I know it is several months away but I know most of you have started working on your wood supply for the winter.

I personally like wood heat because I don't need to have power to run my stove.  This gives me peace of mind because of the Maine winters and the treat of power outages.  However, it can be a major pain. It makes a mess in the house and you have to keep adding wood to it every 2-3hours.

As I said I currently heat with wood but am open to any other heating sources.  My wife and I would prefer to switch to NG or propane.  But, there is no NG line by our house and won't be for awhile and propane prices change to much for my liking.  You also have to have a tank (yeah I know it is a first world problem).

So, after doing some research I have started to look into coal heat.  Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

As for current prices oil, wood, wood pellets, and coal all are similar in prices if you have to buy it ready to go.  From what I cant tell the cost difference is in the convenience.

if you were in or closer to the midwest I would bring up corn heaters I like the heat they give off. and corn prices blow right now so it may be reasonable

I have had wood as main form of heat in the past and it was supplemented by NG. Never would even want to try heating off wood only. Especially in ME.

I would get a tank and have propane personally. Several family members do it and they just contract it out at the beginning of the winter.

Other option is baseboard hot water heat with an electric water heater. It would supplement nicely.

The Farmers Cooperative has an oil burner and they just use all the motor oil from oil changes.

When I had a small apartment in Utah, I just put a Crockpot on every morning and it heated my apartment enough. Then I had dinner when I got home. You'd be surprised how much heat one of those little suckers puts off in a small room.

I grew up in a house with coal heat, and lived in another with coal heat about another 10 years.
It is good heat, pretty affordable, and once you get used to it, you only have to tend to the stove about every 12 hours if you have a good stove.
The downside is dirt, not just dust, but a almost greasy dirt that covers everything, and gets everywhere.
I have went away from it, and hope to never go back, just because of constantly battling the dirtyness of it.

We heat with wood as well. We do have oil heat but try not to use it as oil can be expensive. Two years ago oil prices were crazy, something like $5.00 a gallon so we decided it was better to upgrade one of our woodstoves. We have a very good woodstove in the basement but upstairs in the living room we had a fireplace insert that needed to have the blower going constantly to put out any measurable amount of heat. That same year we had a few power outages and although I have multiple generators, it was unnerving to have to rely on them for basic heat. I decided that the insert had to go and we got a Jotul F55 stove installed upstairs. Since we made that one change, we have not really had to use the oil heat. Yes we turn it on every once in a while because sometimes I just need a break from loading the woodstove and last year oil prices had dropped dramatically. We burn approximately 4-5 cords every winter to heat out home. I have an abundant supply of firewood as we have approximately 80 acres of woods. The new stove can easily get by with loading it only a few times a day. I typically start it once at night and load it all the way, it will still be putting out heat by morning when I again reload it fully. Typically we will throw a few pieces in at around 2- 4pm during the day and that will keep the house warm until the night time reload. I don't know what kind of stove you have but if you have an older stove, I would consider an upgrade to a newer EPA stove. One thing to consider is that they need DRY wood to operate efficiently. Typically the older stoves would burn anything. The newer ones are very picky but with the right wood (hardwood, low moisture content) they are much better heaters that require less frequent reloads.
Just my two cents.
Where in Maine are you located?

I've done wood, electric, propane, oil, and my uncle does coal.


Wood is great IMHO, but requires work. I would not get rid of your wood solution, but I like redundancy, especially in a part of the country where winter can kill you.




Oil is expensive.




Propane is cheaper than oil.




ANY fossil fuel (other than NG) swings wildly.




My uncle liked coal, but it was very messy he says.




We have off-peak electric. Its niiiice.






So if I were building a new house, I would have a central furnace that ran on propane (NG if available) with electric plenum setup with off-peak, non-electric vent-less propane heaters hard lined in every key room for backup, and a wood stove in a central location for backup to the backup.




A lot of folks around here have a corn burner in ADDITION to propane, and use it when corn prices are low, like now. I have a relative who farms that uses corn, the only reason he says he does it its cheaper for him to grow corn, wouldn't pay off if he had to buy it like everybody else. I don't know how good his numbers are, but that is his report. Me, I'd skip screwing with corn and just keep a wood stove operational.


