Brrrrrrr!

[windthrown]

The CB OWB that I set up in southern Oregon at my ex's place paid for itself in less than 5 years after replacing an electric heated hydronic system there. OWB power requirements are minimal; a Taco pump and electronics to control the boiler damper might run all of a dollar or two a month. Electric heating is way more spendy than any type of wood heating appliance that I have installed including wood inserts, wood stoves, or OWBs. Even at 10 cents a KWHr (which is what I pay here), and even if you have to buy the wood (which I do not). I have an electric furnace in my house here, and I have never used it other than to test that it works once a year. Wood stove is far far far cheaper to heat with. I would love to have an OWB and hydronic heating here, but they are banned so it is a moot point.

 

[slowp]

You also need to factor in other costs, like gas for saw and pickup, labor (time), etc. I couldn't justify my wood stove if I did that.

 

[turnkey4099]

You also need to factor in other costs, like gas for saw and pickup, labor (time), etc. I couldn't justify my wood stove if I did that.

I could. I just filled my half empty 350 gal oil tank. $425 and that was at the bottom of the drop in fuel prices. Last filled in 2007. That tank would need filling 2x or more a winter to keep this house warm. Do the math. Main bucking saw is around 20 years old (MS310 bought shortly after they came out) $360 IIRC. "Big saw" (MS361) purchased in early run of them at $600. PU is 89 F150 ($3950) years ago and for sure doesn't owe me anything. Then count the enjoyment of both the heat and the health benefits of making wood. That stove wins hands down.

Harry K

 

[wampum]

Oh, and we are having a heat wave here in the west. Spring has sprung earlier than any other year I can recall in Oregon. My plums are flowering and the bees are going nuts harvesting nectar. It was 56 today. 44 was the low last night. I can only hope we do not get a polar shot and everything freezes, like it should be doing here now.

The wife just told me its suppose to go close to 10 below,I do not like that I like 50,s like you have better.2 Years ago we had really warm weather in March and it got cold again in April.Things really got messed up.My apple trees budded then froze and the spring mushrooms were almost non existent that year. I hope it works out okay for you.Should start to warm up in a couple of weeks here.I really like the four seasons,I am looking forward to spring.Around April we should start seeing the 50,s.

 

[windthrown]

You also need to factor in other costs, like gas for saw and pickup, labor (time), etc. I couldn't justify my wood stove if I did that.

At the ex's ranch the windthrow was always a problem and had to be cleaned up, tree thinning had to be done, and trees had to be cleared so we had more wood than we could burn there, regardless. I have to have a PU truck anyway, and even factoring for the PU, gas and chainsaw costs, my wood here costs me all of about $50 a cord for wood collected off of my property. On my property here I also have had a lot of windthrow this year. Free firewood. Even collecting off property it is cheaper than working, paying HUGE TAXES, and then paying for the electricity with what is left of the paycheck. I also stay in shape instead of being fat behind a desk all day, which I was as an engineer. That nearly killed me with stress and high cholesterol. Cutting and splitting wood with a maul will likely lead to my living 10 years longer.

Beyond that, wood is still cheaper by about a factor of about three over electricity here, even if I pay for Doug fir which I can get delivered here, split and seasoned for $175 for a real cord. A cord of DF has roughly 25 MBTU in energy. Figure my stove has a 70% efficiency, so that results in about $10 per million BTU. Electricity here is cheap, ten cents a KWhr, but even that is equal to $30 per million MTU.

So you are paying about 3x what I am for heat even if I buy the wood. In actuality, you are paying about 9x what I am for heat here, factoring for my gas and other costs. Add income and SS taxes to what you earn to pay for electricity, and you have to earn over 12x what I pay for heat. I burn on average 3 cords of wood a year here, for 52.5 million BTU per year at 70% eff. 52.5 MBTU would cost me $1540 in electricity. I would have to earn about $2,200 before taxes to pay the electric bill. Figuring I can get 1 cord of wood and noodle it in about 6 hours, and split and stack it in another 10 hours, and load it into the stove for few hours more, say 20 hours processing time per cord, or 60 hours total for the wood. That comes out to a whopping $36 an hour in pay for me, untaxed! Even factoring for the other costs of wood to me at $50 a cord, that is still $33 an hour in pre-tax labor.

So you keep the Boardman Coal Plant cranking, and I will burn the wood. Math don't lie.

 

[olyman]

At the ex's ranch the windthrow was always a problem and had to be cleaned up, tree thinning had to be done, and trees had to be cleared so we had more wood than we could burn there, regardless. I have to have a PU truck anyway, and even factoring for the PU, gas and chainsaw costs, my wood here costs me all of about $50 a cord for wood collected off of my property. On my property here I also have had a lot of windthrow this year. Free firewood. Even collecting off property it is cheaper than working, paying HUGE TAXES, and then paying for the electricity with what is left of the paycheck. I also stay in shape instead of being fat behind a desk all day, which I was as an engineer. That nearly killed me with stress and high cholesterol. Cutting and splitting wood with a maul will likely lead to my living 10 years longer.

