Stove pipe exit--cooking

[hierony]

Last year the region was covered in smoke for about a week or two from forest fires. I think I should do my part to keep those down

You wouldn't believe the number of brush piles that are around here. There's at least three piles on the 5 acres where I'm at right now, plus lots of trees needing a little trimming. There's at least one giant pile between here and work, and I'm sure there's many more stashed away that I suspect would be free for the hauling. My (very rough) estimates for wood fuel for cooking were about 1/2 cord each year.

Hmm. Jafo's estimates for annual usage probably aren't that far off for cooking only. The small propane tanks hold ~20 lbs/4-5 gallons; standard residential tanks are usually 500 gallons. Looking up annual usage, the US avg is ~450 gal; a two-person household uses 499 gal; a home <500 sq ft uses 176 gal. At $3.50/gal, that's $600-1800 each year. Mind you these numbers probably include cooking, space heating, and water heating, plus refrigeration & AC in some places. For just cooking, the numbers I found were 50 gal/year or $80-120/year.

But I'm hoping to top out at 3 cords total yearly wood usage at most (~$600 around here) for cooking & space heating; if

insulation

is good enough and I've the right type of stove, maybe just 1 cord for space heating (pretty optimistic, I know).