Have you noticed more wood heating?

[Al Smith]

The phenomenon happened before in the early to late 70's when fuel prices went through the roof.Such things spurned such as the Buck stove,the Earth stove,etc etc.
I sold firewood at the time for $40 per pickup load[about 1/2 cord].Good clear oak was about 35 cents per board ft ,rough sawn,gasoline at about 65 cents,US gallon.I made around $10 per hour as a journeyman electrician.
In a matter of several years,all the fence rows had been cleared of unwanted trees,etc.The wages caught up to the price of fuel and wood burning kind of went dormant.It seems history is once again repeating itself,as it usually does.
Interestingly ,during tail ending of the last woodburning rage,I was able to buy petroleum based coke[charcoal basically,derived from decanted oil] for $27.35 per ton.I could heat my house on less than 3 ton per year.Ha,I just sold the wood and was money ahead.

 

[tonka]

I live near a small town and when the city cuts or prunes trees along the roads they leave the wood along side the road. Sometimes the wood used to sit threre a couple of days before someone would pick it up. Not anymore. I doubt if it lasts an hour now or the homeowner picks it up, puts it in their yard with a sign - for sale. I've seen $25 to $42 for alittle tiny pile of wood. A friend of mine sells the outdoor wood burners and sales have just been crazy for so far.

 

[bwalker]

In a normal year I buy a 10 full cord, log truck load of wood for around $400 give or take $50. This year because of a shortage of log trucks and rail cares pulp prices have risen to around $100 per cord and I ended up paying $1000 for oak and maple greater than 15" delivered. I though I was taking the shaft till I hear what some of you people are paying.
Woodboiler's are everywhere in my neck of the woods.

 

[Ax-man]

The phenomenon happened before in the early to late 70's when fuel prices went through the roof.Such things spurned such as the Buck stove,the Earth stove,etc etc.
I sold firewood at the time for $40 per pickup load[about 1/2 cord].Good clear oak was about 35 cents per board ft ,rough sawn,gasoline at about 65 cents,US gallon..
In a matter of several years,all the fence rows had been cleared of unwanted trees,etc.The wages caught up to the price of fuel and wood burning kind of went dormant.It seems history is once again repeating itself,as it usually does.
.

I remember those days, I was just getting started back then in the tree biz.It was a double edged sword for the pro. Good thing about it was that we didn't have to haul away a tree, it had a home before it even hit the ground, bad side was all kinds of tree cutters came out of the woodwork, because the " wood " actually had a value, everybody and his brother who owned chain saws and a homemade log splitter were taking trees just to be able to get the wood. Cutting trees in an urban yard was better than going out to a timber.

Will history repeat itself, I don't think it will like it did back in the 70's. The last wood burning era was what, the 40's, a whole generation grew up not knowing what was involved with heating a house with wood from October to April some times into May. It was this generation that spurned the sales of saws , stoves , making homemade splitters or buying ready made ones, even old pick-up trucks had a value just to beat up and haul wood with.

Like you said Al, when wages caught up and fuel prices stabilized, the people that converted over to all wood heat went back to conventional heating, but many said they would never go back to wood because of all the work involved and expense of just doing it, not to mention getting an adequate supply of wood each winter. Many people took out their stoves after things settled down, didn't want the mess of having wood in the house, smell of smoke on the drapes and furniture, those that had their stoves piped into their funances had to repaint walls. It was easier and cheaper just to flip the thermostat than go to all the trouble of minding a woodstove. Let's not forget the rise in insurance premiums for having a wood burner in the house.

That price of $40 / pick-up load brings back memories, never did see how anyone could save money on heating by buying wood, same still holds true today. It is going to be interesting to see if the current energy crisis brings back those good old late 70's - 80's days.

