Firewood and wood heat

[ShadeTree]

what brand of heat pump did you buy ?

Goodman. But what makes it work is the hybrid system. I don't think I'd like it as a pure heat pump. They're pretty efficient from around mid 30's temps on up, but when it's cold they run constantly.

My existing system was a hot water boiler, but it just circulated hot water to a coil in a air handler sitting right beside it, and back. So since I already had all the ductwork in place it was easy to install the heat pump. New line set, new coil and done.

With a standard heat pump it's an either/or kind of system......either the heat pump is running, or when it can't keep after it switches over to emergency heat electric coil back up. With this hybrid system now my boiler is not trying to heat the house, all it has to do is keep the water hot so it just runs occasionally. When the heat pump runs, instead of it working at producing only lukewarm air that they produce, it is now blowing it's lukewarm air up across the coil of hot water sitting above it in the air handler from my boiler. So it in turn runs about 1/2 as long as it would normally.

 

[Rol-P]

Our main heat is oil. We burn wood most every night in cool and winter weather, in our fireplace with a metal insert and glass doors. It allows the heat to circulate into the room. Our wood is cut and split on our property. I typically cut up fallen timber, which lately has been hickory. This last season we burned an estimated full cord and a half. My first chainsaw was a Homelite XL12 which my parents bought me to take to Paul Smith's College in the Adirondacks in 1964 when I was in the forestry program. Since then I had another Homelite and now have a stihl 260 purchased in 2005 and a Stihl 261 purchased in 2020 as a backup. I run a 16" bar for measuring the length of my firewood and a 20" bar with ripping chain for using my Alaska mill that attaches to the bar to cut boards. Heating oil ran around $4.00/gallon this past heating season and our electric rate is $0.27/KWH. Cutting our firewood is my therapy to escape the turmoil we face in this world and especially NYS. I am 76 years old, started cutting wood at about 12 years old with my Dad and a cross cut saw, then a belt driven buzzsaw on a John Deer tractor.

 

[Vince]

I used a lot of gum tree for heat.
I think we yanks call it Eucalyptus. Not a bad wood.

Vince

 

[Divernhunter]

We heated our home with wood in a very good wood stone that had an ash pan and auto draft and fan controls. I can no longer do so due to regulations and my disabilities. I used mostly Almond wood and most of it was stump wood that I split with a large, fast splitter powered by a Wisconsin V-4 engine and a 38/12 two stage pump. It would split any wood as fast as you can move the wood. I had an Echo with a 20' and 48' bar. I had a 28' and another 20' saw as well as two 16' saws.
I hauled the wood in a dump trailer I built that would haul 1.5 cord each load.
I would sell about 80 cord a year and the junker wood is what we used.
Saws, extra stuff would go in the large box.

I cannot find a photo of the trailer right now. But it was all metal dual axles and was built with extra dump truck metal for the side and 1/4" plate for the bottom. The tailgate swung up high like some dump trucks so the wood would not hang up so easy and that helped it from spreading out when dumping it.

I think all of this contributed to my major lower back surgery (6 spacers, 12 screws and some other work) and having both knees and my left hip replaced.

 

[Ridge_Runner]

husky 562xp, have used a bunch of saws,, its the best saw I ever handled for cutting firewood.