Paying for firewood

[Sassafras]

Does anyone that primarily heats with wood buy their wood (cut, split, seasoned) ? I would be curious if anyone could heat with wood cheaper than other methods if you paid for the wood.
I acquire my own wood and labor myself to heat the winter months, but I can burn as much as a stack (4x8x18) per week when its our coldest. That would be about 4 times our monthly gas bill. Just curious, Enjoy the winter.

 

[Circle B MN]

That comes to 1.5 cords in a month and wood @$150 per cord would cost $2.25.

$225.00 divided by 4 equals $56.25


Somehow I doubt you can heat your house with gas during your coldest month for 56.25.

Just working the math.

Actually there are 4.3 weeks per month, making the cost $52.33

 

[Streblerm]

That comes to 1.5 cords in a month and wood @$150 per cord would cost $2.25.

$225.00 divided by 4 equals $56.25


Somehow I doubt you can heat your house with gas during your coldest month for 56.25.

Just working the math.

I am in about the same position as the OP. He is burning a "rick" of wood per week in the cold months. So, the cost is more like $56 per week, not per month if you are paying $150 per cord and a cord equals 3 "ricks".

I did the math last year. I burned somewhere between 6-7 cords of wood, all scrounged. If I'd have bought 7 cords it would come out to a little over $1000. I probably saved $1200-1500 on my electric bill versus the prior year of not burning wood. Then you should probably factor in a minimum of 20 min per day of extra work. You tend the fire and haul wood, clean ashes and the mess from the stove. That works out to 50 hours of work between Nov. and Mar. So, at $1000 for wood and a weeks worth of labor, I would be almost exactly where I would be by just cranking up the heat pump. Man I almost talked myself out of burning.

Luckily I like scrounging and handling wood. I like burning stuff. I enjoy keeping the house warmer than I would with the heatpump and so does my wife.

Bottom line for me, If I were paying for wood, I might as well pay for electricity. I suspect the going rate for wood is directly related to the cost of heating with other fuels. If it were dramatically cheaper, everyone would do it. If it was way more expensive, nobody would do it.

 

[RacerX]

It really depends on what the other fuel is that you're comparing to wood. For natural gas I spend about $1100 per year for heat, hot water, stove top, oven, clothes dryer and gas barbecue. It's so cheap that buying and using wood would likely cost more money not to mention the amount of time involved.

 

[stint]

That sure is about as cheap as it gets in our part of the world.

May we assume that you have a very well insulated, efficient, and compact home ?.

You are also quoting natural gas hot water baseboard prices ??

 

[RacerX]

That sure is about as cheap as it gets in our part of the world.

May we assume that you have a very well insulated, efficient, and compact home ?.

You are also quoting natural gas hot water baseboard prices ??

Yes, about 2000 sq ft house. Good windows, HW baseboard and radiant HW heat, newer boiler, indirect fired HWH, 13" of insulation in attic, Tyvek wrap. Tight house.

 

[branchbuzzer]

compare here:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/experts/heatcalc.xls

input values for your area

 

[mga]

That comes to 1.5 cords in a month and wood @$150 per cord would cost $2.25.

$225.00 divided by 4 equals $56.25


Somehow I doubt you can heat your house with gas during your coldest month for 56.25.

Just working the math.

that depends on how much wood you burn in one month.

if, during the winter, you go thru, say, 6 cords of wood, at $75 per face cord, or, $225 per cord, that would be a total of $1350 for the winter.

assuming the "winter" months run dec thru march, that is 4 months of burning. so, about $340 per month. i can heat my home for less using my gas fired boiler.

then, if you spent say, $10 to 15 grand on an OWB (not installed yourself) you would have to wait a few years to enjoy the pay off.

 

[bayard]

wood boiler

it takes about 6 cords to heat my house from late nov to early apr.i have a wood oil boiler.works great.i would use 600 to 700 gals of fuel oil. and if i need to use the oil it comes on automatically.i still can not uderstand why anyone would use a owb. k

 

[Circle B MN]

it takes about 6 cords to heat my house from late nov to early apr.i have a wood oil boiler.works great.i would use 600 to 700 gals of fuel oil. and if i need to use the oil it comes on automatically.i still can not uderstand why anyone would use a owb. k

My OWB uses six cord to heat my 2500 sqft home from October till May. I only use gas to cook with....

 

[Ductape]

All I know is....... (and this is ALL I know) you sure can't get a cord of wood delivered around here for $150. Its double that for seasoned hardwood.