Larry

 

[Butch(OH)]

Anything that burns wood is scarse around here at the moment as are masons to put up chimneys. Outside wood boilers are the current rage. At 6-7K installed it is beyond me as to why but the guy who was set up at the Bunyon show said their production ws sold out until spring. As Al Smith said it reminds me of the big wood burner rush of the 70s, or whenever it was? Still is a local abundance of wood AND people willing to cut it for starvation wages. Prices are nowhere near the ones I see quoted here.

 

[bwalker]

Outside wood boilers are the current rage. At 6-7K installed it is beyond me as to why

$600 dollars per month for propane for 6 months of the year and then 200-350 for the remaining months or a load of logs for 400-1000 dollars. Do the math.

 

[Diesel JD]

Around here I'm probably the ceapest guy with mixed hardwood going for $80 for a full chord and $45 for 1/2. Still not getting many hits. But the competition is charging nowhere near what you guys just mentioned! You'd get laughed outta town! Most people are $75 1/2 chord $110 for full. I guess it jsut doesn't get cold enough in N. Fla to make it that valuable of a resource.

 

[Al Smith]

During the last go round with the wood,I made about as much selling the wood as I did in my"day job".This was also the time that wood stands fell to the D8 Cat.I could just back up to the pile and saw away with my old trusty PM 610 Mac.
I could get a load or 2 after work,then deliver and split on the week ends.It worked well for me but 57 is a lot of water over the dam from 25 so I'll not be involved in this one.

 

[Butch(OH)]

$600 dollars per month for propane for 6 months of the year and then 200-350 for the remaining months or a load of logs for 400-1000 dollars. Do the math.

Did not mean to imply that an outside boiler would not pay out. Guess I should have added, when a conventional wood burner stove or add-on is both cheaper to install and more efficiant.

 

[ajc4]

Most ads I see are asking $55 + delivery for a face. One neighbor put in a wood burner. Many wood newbies dont season properly, leave the wood pile to get rained on & freeze and wind up unhappy with the whole deal & move back to fossil fuel.

Corn is a nice alternative. I feel bad for the farmers getting below $2.00 /bu for it though. According to this site: http://energy.cas.psu.edu/EnergySelector/cornequiv.html , 50 bu of corn is about equall to 1 cord of wood. At $1.80 off the farm and a bit over $2 delivered, its the cheapest game in town. In the past 10 years corn has been as high as $5/ bu, but it has usually been between $2.50 and $3.50 /bu. Even at a good price -- $3.50/bu its cost competitive with wood & a bit less than oil. Its cleaner & less work than wood to boot. So, the recent hype about corn stoves makes sense.

 

[bwalker]

when a conventional wood burner stove or add-on is both cheaper to install and more efficiant.

Your absolutley right. The new conventional stoves are very efficiant and clean, but they also are alot more work. I have my wood delivered directly in front of my boiler. I buck it up into blocks and throw it in. No stacking, splitting, drying etc. I also dont have to deal with ashes, smoke, smell, bugs, bark in the house and increased insurance premiums. Considering the time involved and the increased premiums is a insert stove really that much cheaper?

 

[Butch(OH)]

Your absolutley right. The new conventional stoves are very efficiant and clean, but they also are alot more work. I have my wood delivered directly in front of my boiler. I buck it up into blocks and throw it in. No stacking, splitting, drying etc. I also dont have to deal with ashes, smoke, smell, bugs, bark in the house and increased insurance premiums. Considering the time involved and the increased premiums is a insert stove really that much cheaper?

To be truthfull Ben I have not done the math. Fellow down the street has had a large Central Boiler outdoor system since last heating season. Says it uses about 25% more wood than his add-on. I am thinking about placing my forced air add-on in a concrete hooch outside the rear of the house, maybe 10 foot away and piping hot air instead of water for the reasons you stated, bugs, smoke, ashes and insurance. If it burns a bit more wood Ill get me some more saw time out of the deal

 

[turnkey4099]

i use a pellet stove. cannot use a wood stove cause my wife has asthma. apparently there is a shortage of pellets related to the increase in pellet stove sales. about 6 weeks ago i had to search hi and lo to find pellets. for the brand i like, last year was $180/ton, last month i paid 220/ton and was lucky to find them.
seems alot people bought pellet stoves in my area at least, and cannot get pellets to use them.


try cracking a window slightly open at the far end of the house to create a draft.

