Why I search for PM.

[jim_mich]

This is one reason why I search for PM. It takes an 8 foot by 13 foot wood bin stacked neatly floor to 7.5 foot ceiling (780 cu.ft.) to heat my home through a Michigan winter if I choose to keep the LP gas off. I need to split about one more pickup load to fill the basement. Usually October is nice cool wood splitting weather, but today was 81ºF, 27ºC.

[rlortie]

Jim,

780 cubic feet is .09375 over 6 chords. I guess it does get cold in your part of the country. Locally a cord of wood (tamarack) is selling for about $120.00 and you store and stack it.

Ralph

[racer270]

lucky me,
i don't need heat or air almost year round....:)

http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/USCA0604_f.html

but it could rain soon......lol

link

[ovyyus]

You must be living in a very big house Jim?

[jim_mich]

Not big, only about 1400 sq.ft. plus 858 sq.ft. basement. The winters can get really cold. We usually get our first frost about a week before Halloween and the last frost about the first week of May. It's easy heating the house when outside is above freezing. When the temperature drops down near zero (-18ºC) then the furnace really sucks fuel. Then sometimes the mercury drops to -10ºF or in very rare cases down to -20ºF (-29ºC)


From the local TV website:
Almanac For: October 9th
Normal High/Low: 63/41
Lansing Record High : 84 1939
Lansing Record Low : 23 1989
Jackson Record High: 86 1913
Jackson Record Low: 23 1989
Sunrise : 7:44 AM
Sunset : 7:06 PM




Edit: Repaired link.

[ovyyus]

Jim, sounds like a chilly part of the World!

[terry5732]

Jim, I lived in Gladwin county for a year. Everyone there thought it was the coldest place on earth. Your winter seemed like a nice spring day to me. My relatives in central Wisconsin use about 12 cords a year to suppliment their oil furnaces. No one here in Minnesota would think of heating by wood alone (except in summer).

Even at 50 below zero there is heat energy all around your house. You just need to gather it and compress it into the house. You don't need to make new heat.

[Oxygon]

~Just this morning it was 32F or so outside and as soon as I got into my van I was blasted with accumulated heat!

Sometimes we forget how powerful and abundant the Suns energy is...

And it was free.

PMM would be like that for almost everything and wouldn't go out with the sunset.

[debbie]

We are in northern France, last winter it went down to -16c at night for a few days, but that was unusual.

When we moved here we made a decision to take out the oil fired CH and install woodburners, with one having a heat exchanger to run radiators in our three bedrooms and bathroom. The CH system is now decommissioned and mostly removed. I'm not sure if it's imagination but wood burners seem to create a glow through the whole house. Or is it just that our 250 year old timber framed farmhouse was built to be heated by wood fires?

Just as a comparison a stere (one cubic metre) of wood, usually birch or cherry with occasional oak, costs 40€ delivered or 25€ if we pick it up, it's two years seasoned. (1 m³ = ~0.276 cords)

We would rather put money into the pockets of our local forestry workers than line the pockets of some multinational company. We would rather rely on our hardworking woodsmen than OPEC.

Carbon neutral too!

Debs

[jim_mich]

I'm not sure if it's imagination but wood burners seem to create a glow through the whole house. Or is it just that our 250 year old timber framed farmhouse was built to be heated by wood fires?

I too notice this. It's like the difference between monochrome and polychrome, between black/white and color. It's as if the LP gas puts out heat at only one frequency and wood puts out heat at many frequencies. The thermometer will tell you that both are the same temperature, but your body tells you that the wood heat just feels better.

[AB Hammer]

Why I search for PM

Well all my life I have solved any mechanical problem that has been set before me, and my nabber set this one before me. Well I got to keep up my record don't I?

[rlortie]

Alan,

Stating that you are a blacksmith, and saying your "nabber" put this before you, leaves me pondering.

A nabber in days of yore was a cross stich tool for weaving embelishments on clothing or a coat of arms. I can imagine it being used to describe a person who with tongs pulls things from a forge.

What or who do you apply the name nabber to?

Ralph

[rlortie]

I just pulled this off another forum!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/world ... ref=slogin

[AB Hammer]

LOL LOL yes I sort of goofed, my neighbor. Thats what I get for using spell check instead of my wife.