Buying logs and selling firewood

[SpaceBus]

There are modern clean burning wood boilers that don't consume loads and loads of wood every year. A boiler with storage can even make it so you only have one fire per day. I don't have a boiler myself, but I love reading the boiler threads in the Hearth forums. We plan on building a barn and greenhouse heated with a small natural draft gassification boiler. If you can get 3+ years ahead on firewood a gassification boiler with storage will burn 30-50% less wood than a conventional wood boiler. There are guys with old school boilers using seasoned wood and storage burning 10-20% less wood per season. Your wood burning appliance doesn't have to look like an industrial smoke stack.

 

[muddstopper]

OWB are a personal choice. I have a different view about them than most it seems. Personally, I think burning wood in the summertime just to have hot water is a waste of resources. A solar water heater will give excellent hot water in the summer and doesnt require running a chainsaw to make it work. A solar collector is a one time investment that has a very fast payback. Burning wood is something that always has to be replaced so it is a ongoing expense. A properly sized solar water heater will supply all the hot water one needs in the winter also. At least I think that's true for my area and I have checked temps of solar collectors in Jan and Feb and found it to be true. Maine might not have the same results. As I get older, I find cutting wood to be tedious at best. I will always have a wood stove in my house. I have had to many instances of the power being off for days and I like staying warm. While I plan on having a wood stove, that doesn't mean I want to keep it fed. Anything I can do to reduce the amount of wood needed to heat my house, I am all for.

 

[SpaceBus]

OWB are a personal choice. I have a different view about them than most it seems. Personally, I think burning wood in the summertime just to have hot water is a waste of resources. A solar water heater will give excellent hot water in the summer and doesnt require running a chainsaw to make it work. A solar collector is a one time investment that has a very fast payback. Burning wood is something that always has to be replaced so it is a ongoing expense. A properly sized solar water heater will supply all the hot water one needs in the winter also. At least I think that's true for my area and I have checked temps of solar collectors in Jan and Feb and found it to be true. Maine might not have the same results. As I get older, I find cutting wood to be tedious at best. I will always have a wood stove in my house. I have had to many instances of the power being off for days and I like staying warm. While I plan on having a wood stove, that doesn't mean I want to keep it fed. Anything I can do to reduce the amount of wood needed to heat my house, I am all for.

Most people with OWB units don't use them in the summer to heat their water. Generally OWB systems are tied into existing oil/gas boiler systems which heat the domestic hot water load. Some folks even use electric in the summer. My house actually does have a solar water heater, but they are now obsolete. Even the evacuated tube collectors are not as efficient as a heat pump water heater with solar panels.

 

[muddstopper]

Right now the only energy credit the local power company gives you is for the heat pump hot water heater. They discontinued everything else Dec 31, 2018. I just checked. I don't think they have to be tied to a solar panel to get the credit.

I don't see how a diy solar water heater can be considered obsolete. I know you can buy all kinds of solar collectors, some more efficient than others, but cost has to fit in there somewhere. I know a homemade 4ftx4ft solar heater with a 40gal storage tank will supply enough hot water for a family of 4, but that is in my area, might not be true in your area. As long as the solar heater can supply all your hot water heater needs, then I wouldn't consider it obsolete. The cost to build such a solar heater is minimal. I spent about $60 building my wood fired water heater and it paid for itself in the first month. That heat pump water heater cost about $4k and cost money everyday to operate. Considering I could cover my entire roof with a solar collector I can possibly use a radiant heating system and heat my entire house using solar. I haven't done the math yet so I don't know the cost or payback time involved.

 

[SpaceBus]

I'm saying the roof top collectors are less energy efficient than using PV panels and a heat pump water heater. My house already has a collector, so that's what I'm going with in addition to other sources. There's a lot more data available on this topic, and I don't feel the need to post it all here. Obsolete does not mean it doesn't work or no longer functions. There are just more efficient options now.

