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Not all rural residents are lucky enough to install gas or electric heating. Many people still use wood to heat their stoves and boilers. Those who have been doing this for a long time know how much stock they need. People who have recently moved to the countryside are interested in the question of how preparation of firewood for the winter and how much they need to be chopped.
Factors affecting the calculation of the amount of firewood
Calculate how much firewood you need, at least approximately. After all, it's good when you can chop up extra logs at random. And suddenly there will be few of them and then this hard work will have to be completed in winter in the frost.
It is necessary to independently calculate the amount of firewood for heating a house, taking into account many factors. Here they pay attention to the efficiency of a wood-burning boiler or stove, the size of the heated room and the duration of the heating period. But first you need to find out which firewood is better for heating, because each type of wood differs in heat transfer due to its different density.
Let's take a closer look at the factors affecting the calculation:
- Humidity affects the heat transfer coefficient. Anyone knows that dry wood burns well, which means that it gives off more heat. If firewood was collected in damp weather or sawed green trees, then it is advisable to store the chopped logs in a ventilated barn. It makes sense here to make blanks for two years. During the season, the stock of firewood will dry out, and the coefficient of their moisture content will be no more than 20%. These logs should be used. Another fresh chopped stock will dry up until next season.
- The heat transfer coefficient depends on the type of wood. The best logs are hardwoods such as oak, birch or beech. Dense wood burns longer and gives off more heat. Pine is less dense. It is better to use such wood for ignition. Pine logs are also suitable for a home with a fireplace. When burned, an aroma is released that fills rooms with the scent of essential oil. If there is an opportunity, then it is necessary to harvest firewood from different types of wood. The combination of logs during combustion can achieve maximum heat transfer and less soot clogging of the chimney.
- The amount of firewood is calculated not by the area of the room, but its volume is taken into account. After all, warm up a house with an area of 100 m2 and a ceiling height of 2 m will turn out faster than a building of a similar size, but 3 m high. Usually, when making calculations, the ceiling height is taken as the norm - 2.8 m.
- When calculating the required amount of cubic meters of firewood, you need to take into account the duration of the heating period. Moreover, they take into account the year with cold autumn and late spring. For most regions, the heating period lasts up to 7 months. In the south, the cold season can be limited to 3-4 months.
- When calculating the amount of firewood for the winter, it is important to take into account the efficiency of the heater. The most effective are pyrolysis boilers. Bridging furnaces are characterized by high heat losses. The more heat goes through the chimney to the street, the more often new logs will have to be thrown into the firebox.
Using these simple rules as a basis, you will be able to calculate the optimal amount of firewood.
Calculation of the amount of firewood for heating the house
The calculations, taking into account the average values, show that for heating a house with an area of 200 m2 you need up to 20 cubic meters of firewood. Now we will try to figure out how to calculate the required stock without an online calculator. We will take as a basis the efficiency of the heating device - 70%. We take a house with a standard ceiling height of 2.8 m. Heated area - 100 m2... Heat loss of walls, floor and ceiling is minimal. The heat released during the combustion of any fuel is measured in kilocalories. To heat the house taken for example for a month, you need to get 3095.4 kcal.
To achieve this result, you must:
- birch logs with a moisture content of 20% after a year of storage in a shed - up to 1.7 m3;
- freshly cut birch logs have a moisture content of 50%, and they need about 2.8 m3;
- dry oak firewood needs about 1.6 m3;
- oak logs with 50% moisture will need up to 2.6 m3;
- pine logs with a moisture content of 20% - no more than 2.1 m3;
- firewood from wet pine - about 3.4 m3.
For the calculations, the most common varieties of trees were taken. Using this data, you can find out how much firewood you need to chop. If the harvested mass of solid fuel is consumed earlier than the expected time, it means that the heat loss of the building is high or the heating device has a low efficiency.
Optimal time of the year for procurement work
Harvesting firewood for the winter is more than just cutting down a tree and chopping it into logs. It is necessary to provide optimal storage conditions to ensure good drying of the wood. In addition, you need to know that the most optimal time of the year for these works is the end of autumn and the beginning of winter. But the weather should not be rainy. The choice of such a period is due to the following factors:
- cutting down trees without foliage is easier;
- after the first frost, the chocks are easier to split;
- in late autumn, the movement of sap stops, which allows you to get wood with a lower percentage of moisture.
The entire forest cut down at this time of the year is cut into pieces, chopped, and the logs are sent for long drying until next autumn. You should not immediately throw them into the stove or boiler. Only a lot of soot can be obtained from raw solid fuels, which will settle in the chimney as soot. Logs from last year's harvest are used for heating. They will give off maximum heat and minimum smoke. New firewood will be used next year. For the logs to dry well, it is important to provide good ventilation and protection from precipitation.
The video shows the process of harvesting firewood:
When harvesting firewood, it is not necessary to cut the forest yourself. After all, then these logs still have to be transported home. There are many companies that provide this service. For very lazy people, hired workers can split the logs into lumps. In this case, own labor costs will decrease, but the cost of solid fuel will increase.