 

I'n in Northern VA, so a little bit warmer than you. I currently have NG firing a boiler that has radiant baseboard heaters, an AC heat pump, and wood fireplaces (masonry).  




I'm currently designing my retirement home on 40 mostly wooded acres between the Appalachian Trail and Skyline Drive.  The site has electric, but nothing else.  

Ive decided that redundancy is the way to go with my new build.  I'm going with Passive solar ICF construction (poured concrete between over sized Styrofoam Lego-type blocks which are left to insulate) with larger souther facing windows to warm the interior thermal mass during the winter.  Porch overhangs will shade the windows during summer during the higher sun angle months.  

I will go with a mix of supplementary heat sources.  I will have a propane fired boiler running heated water/antifreeze through pipes/tubing under the floor.  I will also use the propane for gas range, hot water, clothes drier, small Kohler backup generator, and piped to a gas grill on the patio.  I plan to oversize the tank, hopefully buried underground, sized big enough to need to fill it only once per year.  That way I can fill the tank up in the summers, or whenever prices are lowest.

As primary backup, I will have a new fireplace insert in a masonry wall.  It is 90% for the ambiance, but the masonry will be a heat sink/radiator for the passive solar, and the fireplace will help keep the propane usage down.  I have a unlimited supply of hardwood trees on the acreage, and will have a couple years supply cut and dry as a backup.  I may also put in an old fashioned wood oven/cook stove in the corner of the kitchen, usable but seldom used--again for the ambiance.  Primary will be the gas range and electric oven)

I also have 4 kerosene heaters I picked up cheap/free at garage sales.  In a pinch I plan on using them as spot heaters if anything goes awry with the others plans.  For big snowstorms, I will use them in the big metal barn/shed/greenhouse to keep the snow melting as it hits the roofs, to keep the weight loads from collapsing the structures.  (A couple of years ago, Dulles International Airport had hangars collapse and multiple planes crushed after one of our bigger Nor'easters.  I'd hate for that to happen on my tractor or shop.)





All this is overkill, but I am planning for my grid tie system to be able to easily go off grid in emergencies without impacting my daily quality of life.






 

you need a new stove. I burn wood. I fill it twice a day, when i get up  and before I go to bed. I heat 3600 sq ft. The new stoves are very good. My chimney does not even smoke. The stove recycles the smoke and burns it too.

I will second the "get a good stove" comment. While in many cases the mandates implemented by the EPA are typically empty, the mandates on wood-burning appliances have really brought about some serious changes for the good.

I'm heading toward my 6th winter heating 4,000 sf with a singly zero clearance fireplace, EPA rated of course. And it really doesn't take that much wood. Last year was probably the best, I burned only 2 cords. My worst winter was nearly 5 cords but that winter I was doing a lot of work in the garage so I opened the door to the house a lot to get heat out there.

I will say that if you think the mess of wood is bad, don't even think about coal. At least the mess with wood is easily cleaned up, coal dust will stain things black/gray and it's much worse for your health. As already stated, it's a trade-off, cost vs. work. Coal is more expensive than wood, but bagged coal does lend to more convenience (at a higher cost). My brother bought a house with a coal stove in it, he installed a wood boiler and kept the stove for ambiance and supplemental heat only.

Lastly, it's nearly August and you're just now starting to talk about your wood supply for this winter? You might be doing it wrong. The simple fact of the matter is that seasoned wood burns more efficient, ESPECIALLY in an EPA stove. My wood for this winter was cut/split/stacked in 2014. Oak takes 2-3 years to properly season, hickory, 2 years. Those are FULL years. If you live in a wet climate add a year, dry climate, take off 6 months.There are a few species that can be fully seasoned in a single year, but they are marginal at that point. Proper planning...

We actually have two wood stoves but really only use one. (they are both Vermont casting resolute models)  My biggest complaint is that it does not keep the temp very even.  One min you are feeling a chill and then standing there in your boxers.  I did manage to keep it even but the creosote built up is terrible.  I really just need to keep the stove at 300-400 and 500ish when it is sub zero.  On other thing my house has is a huge solar gain on sunny days.  And on those days we can usually let the fire go out.

We don't really use the other one much because it is not as close to the living area.  Mud room actually.  I was thinking of doing coal back there to try it out.

I am in Lebanon ME.  We actually have a coal guy about 5 miles from my house.  I have not talked to him yet.

