Re: Axes

From: bethexton_at_...
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 19:49:19 -0000

• In HeroQuest-RPG_at_yahoogroups.com, "Jane Williams" <janewilliams20_at_y...> wrote:
  >
  > And how big was the suggested winter wood pile, compared with the
  size
  > of the house it was to heat? About equal?
  

The amount of wood that you will need will vary a lot depending on a number of things:

• Inate insulation of the building you are heating.
• amount of body heat
• how warm you expect to be
• what type of wood you are burning (hard wood holds a lot more heat than soft wood) and is it properly dried.
• What you are burning it in--the "franklin stove" was a huge advance because you needed less wood for the same amount of heating.

I'm trying to picture the old wood shed at my grandparents farm, I *think* it was on the order of 20' square and about six feet high.

By the time I was around they had an extension with a propane heater in it, and cooked with propane, so it wasn't quite so full, but I recall my mom saying that normally at the start of winter you could hardly get into it, with half being this winter's fuel and half being stuff you cut last winter to use the following year (they allowed 2 years for full drying). All hardwood (maple mostly with some birch).

They had good wood stoves. The original house was probably 25-30' square and two stories high. This was a northern Ontario winter, snow on the ground from early November until early April, with some heating needed before and after that time (although cooking took part of it). The walls were well fitted logs 1.5-2 feet thick, with ashphalt siding over that.

So they were better insulated and with more effecient heating than most Heortlings would have, but with less body head (and no animal body heat) relative to the size of the house than Heortlings would have.

Hopefully that is of some use to you.

--Bryan