This is the first winter that we’ve heated our home with the super high efficiency Central Boiler outdoor wood boiler that we purchased back in 2008. We turned off the oil tank and heated both our hot water and home with this furnace since October of last fall. We’re estimating that we used about six cords of wood over the winter. The wood we burned was a real mix. Spruce, oak, birch, and whatever was already downed in the woods. We don’t have a wood splitter so we tossed 18″ to 24″ logs and let them do their thing. What a TREAT is was to have nice warm floors with our radiant heat without envisioning dollar bills burning every time the oil burned kicked on!

We were not particularly prepared to heat our home all winter with wood. While we had a few nice stacks of wood ready to go, we spent many weekends throughout the winter cutting more wood to keep up with our needs. Hopefully we’ll be better prepared for next winter as we clear land for our vegetable garden and Paul’s workshop.