[Closed] Heating an old house with wood

Between 2 and 12m3 of 50:50 hard and soft wood depending on how well you insulate. If you don't insulate you'll spend your lives feeding the stove. If you really insulate well then a burn in the evening will add a couple of degrees which is all you'll lose before the next evening. When the temperature dips below zero you'll need a refill and when it drops towards minus 10 then a morning burn too if there's anyone in the house.

We only have one stove which is fine for the whole 1930s house and burn 2-3m3 depending on how hard the winter is. But it's as well insulated as a modern build. I put a radiator behind the stove which warms another radiator in the bedroom.

Edit/ It's not how thick the walls are. 10m of concrete has less thermal resitance than .3m of wood which has less thermal resistance than .1m of polyurethane.

Error: 3m of concrete not 10m

Thanks, i get your drift all the same!

Even if you need 12 m3, here pine is about 30 euros per m3 and beech 50....

Further to what Edukator has said above the other things to think about are what size stoves, as in kWh, their efficiency and if you install one with a back boiler to feed some radiators.

We have 2 Waterford Stanley stoves in our house. A small one for the snug/kitchen and a much larger one in the lounge which has a back boiler fitted. I'm lucky in that I can harvest and process my own firewood so this year I have saved on buying coal at £110/month. Therefore £330 so far. Expecting to save a further £330 ish by the time we stop lighting them.

3 bed semi 1930 build here and although I've insulated what I can easily, non cavity walls means it needs a lot of heating. I think it's about 1300 ft²...2 stoves, 7m³ +- 2m³ depending on winter... I've only burnt about 2 to 2.5 so far this year as it's been mild... And that's with house utterly toasty.

actually, ignoring the unheated conservatory and redoing the size estimate in my head, I heat more like 1000 ft2 I think, so similar size.
downstairs currently sat at 22.5C, upstairs is over 19C....my OH is still in a jumper!

Thanks, it looks like it is practical to do - especially as it is in an area with abundant cheap wood.

Have a think about the stove it's size and location and how to move heat about the house. It's much less work to feed one larger stove than 2 small ones, but small ones give ability to take a chill off without roasting one spot.

Do you have a back boiler and rads set up? This can help distribute the heat.

Either way I absolutely recommend getting one of these to help distribute the heat around the house, it would reduce the amount of wood you would use to feel the same warmth throughout the house. We got one and previously the living room (where stove is located) would be roasting and the bedroom would require a jumper, now we've put it on the stove and pointed it at the door to push the heat around the rest of the house and the whole house is comfortable in a t-shirt with only the stove on and no other heating. House is made of wood with zero insulation.

You can work out your cubic ft3 roughly and times that by 4 and that'll give the rough KW output required for a warm house

4 X ft³ sounds very big. That means about 30kW for me, but I can heat the house fine in sub zero temps and have just 2 X 5kW nominal (14kW Max).

4xft3 gives 26kW for me. A 5kW nominal filled twice (about 4hrs running) keeps our place between 18 and 21°C at the moment. With almost no insulation the house required roughly six times the kWh, so that formula isn't far off for a thermal seive.

Anus +1

There, I said it

Cubic feet x 4 ??? Where does that come from. I'm like the two above, 32kw whereas in reality one 6kw stove does us fine. And we burn about 2m2 each winter. (Well insulated mid terrace)

Sorry that was Imperial, ft3 X 4 gives role of thumb btu's required. Need to convert to KW from btu's

Ahhh, sounds better now.

Three fours are twelve.....
BTU to Watts