If you have central heating, turn on just the fan. It will suck warm air from floor level and move it around the house. Of course my air return is just around a corner from the stove.

Harry K

 

[turnkey4099]

If you have central heating, turn on just the fan. It will suck warm air from floor level and move it around the house. Of course my air return is just around a corner from the stove.

Harry K

Should have added. Also turn on the overhead fan if you have one in conjunction with the furnace fan.

Harry K

 

[whatsnext]

Corn is a nice alternative. I feel bad for the farmers getting below $2.00 /bu for it though. According to this site: http://energy.cas.psu.edu/EnergySelector/cornequiv.html , 50 bu of corn is about equall to 1 cord of wood. At $1.80 off the farm and a bit over $2 delivered, its the cheapest game in town. In the past 10 years corn has been as high as $5/ bu, but it has usually been between $2.50 and $3.50 /bu. Even at a good price -- $3.50/bu its cost competitive with wood & a bit less than oil. Its cleaner & less work than wood to boot. So, the recent hype about corn stoves makes sense.

Just my opinion but corn kind of blows. I leaves a very hard clinker type residue in the firebox. This is why corn stoves have a noisy grinder built into the firebox. The grinder then prevents you from having a small fire. I'll take wood pellets any day which cost $125/ton after tax if I pick it up here in KC. Once I get my pelletizer working I'll be making pellets year round out of yard waste which people pay me to create.
John.........

 

[bama]

I live about 20 miles from the Central Boiler production facility and some of the people that work there have said that production has never been this high. A few months ago, they were making around 500 stoves a month and their demand was at about 900. If you have ever priced one, you see how much cash moves through that facility!


An interesting side note: The owner of Central Boiler's brother happens to own Mattracks(which is located in my town). They specialize in equipping vehicles(pickups, trucks, ATV's, swathers, combines) with tracks. I guess they just got a big military contract to equip Humvees. That is a pair of very successful brothers!

 

[django]

What is propane going for in some of your areas? Ben, I can't imagine a $600 month bill for your house. It ain't that big, and it ain't that old. What do you keep it at 85? At 6-7K for an outdoor boiler it willl take Years of high fuel bills to pay for one. I have one, I like it, but I built it. I no way would pay 7 large for one. Plus, as has been mentioned, any solid fuel appliance is work. People as a general rule, don't like work. I believe we will see a lot of solid fuel appliances for sale in a couple of years. There is a romantic element of "sticking it to the man" that is selling a lot of stoves, the reality will set in for a lot of people soon enough. There is an outdoor boiler called the "Free Heat Machine" oh how I laughed.

 

[WESCOMAN]

I just saw on the news last night where the state is paying people $2500 to switch they wood stoves over to porpane or oil. They're trying to cut down on pollution!

Around here, if someone is to buy wood, they'll pay $125 at least, but not much more than $175, and that's for mixed fir, cedar and alder.

Jeff

Thats funny. Burning wood does not put anymore Carbon in the air like propaine or any fossil fuel! Yes wood makes smoke but that dissipates and leaves no harmful products in the atmospere where as oil and all those gases do.

 

[Locoweed]

I did this a couple of months ago. The numbers are approximations for where I live. Yours will be different.

From a neighbor who was commenting on my purchase of a splitter

I ran some numbers for various energy sources, you might like to know your splitter may already be paid for if you compare the cost of other fuels.

Kerosene 134,000 BTU per gallon
Electricity 3,413 BTU per KWH
Propane 91,600 BTU per gallon
Hardwood 24,000,000 BTU per cord
Pine 18,000,000 per cord

I picked 20 million BTU for use as generic wood in the numbers below.

