We bought a large rural home 2 years ago and it has a wood boiler for primary heat. The local boiler dealer is also a tree removal guy and I get truckloads of wood delivered each fall; 3-1/2 cord loads of 9' trunks, some 4" spindles and some 36" dia. Species is mixed. Some is seasoned and some not.
I had never run a saw before that first fall, picked up a new MS290 and swapped out for a 20" bar right away. So far so good - I get excited to get out & make some cuts when the sun starts going down early and the air gets cool at night.
My questions are related to paying for the wood and how much I'm going through.
1. When we started, the wood guy charged me $40 a cord delivered. This year it went up to $50. I didn't think this was too bad until I started reading a bunch of the discussions on this site and realize that there are a lot of people out there that are getting theirs for free. However, the advantage for me is that he brings it out with his crane truck and sets it in neat piles on dunnage about 6 feet from my stack. All I have to do is walk outside, fire up the saw, and dump my rounds off the end, then stack them up. I have no heavy equipment (pickup, trailer, etc.) so this works great for me. My OWB has a 20"x30" door so I don't have to split at all.
2. Multiple sources say that for my climate and square footage, they'd expect about 10-12 chord a winter. We have a 1975 era 2 story house (a little over 3000sf). Full exposure - no trees to block wind. The boiler runs 2 recirc lines to 2 furnaces, one up & one down. We keep the thermostat at 72 or less, and while average winter temps are 8 degrees F, we do get at least one two week snap every year with temps -10F or lower. Last year I blasted through my 12 cords between Nov.1 and April 1. This year I'm planning 15 cord.
Even 15 cord at $50 we are less than $1000 for the heating season and propane would cost me three times that easily.
I had never run a saw before that first fall, picked up a new MS290 and swapped out for a 20" bar right away. So far so good - I get excited to get out & make some cuts when the sun starts going down early and the air gets cool at night.
My questions are related to paying for the wood and how much I'm going through.
1. When we started, the wood guy charged me $40 a cord delivered. This year it went up to $50. I didn't think this was too bad until I started reading a bunch of the discussions on this site and realize that there are a lot of people out there that are getting theirs for free. However, the advantage for me is that he brings it out with his crane truck and sets it in neat piles on dunnage about 6 feet from my stack. All I have to do is walk outside, fire up the saw, and dump my rounds off the end, then stack them up. I have no heavy equipment (pickup, trailer, etc.) so this works great for me. My OWB has a 20"x30" door so I don't have to split at all.
2. Multiple sources say that for my climate and square footage, they'd expect about 10-12 chord a winter. We have a 1975 era 2 story house (a little over 3000sf). Full exposure - no trees to block wind. The boiler runs 2 recirc lines to 2 furnaces, one up & one down. We keep the thermostat at 72 or less, and while average winter temps are 8 degrees F, we do get at least one two week snap every year with temps -10F or lower. Last year I blasted through my 12 cords between Nov.1 and April 1. This year I'm planning 15 cord.
Even 15 cord at $50 we are less than $1000 for the heating season and propane would cost me three times that easily.