 

[hawken08]

I buy my wood. just a little break down.

I buy 25 face cord a year at 38.00 which eguals to 950.00. I heat with wood from late october till the 1st week of april.

If i were to use propane i would need 1400-1600 gallons a year at 1.89. so that total being in the area of around 3000 a year. I have a tri-level home with 7 people in it. with average insulation.

the saving for me is 2 grand a year. I spent 10 grand on my OWB installed. my return on investment is 5 years.

 

[hossmp2500]

I dont have any exact figurers. However, when I first bought my house in 2004 and remodeled it I was not cutting wood. I was also not keeping it that warm as I was not living there just working nights and weekends. Once I moved in a year latter I didnt have any wood cut or seasoned. I bought enough wood to suppliment my heat. It was not cheap in my area either. I recall it was around 200 for split and seasoned. Right now I still just suppliment my heating with wood. Basically I heat to about 55 degrees or so and then when I am home at night I heat it the rest of the way with wood. I am sure there are more efficient ways but this works for me at the time.

 

[bikeralan]

Guess we are lucky to live in Michigans northwoods. I can a 10 cord pulp load from 60-85 per cord.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

That works out to 50 hours of work between Nov. and Mar.

You can't really count your hours as value unless you're actually handling wood instead of working for money. For me, I'm handling wood instead of posting here or watching TV.

Ian

 

[boda65]

Luckily I like scrounging and handling wood. I like burning stuff. I enjoy keeping the house warmer than I would with the heatpump and so does my wife.

That is the key right there. I can't directly compare savings with wood versus propane, because with wood, my home is much warmer and more comfortable than with propane. To keep my house this warm with propane, it would cost a bloody fortune.
Like most say, if you are buying the wood, probably not much, if any savings. IMHO, you have to enjoy the acquisiton and processing of firewood, and the associated labor and time requirements and additional cleaning (ashes and creosote in the stove, dirt and dust in the house) that is required.

 

[Streblerm]

You can't really count your hours as value unless you're actually handling wood instead of working for money. For me, I'm handling wood instead of posting here or watching TV.

Ian

Anymore, time doing nothing is priceless. My downtime is certainly worth $10 an hour.

I didn't even add some of the other costs of burning wood. My wife would #### a brick if she knew what I spent on chainsaws last year, although I am getting ahead of the curve on that one. I am a little more selective about what I buy now. I am pretty well stocked on consumables. I guess any one of the several saws I bought last year probably would've done all my firewood cutting.

How many of us maintain a vehicle primarily for firewood? I do. Trailer? check. Splitter, tractor, bobcat, etc? Eventually. High end, ultra efficient stove? I may eventually get tired of feeding the dragon. Granted lots of those things have other uses, but the costs add up.

For me, the rewards of burning wood are best enjoyed when the wood came in by my labor alone. I would rather spend the money on "tools" than energy. Every dollar you save burning "free wood" is really more like $1.25 because the money you spend on fuel comes after taxes.

Again, If I had to pay for wood, I think I would just sit back and pay "the man" as I suspect there really is no gain in paying for wood vs any other fuel.

 

[D&B Mack]

going rate around here for me is $175. If I was buying my own wood @ that price, it would have been a wash before the rates increased, but now it is definitely cheaper for wood. People I sell to say it saves them money, mostly people with OWB's and stoves/furnaces. Never really hear that from people with just fireplaces or even inserts (which is the way I heat).

 

[pipehead]

Where are you guys getting this $150 per cord wood from? It's easily $240 around here.
Back to the original post - there are too many variables to say for sure, depending on your
unique situation. I buy a tandem load of 8' (7-8 cords) at $125 per cord, plus about 4-5 cords that I cut myself. This lasts two years. In my case it costs about $550 per year to heat the house from Oct - May. The previous owner of the home was paying about $3500 - $4000 per year in oil. So yeah, it's quite a bit cheaper.

 

[Streblerm]

Somebody posted a link to a nice energy cost spreadsheet earlier in this thread. I suspect that the price of wood is largely dictated by the regional price and availability of fuel.

Currently natural gas at $6-7 per MCF is readily available around here. That is less than the same amount of BTUs from wood at $150 per cord assuming you have a 96% furnace. You can buy wood around me for $150 per cord all day long.

When you get into areas where NG isn't available, wood at $300 per cord is cheaper than propane or fuel oil at $2.50 per gallon in an 80% furnace.

I don't know the going rate for those fuels, but what I do know is that I should've put in a natural gas backup furnace for my geothermal heatpump.