Beyond that, wood is still cheaper by about a factor of about three over electricity here, even if I pay for Doug fir which I can get delivered here, split and seasoned for $175 for a real cord. A cord of DF has roughly 25 MBTU in energy. Figure my stove has a 70% efficiency, so that results in about $10 per million BTU. Electricity here is cheap, ten cents a KWhr, but even that is equal to $30 per million MTU.

So you are paying about 3x what I am for heat even if I buy the wood. In actuality, you are paying about 9x what I am for heat here, factoring for my gas and other costs. Add income and SS taxes to what you earn to pay for electricity, and you have to earn over 12x what I pay for heat. I burn on average 3 cords of wood a year here, for 52.5 million BTU per year at 70% eff. 52.5 MBTU would cost me $1540 in electricity. I would have to earn about $2,200 before taxes to pay the electric bill. Figuring I can get 1 cord of wood and noodle it in about 6 hours, and split and stack it in another 10 hours, and load it into the stove for few hours more, say 20 hours processing time per cord, or 60 hours total for the wood. That comes out to a whopping $36 an hour in pay for me, untaxed! Even factoring for the other costs of wood to me at $50 a cord, that is still $33 an hour in pre-tax labor.

So you keep the Boardman Coal Plant cranking, and I will burn the wood. Math don't lie.

shes NEVAH wrong.................. thanks...

 

[slowp]

At the ex's ranch the windthrow was always a problem and had to be cleaned up, tree thinning had to be done, and trees had to be cleared so we had more wood than we could burn there, regardless. I have to have a PU truck anyway, and even factoring for the PU, gas and chainsaw costs, my wood here costs me all of about $50 a cord for wood collected off of my property. On my property here I also have had a lot of windthrow this year. Free firewood. Even collecting off property it is cheaper than working, paying HUGE TAXES, and then paying for the electricity with what is left of the paycheck. I also stay in shape instead of being fat behind a desk all day, which I was as an engineer. That nearly killed me with stress and high cholesterol. Cutting and splitting wood with a maul will likely lead to my living 10 years longer.

Beyond that, wood is still cheaper by about a factor of about three over electricity here, even if I pay for Doug fir which I can get delivered here, split and seasoned for $175 for a real cord. A cord of DF has roughly 25 MBTU in energy. Figure my stove has a 70% efficiency, so that results in about $10 per million BTU. Electricity here is cheap, ten cents a KWhr, but even that is equal to $30 per million MTU.

So you are paying about 3x what I am for heat even if I buy the wood. In actuality, you are paying about 9x what I am for heat here, factoring for my gas and other costs. Add income and SS taxes to what you earn to pay for electricity, and you have to earn over 12x what I pay for heat. I burn on average 3 cords of wood a year here, for 52.5 million BTU per year at 70% eff. 52.5 MBTU would cost me $1540 in electricity. I would have to earn about $2,200 before taxes to pay the electric bill. Figuring I can get 1 cord of wood and noodle it in about 6 hours, and split and stack it in another 10 hours, and load it into the stove for few hours more, say 20 hours processing time per cord, or 60 hours total for the wood. That comes out to a whopping $36 an hour in pay for me, untaxed! Even factoring for the other costs of wood to me at $50 a cord, that is still $33 an hour in pre-tax labor.

So you keep the Boardman Coal Plant cranking, and I will burn the wood. Math don't lie.

Our socialist power company owns a dam. It's just down the road a little bit within bike pedaling distance. The salmon were already blocked off by Tacoma's dams. If we get coal power, it would come from Centralia, which will be shut down in the near future.

Done pouting Olymon? There is no right or wrong. Folks live in different places--it aint Iowa here for example, and I'm curious as to why or how and reasoning. For instance, I think I can get next year's firewood off my place, but I can't do that very long. Plus, I have to pull it out of the woods with a hand cart. I don't like that because I'm lazy. But I'm too cheap to buy something motorized. Otherwise, it's at least a 11 mile trip one way to cut firewood, or farther depending on if friends have a junker tree down or not. If not, I buy an FS permit and compete with everybody else, where the people who break the law usually get it first. It's curiosity, not a pee contest.

Wish I could copy and paste your new avatar....

I'm glad I have a backup system that isn't spendy--here.

 

[Marine5068]

Ha! 12F has been our high temp today! It was -21F this morning.


.

-26 here for the last three days
feels like -36 with the windchill
got pellet stove and woodstove burning.
23-24 degrees in the house

 

[Oldman47]

24ºC is a bit too warm for my tastes but I am glad you are staying warm.

 

[woodfarmer]

-25 F here this morning, almost too cold.

 

[windthrown]

Our socialist power company owns a dam. It's just down the road a little bit within bike pedaling distance. The salmon were already blocked off by Tacoma's dams. If we get coal power, it would come from Centralia, which will be shut down in the near future.

