House Heating and Fuel Use
Heating:
Heating is done by heat zones. It provides a rough approximation of the square feet a specific heat source can provide its full benefits to.
Campfire:
-100 square feet. +1 temperature zone.
-1 cord of wood per week.
-May use coal/charcoal.
Fire pit:
-100 square feet. +2 temperature zone.
-300 square feet. +1 temperature zone.
-2 cord of wood per week.
-May use coal/charcoal.
Fireplace:
Fireplaces may be used as the primary heating source of a home, or as a supplemental heating source. Either way they require an enclosed space to provide their full benefit. If the ruins of a fireplace are used then their heating level is reduced to that of a campfire, or fire pit depending on the size of the fire place.
A fireplace may be designed with the ability to control airflow to the fire. Most fireplaces have restricted airflow and statistics below reflect that. If airflow is set to unrestricted then fuel consumption is doubled but so is the temperature zone.
A fireplace may heat an area twice the size it is rated for. However, its temperature zone is reduced by half. Keep track of fractions. Likewise a fireplace may be oversized for the area it is to warm if its heating size is at least 2x the square feet of the area it covers. This doubles the temperature zone.
Small Fire Place:
-1000 square feet. +1 temperature zone.
-Uses 0.5 cord of wood per week.
Medium Fire Place:
-1000 square feet. +2 temperature zone.
-1500 square feet. +1 temperature zone.
-Uses 1 cord of wood per week.
Large Fire Place:
-1500 square feet. +2 temperature zone.
-2000 square feet. +1 temperature zone.
-Uses 1.5 cords of wood per week.
Stove:
Modern stoves are usually poor space heaters because they are designed and insolated to minimize heat transfer from inside to outside. However, there are some stoves that are designed to double as space heaters.
Small Stove:
-100 square feet. +1 temperature zone.
-0.5 cord of wood per week.
-150lb of coal/charcoal per week.
Large Cooking Stove:
-100 square feet. +2 temperature zone.
-300 square feet. +1 temperature zone.
-1 cord of wood per week.
-300lb of coal/charcoal per week.
Boiler Furnace:
Boiler furnaces are designed to heat a specific number of square feet. In some cases they were designed as supplementary heaters. In these cases it was assumed that occupants would utilize fireplaces, space heaters, and clothing to fill in the caps. A boiler with an appropriate number of radiators provides its full benefit to the square footage it is rated at. It can provide half this to areas twice as large, and one third to areas three times as large. Keep track of fractions.
Inefficient Boiler:
The pro of an inefficient boiler is that it isn't overly complicated to design, build, or expensive to purchase. The con is it goes through fuel like the US Government goes through tax payer dollars. However, unlike the US Government it can't function on a deficit.
+3 to heat zone. Double fuel cost of standard.
Standard Boiler:
This boiler is designed to regulate air flow to fuel and has some kind of electrical or mechanical mechanism to monitor temperature within the residence. This allows for it have a feedback loop to increase or decrease air flow to the fuel as needed conserving fuel.
+3 to heat zone.
-1.5 cord of wood per 2000 square feet, or 600lb coal per week.
Efficient Boiler:
Like the standard boiler in most ways; however, it has mechanisms to monitor temperature within multiple temperature zones inside the residence and steam valves that allow the boiler to direct heat where it is most needed. This allows the boiler to conserve fuel and last longer.
+3 to heat zone
-1 cord of wood per 2000 square feet, or 400lb coal per week.
Wood:
A cord of wood is 128 cubic feet of firewood stacked 4 feet wide, 4 feet tall, and 8 feet long. Typically 70% of this volume is actual wood. A typical cord of wood will weigh between 2600lbs and 3200lb (average 2900lbs) depending many factors (whether wood is wet, dry, and how it is cut). Firewood will usually be sold by the cord or some fraction of that.
Coal/Charcoal:
Coal and Charcoal are usually measured by weight. For simplicity pounds. It will normally burn longer, and hotter then wood. Purely as a heating fuel it takes approximately one tenth (1/10, or 0.1) the weight in coal to heat a space or fuel a furnace as wood. However, coal/charcoal is not an appropriate fuel for everything. Ex: It is unsafe to burn coal in a fireplace since most cannot handle the heat generated by coal/charcoal, and the amount carbon monoxide generated is much higher.
Ghost Rock:
Ghost Rock (GR) is to coal/charcoal what coal/charcoal is to wood when it comes to heating space. An equivalent weight in coal will last ten times (x10) longer then coal or charcoal. Additionally, Ghost Rock will double the temperature zone and half again to the heating area. However, this fact makes Ghost Rock extremely dangerous to use as a heating source. Whereas coal or charcoal could be used in a campfire, or fire pit it would unsafe to use ghost rock do to the ghost rock vapor given off by ghost rock as it burns. While this wouldn't necessarily be a problem in a stove or furnace the heat would be. Unless the stove or furnace is manufactured to handle ghost rock (made of extremely thick steel, ghost steel, or futuristic alloys) it will quickly begin to melt.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:30, Fri 07 Jan 2022.