That is not a bad idea to look into a new stove.  I do buy wood at least a season ahead.  Right now I have over 8 cord in my yard.  4 for this winter and 4 drying for next.

For my situation I need to buy wood.  I can get it log length for roughly $100 a cord but have to buy 8-10 at a time.  Then I have to cut and split it. (a little here and there is fine but it is going to get old)  Or I can get it all ready split for $225 (unseasoned) or more depending on who has it available.  So, from what I am calculating, it is a toss up between coal and wood.  I also would like to diversify my heating options.

You mean your not 2 years ahead on dry wood??

 

If it isn't in your way, sure.


Cap the chimney, if you have a safe way to do so. Oil the stove(yes, will smoke when you use it until the oil burns off)

Oil the combustion area that is. Keep it from rusting.
 

Eta; from a survival standpoint. Your stove should have outside air intake. Otherwise the stove pulls warm air from the room for combustion, which goes out the chimney, which is replaced by vold outside air that has to get in your house past cracks and gaps.

I would go with propane if it were me for convenience and the conventional use of the fuel for heating. Requires minimum power to run a furnace so a generator would keep it running.  Biggest downside is propane prices are volatile.  The disadvantage of the tank could be turned into an advantage if you bought a bigger tank, you could run the generator off it during a power outage.

The topic of outside air intakes is interesting. There are a number of people posting on line including some stove companies who are opposed to outside air intakes. I still don't understand the reasoning though. I just installed an England Stove Works Madison stove. Won't fire it up till the fall though so can't say how well it works yet. I installed an outside air system because from my reasoning it only makes sense to feed it outside air.  My house is also pretty tight so it might well need it to work properly. I'm connecting it to a triple wall chimney with double wall connector pipe. This chimney hasn't been cheap but I feel comfortable that it's safe.

The oiling is for storage. Not needed if you use it regularly.

 

I think my Grandfather made me OCD about keeping things from rusting though . On a stove that was going to sit, I would completely clean it out to like new type clean and give it a light coat of oil to keep it that way.

For your new stove, did you first run it outside for its initial burn? If you don't, it will smell up your house while everything cures. Won't be the end of the world, but I believe most manufacturers still recommend the first burn in be outside.

 



Outside air intake CAN cause a draft issue, especially on a shorter chimney, and on some stoves. But as long as its a short pipe with minimal sharp bends, there is no reason to NOT use outside air. If a stove company was opposed to outside air intake, I would seriously look into their company before buying one of their stoves. I imagine they did not bother to re-engineer their stoves for outside air and are just running old technology. Easier to send people online to bash outside air than to pony up and make new, more efficient stoves.




 

Not sure if things are the same in your area, but here if you fill your propane tank around August, the prices are usually lower.

I researched outside air kits extensively. There are so many opinions on it that it made my head spin. Interestingly, lots of stove makers recommend that if you are having a problem with the stove drafting that you crack a window to draw in air....a problem that an outside air kit would fix. Doesn't make sense to me. I finally decided that it only made sense to install outside air hookup.  Plus, my stove is set up.for outside air anyway.

I didn't fire it up outside. I know it's going to smoke when I light it. I'm going to wait for a slightly cool day in Oct, open all the windows in the house, and light it. Should be ok. The triple stainless chimney is 21 ft tall IIRC, straight up with no bends, and it is above the tallest point of the roofline. It already drafts well. I held a torch in it this past winter and as it warmed up I could feel the draft becoming even stronger.

Exactly. Maybe you can get away with stuff like that in the lower half of the US, but when its -20 and 35mph winds, the last thing I'm doing when NOT trying to freeze to death is OPENING THE WINDOW.

 

I think you will enjoy your outside air kit.

I have a Harman TL3.0. (Without going home and looking at model #) It is a downdraft stove which some people hate and some love. I am in the love camp, after a season of learning the stove when i first got it. I have burned it 24/7 for the last 4 winters. I would have gotton a Blaze King that is capable of approx 20 hour burns,,,but i have a 6 inch flue and the big king needs an 8 inch. There are many stoves out there that will do long hot burn times now.

Good place to research and ask questions is http://www.hearth.com/talk/. Them boys get into it hard! As it gets closer to fall the traffic on that wood burning forum gets thick. Lots of knowledge over there.