One cord of generic wood is approximately equal to 218 gallons of propane, or a thousand and eighty bucks worth of WTU's fine electricity as billed at my last months (18.5 cent/KWH) rate, way cool.
T​

So, let's put some number in.

I paid $2743.55 for my stove, pipe and misc.

If you had to buy a chainsaw, let's pick Tom's favorite Stihl 026 which goes for around $460 new

Figure that you will need to rent or buy a log splitter at our age. Rent would be at least $100 @ year maybe more if you needed one more than once. Buying mine cost approximately $1200 (too lazy to go find the receipt)

Figure on $50.00 min for chimney cleaning equip or a bunch more to get it done.

Let's discount the cost of a trailer/pick up and vehicle as we have them already.

I am going to estimate 400 gallons of propane to heat during a typical year. Multiply that by $1.65 a gallon and we come up with $660 for fuel. Typical is a misleading term. I think we have had above average winter temps the last few years, but I am not going to do a bunch of research.

Let's use a gas furnace of 100,000 Btu capacity for a example. Add in ducts, registers etc. and I am going to say the cost will be $1000.00 (parts only, do it your self installation like the wood stove)

Making a quick look on the net and guessing, I think a electric furnace + parts would run $750

Using my guess on propane usage, it works out to 36,640,000 Btu's using your figures.

Since I don't heat with electricity, I'm going to use your figures to figure out how many kW to get that many Btu's and it is 10,735 kW. I am paying approximately .12 for a kW, so that gives $1288 worth of electricity. If you used your .18, it would be $1932

All of this stuff should have a fairly long life, so let's use 20 years for a comparison. Shorter time would favor the furnace due to less initial cost.

Adding up this nonsense

Gas for 20 years at current prices including cost of equipment = $14,200
Electric =$26,510
Wood = $3,295 assuming free wood.

You also have to figure in the efficiency of your wood burning appliance. Various studies give different answers. Some show fireplaces as a net loss, others show a slight gain and some of the newer fireplaces show reasonable gains, they are to my mind, built in wood stoves. My stove is rated at 73.8% efficiency, 80%for my propane furnace. Higher efficiency furnaces cost considerably more. I won't get into that

Stoves are a whole 'nother issue. Cat or non cat, life time, degradation of performance over time, steel vs. cast iron. .

If you had to buy wood at $200 a cord for hardwood and using 70% efficiency for my stove for 20 years, we now have $8720 to add to the cost of the stove etc. for a total of $12,015

I tried to look at total cost minus the minor costs (gas, oil, chains etc.)

Now, let's consider things that are difficult to put a dollar figure on.
Aesthetics of a fire place or wood stove.
Inconvenience of cutting, splitting, storing wood + dealing with ashes, cleaning the appliance, cleaning the chimney etc.
Ease of just turning the thermostat to what you want the temp to be.
Feeling of independence from oil/electric companies.

Obviously, the price of propane and the cost of buying firewood will go up. How the ratio will be is anybody's guess.

Discounting the price increases, the difference between heating with propane and wood is $109.25 a year or $2185 for 20 years.

Considering the labor involved in cutting, hauling and splitting wood, propane looks like a bargain to me at this point. A high efficiency propane furnace would most likely more than remove this $109.25 from the + side of the equation.

Btu values for wood varies considerably with species of wood, dryness and which source of information you choose. The net has a lot of sources and a lot of variances.

Boy, do I feel better now?

 

[bwalker]

Ben, I can't imagine a $600 month bill for your house.

Believe it. I had my boiler off line this fall because I moved it and put differant lines in. My bill was over $200 every two weeks and its was a fairly warm october. Propane is going for $2.11 per gallon and 100 gallons lasts me two weeks during mild weather. Drop the temp 30 degrees and its veryveasy to see how a monthly bill could be $600 or >.
If you look at the numbers posted above its pretty easy to see how fast a boiler will pay off ( about 3 years in my case).