Well, sorry to burst your tiny bubble up there in dreamland, but you are on the same damn power grid that I and everyone else is on in the PNW. You do not get power from some specific place or other, unless you are completely off-grid. If you buy and pay more for 'wind power' from the power company, you get the same dirty power that the rest of us get. Its a fully distributed grid. There is no way you are going to get power directly from local dams or from some long distant place like Centralia. Your power company buys and sells power from and to the grid. Its a grid with multi-sources, and multi-users. So like me, you are getting roughly 1/3 of your power from hydro dams, 1/3 from coal, and 1/3 from NG. They dismantled the Trojan nuke plant in Oregon so there is not much nuke energy in the PWN grid. Less than 5% is alternative energy like wind and solar. You can buy and pay more for green wind and solar from the power companies, but what you are using is exactly the same as everyone else.

But please do keep using spendy electricity and that will leave more wood for the rest of us. Stay fat and lazy. Also as you have proven to be about as bad as the Brush Ape in ridiculous arguments lately, I am adding you to my ignore list. So adios.

 

[hseII]

Well, sorry to burst your tiny bubble up there in dreamland, but you are on the same damn power grid that I and everyone else is on in the PNW. You do not get power from some specific place or other, unless you are completely off-grid. If you buy and pay more for 'wind power' from the power company, you get the same dirty power that the rest of us get. Its a fully distributed grid. There is no way you are going to get power directly from local dams or from some long distant place like Centralia. Your power company buys and sells power from and to the grid. Its a grid with multi-sources, and multi-users. So like me, you are getting roughly 1/3 of your power from hydro dams, 1/3 from coal, and 1/3 from NG. They dismantled the Trojan nuke plant in Oregon so there is not much nuke energy in the PWN grid. Less than 5% is alternative energy like wind and solar. You can buy and pay more for green wind and solar from the power companies, but what you are using is exactly the same as everyone else.

But please do keep using spendy electricity and that will leave more wood for the rest of us. Stay fat and lazy. Also as you have proven to be about as bad as the Brush Ape in ridiculous arguments lately, I am adding you to my ignore list. So adios.

Quite The Statesman, sir.
I hope facts always trump hippie opinion/reasoning.

She tickles me; I can't see her silliness if she goes on ignore.

Bless Your Heart, TickleBritches.

 

[Gypo Logger]

Warm here now and melting. Last week it would freeze the balls off a brass monkey. It all doesn't really matter anyway because I think I am purer than the driven snow. Lol
John

 

[olyman]

Well, sorry to burst your tiny bubble up there in dreamland, but you are on the same damn power grid that I and everyone else is on in the PNW. You do not get power from some specific place or other, unless you are completely off-grid. If you buy and pay more for 'wind power' from the power company, you get the same dirty power that the rest of us get. Its a fully distributed grid. There is no way you are going to get power directly from local dams or from some long distant place like Centralia. Your power company buys and sells power from and to the grid. Its a grid with multi-sources, and multi-users. So like me, you are getting roughly 1/3 of your power from hydro dams, 1/3 from coal, and 1/3 from NG. They dismantled the Trojan nuke plant in Oregon so there is not much nuke energy in the PWN grid. Less than 5% is alternative energy like wind and solar. You can buy and pay more for green wind and solar from the power companies, but what you are using is exactly the same as everyone else.

But please do keep using spendy electricity and that will leave more wood for the rest of us. Stay fat and lazy. Also as you have proven to be about as bad as the Brush Ape in ridiculous arguments lately, I am adding you to my ignore list. So adios.

well said!!

 

[ash man]

Minus 11 here this morning in Northwest Ohio. Our electric rates continue to climb since most of the electricity is generated burning coal. If the epa isn't stopped or at least slowed down a little the sky is the limits for electric rates in the near future here. That's why I installed a owb 3 years ago. Couldn't be happier with it!!!

 

[lapeer20m]

law of conservation of energy

12 degrees this morning! can't wait to get our new wood stove installed!

This was one of the coldest temperatures of my lifetime.

 

[Tjcole50]

Looking like below zero for some time to come here northern ohio. My stove is getting it's ass kicked and I hate my cheap ass for not filling my propane. Empty 500 gallon tank for 2 years so far. Debating on geo or outdoor boiler install in the next couple years

 

[ash man]

I have geo and still installed a owb. My friend in Akron has a geo in a newer well insulated house and his last few electric bills have been over $500 a month. He keeps his thermostat at 70.

 

[Tjcole50]

Holy ****! Does the aux strip kick on with geo when it gets this cold? Mine would be a pond loop. I had the understanding that it should put out the same heat at 0 as it does when it's 32 out?
if that's the case it's back to plan b or c
b- outdoor boiler probably portage and main optimizer 250
c-add on wood furnace and a homemade chute for basement window + propane fill ups

 

[ash man]

My house is newer 13 years old and well insulated, but yes my strip heater would kick on constantly when its really cold out. I also used to run a Vermont castings iwb in conjunction with the geo at night, and my bills averaged @$300-350 per month with our thermostat set at 68.