 

[rarefish383]

I skipped over everything from about page 3. I am from a 4th generation Residential Tree Service. I always loved lawn work, and I liked firewood. I used to try and talk Dad into starting a lawn division, and I figured the wood could carry it through the winter. He was quite blunt on the subject. When he retired our 3 and 4 man crews were making 2-4,000 dollars a day. To put on a yard/wood crew he would have to buy another dump truck, trailer, splitters and hire 3-4 men. A yard crew would be hard put to bring in $750-$1000 a day. So, if he was going to hire 3-4 men, buy a new dump truck, he would just buy another chipper and put on another tree crew and make 3-4 times as much money. If you have dozers, loaders, skidders and access to straight logs to sell to a processor, you can make money too. If you have processors and get all logs that will run through your equipment, you can make money too. Firewood is the absolute low end of residential tree work. All of your trees are different size yard trees, few nice straight trunks, or too big for most processors. You can make some money on it, but you make a lot of money on the other stuff. As Choppy and Ted said, there are too many variables. We live in the Mid Atlantic area. Winters are mild enough that we had work booked all the way through. I sold firewood, but the business did not. There was just too much money to be made at what we were licensed and insured to do, to waste time on the low end of the business. Around here still, the only tree companies that mess with wood are new start ups, or unlicensed hacks, that don't have any clientele base

 

[muddstopper]

I'm saying the roof top collectors are less energy efficient than using PV panels and a heat pump water heater. My house already has a collector, so that's what I'm going with in addition to other sources. There's a lot more data available on this topic, and I don't feel the need to post it all here. Obsolete does not mean it doesn't work or no longer functions. There are just more efficient options now.

I'll agree with you to a point. Cost and payback are my big concerns. A good plate exchanger for transferring the heat from your collector cost around $150. If you have to buy a new water heater to use as a storage tank, cost can go up, but I have been able to find good used water heaters for free in the past. Materials to build a collector just depends on how big a collector you want to build. 2x4's. glass, aluminum flashing are not that expensive, copper tubing a little more so. The bigger cost is in the circulation pump needed to move the water from the collector into the storage tank thru the plate exchanger. Of course the pump needs power and what ever method one chooses to supply electricity will determine that cost. Like I said before, I spent $60 building my wood heated water heater. Payback was about a month. Its been installed for several years now and I haven't had to work on it or spend another dime to keep it going. Using a ground mounted collector would eliminate the need for a water pump as hot water could circulate thru convection. This would also eliminate the need for electricity for the pump and further reduce maintenance. My opinion on the heat pump water heaters is that they are expensive, May require maintenance or repairs I cant do myself, they cost electricity ever day they are operating and pay back would be much longer than doing solar. Its not that I don't have some experience (very limited) with the heat pump water heaters. My brother has one, it works. I had to help remove the storage tank and reinstall it during his remodel. It works is about all I can say about that.

 

[SpaceBus]

I'll agree with you to a point. Cost and payback are my big concerns. A good plate exchanger for transferring the heat from your collector cost around $150. If you have to buy a new water heater to use as a storage tank, cost can go up, but I have been able to find good used water heaters for free in the past. Materials to build a collector just depends on how big a collector you want to build. 2x4's. glass, aluminum flashing are not that expensive, copper tubing a little more so. The bigger cost is in the circulation pump needed to move the water from the collector into the storage tank thru the plate exchanger. Of course the pump needs power and what ever method one chooses to supply electricity will determine that cost. Like I said before, I spent $60 building my wood heated water heater. Payback was about a month. Its been installed for several years now and I haven't had to work on it or spend another dime to keep it going. Using a ground mounted collector would eliminate the need for a water pump as hot water could circulate thru convection. This would also eliminate the need for electricity for the pump and further reduce maintenance. My opinion on the heat pump water heaters is that they are expensive, May require maintenance or repairs I cant do myself, they cost electricity ever day they are operating and pay back would be much longer than doing solar. Its not that I don't have some experience (very limited) with the heat pump water heaters. My brother has one, it works. I had to help remove the storage tank and reinstall it during his remodel. It works is about all I can say about that.

The heat pump technology has come a long way. By the time you account for materials, time, and energy, the math is still in favor of using solar panels (pv) to generate electricity to heat water with a heat pump water heater. You are missing the point, but it's ok. I get that the passive system works for you, that's awesome, I have the same thing. When something is obsolete just means there are newer, better, and more efficient replacements. Much as TVs and computers are obsolete the day you buy them.