressure difference on either side of the house.  Marriage does concentrate the mind and I had my orders!

I filled a 12 ton trailer with all the fibreglass , a lot of which had turned black with mould and having done much research into foam, went for the icynene. open cell.  The closed cell foams are the ones the insurance companies and mortgage people become exited about.  But my goodness what a difference that made.  The whole house was just like it had been wrapped in an eider down!  Further down the line put some Scandinavian quality double glazing in.

But the main lesson here was that insulation is no good unless you control the draughts.  You need a tiny amount,of air movement, hence the icynene as the wood in the roof needs to breathe,

 

[Billhook]

Slightly more explanation here

 

 

[sandspider]

8 hours ago, Billhook said:

Thanks for that  Big J,

She was under anaesthetic for over an hour and it seems to be lingering in her brain leaving her feeling too dizzy to drive, even though the op was some time ago.  Anyone else know someone who has been affected in a similar way?

 

Our elderly neighbour had some form of brain incident that required brain surgery. She had lingering dizziness, and was unable to drive for about 6 months, but can again now. Not sure how much of the dizziness was due to the incident or to the anaesthetic/ surgery, but the anaesthetic was a factor I remember.

[Billhook]

4 minutes ago, sandspider said:

 

Our elderly neighbour had some form of brain incident that required brain surgery. She had lingering dizziness, and was unable to drive for about 6 months, but can again now. Not sure how much of the dizziness was due to the incident or to the anaesthetic/ surgery, but the anaesthetic was a factor I remember.

Thanks for that, good to know that it happens elsewhere

[Billhook]

I think that people underestimate the Winter conditions in the UK.  By saying that we do not know what cold is all about by comparing us to conditions in Norway/Sweden/Canada.  In those countries Winter is usually predictable, it sets in , people prepare, roads vehicles and heating are all in order.  

Here in the UK hovering around the freezing mark, conditions are highly changeable, together with occasional high winds.  Months of moderate temperatures mean a change to Winter tyres is unnecessary, so when a cold snap comes chaos follows.  But the cold snap is never usually long enough to warrant taking Scandinavian precautions, so we are where we are...

[difflock]

At present we burn 1 carefully filled and heaped full banana box per day.

Which heats the 750 ft sq of the house we live in.

Underfloor under 500 sq ft of this area has been running for 1 hour early am this past few days, but only on a low setting to take the chill off the floor and drive the bedroom/bathroom  radiators. This would use about 1,000 litres of kero per year.

Easy to get it too hot if the Sun is about mid afternoon. But if windy, much harder to get the heat up, though the fire does burn more vigorously. A variable feast.