Saw horse

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 25 Feb 2012, 00:17

woodburner wrote:A BTU may be a BTU, but some stoves throw the fuel away in the form of smoke and use four times as much wood for the same comfort level. The trick is to heat the people, not the building. It doesn't matter what you do when fuel is abundant, but when there's not much you need all the efficiency you can get. I would prefer a strawbale house to Buckingham Palace in those circumstances, come to that, in any other circumstances too.

As fuel gets scarcer and more expensive we will need to take progressive steps to reduce fuel use. Chief among them will be reducing the space we chose to heat. This might entail moving all the house plants into one or two rooms and shutting off and draining pipes to unheated sections of the house to avoid water damage from burst frozen pipes. When choosing a solid fuel stove you would of course choose a high deficiency model but you still need to chose a size that can get the job done. People trying to save money often assume smaller is better but those that can do the math actually find balancing the machine to the job is the truly efficient path to follow.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 25 Feb 2012, 03:44

We burn our wood pretty efficiently as we burn at full whack all the time and store the heat in the mass of the building. Both of our chimneys are internal so heat from them warms the rooms above. We are insulating the main house so that we can use less fuel though.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 25 Feb 2012, 12:58

kenneal - lagger wrote:We burn our wood pretty efficiently as we burn at full whack all the time and store the heat in the mass of the building. Both of our chimneys are internal so heat from them warms the rooms above. We are insulating the main house so that we can use less fuel though.

My chimneys are side by side and central. I have a large wood furnace in the basement that is allowed to roar for twenty minutes or so twice a day then shut down to idle as the wood turns to coals. I adjust temp. mostly by how full I fill it at each fireing or by adding additional fill ups when well below zeroF
I should add an additional six inches of batts in the attic to bring it up to R49 recommended here in zone seven but beyond that you run into the need to exhaust stale air for fresh even if it is still warm as the humans and the fires consume oxygen round the clock. Basically if you have a 6"X6" flue running out or a larger one damper-ed down to that then you need 6"X6" of unrestricted inlet somewhere to change the air. A good plan for this exchange air is something that often gets left out when people are super insulating houses.

eatyourveg · Post by **eatyourveg** » 25 Feb 2012, 23:07

Excellent, as invariably happens with a PS topic it careers off topic in no time at all. It really is one off the most attractive features of the site.

So, in keeping with best tradition I offer you further divergence, a house that doesn't involve using a saw horse to cut wood at all:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... self-build

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 25 Feb 2012, 23:24

eatyourveg wrote:Excellent, as invariably happens with a PS topic it careers off topic in no time at all. It really is one off the most attractive features of the site.

So, in keeping with best tradition I offer you further divergence, a house that doesn't involve using a saw horse to cut wood at all:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... self-build

Worth looking at the how to do it web site http://www.irishvernacular.com/index.html

I suppose it's not entirely off topic, as offcuts from building can be used for kindling and firewood, which is the purpose of a saw horse!

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 26 Feb 2012, 00:25

eatyourveg wrote:Excellent, as invariably happens with a PS topic it careers off topic in no time at all. It really is one off the most attractive features of the site.

So, in keeping with best tradition I offer you further divergence, a house that doesn't involve using a saw horse to cut wood at all:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... self-build

The house is made from a timber frame with tough, lightweight roof and walls called Onduline, which looks like corrugated iron but is made from plants.

Same as my garden shed for the roof. I have wood cladding for the walls. A bit upmarket for a shed then.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 26 Feb 2012, 04:24

You wouldn't want to use Onduline in a very high wind area. We had some chicken houses which we built using Onduline for the roof and they started fraying at the edges after a few windy winters. Mind you that was thirty years ago so they might have improved it since. I'm impressed with the level of insulation though at 225mm of foam in a usually mild, compared to the UK in general, Irish climate. The Inspector wouldn't have approved.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 26 Feb 2012, 12:08

kenneal - lagger wrote:You wouldn't want to use Onduline in a very high wind area. We had some chicken houses which we built using Onduline for the roof and they started fraying at the edges after a few windy winters. Mind you that was thirty years ago so they might have improved it since. I'm impressed with the level of insulation though at 225mm of foam in a usually mild, compared to the UK in general, Irish climate. The Inspector wouldn't have approved.

I'll second that. A state agency I used to work for roofed over a dozen large salt storage sheds with Onduline over the course of a few years. They found it quite unsatisfactory on several counts including leakage and premature weathering. They have replaced it all.