How much $$$ do you save by burning wood?

[LNG24]

Where I'm at now, takes about 400 month in electric to heat during the somewhat cold months. It was 500 once. Electric heat sucks! Plus there is nothing like heating with wood you cut, split, and lit. Make you feel all warm and tingly inside. lol

I don't think so. In most areas of the US, Electric heat is NOW cheaper than Oil or Gas. Of course nothing is cheaper than Wood

I am trying to decide which Supplement Heat source I want now that I heat with wood. Why supplement. Well, if I take a few days up North, need to keep the house from freezing. Also Hot Water.

I looked into converting my Oil Fired baseboard Hot Water over to Electrically Heated Hot Water for the baseboards. The Solar Industry says DON'T They suggest Gas followed by Oil. Why? They want you to be able to SELL Electric back to the utility co.

 

[jrclen]

Some. We used an average of 700 gallons of propane per year for heat, water, and cooking. With the fireplace I built in, and the 10 - 12 cords of free dead oak from our own woods out back, we are down to around 400 to 500 gallons of LP. This year the LP was $1.53 per. Now I'm not even going to get into the cost of the fireplace, new saw, and the new splitter we're getting this spring. opcorn:

 

[spike60]

I don't think so. In most areas of the US, Electric heat is NOW cheaper than Oil or Gas.

This is definitely true now. 8 years ago, I was paying $.85 a gallon for heating oil. Electricity certainly hasn't gone up 3 to 4 times since then.

Electric heat/heaters can sort of save you money in that they give you the ability to heat indivdual rooms. I use a small heater upstairs here in my office. I use it on the medium setting, which is 1000 watts. I use it a lot, a real lot, and my electric bill goes up maybe $10 a month. That's 30 cents a day. Can't beat that.

 

[MNfarmer]

I'm saving at least $3000 and maybe even close to $3500:hmm3grin2orange:

 

[bob621]

Net savings

We're on year 5 of wood for heat and hot water. We had electric hot air before that for heat, LP for hot water, so you'd expect we'd be saving a ton.

But then I have to deduct the cost of the wood boiler, the repair costs for the old saw and the purchase price of the new one, the cost of the powered wagon we use to get wood from the far corners of the lot to the house, and (in the first two years) the cost of buying firewood. We're not buying wood anymore (plenty to harvest from the lot), but it'll be another 2-5 years before we break even. I measure every wood-heat related cost in terms of cords of wood I have to cut and split to recoup the cost. I have a lot of cords to go.

On the other hand, it's better use of time than the treadmill or the stairclimber, and a lot more fun. The dogs find endless amusement deconstructing woodpiles in search of rodential residents, and many of the dollars spent go to people to who actually make something, rather than to a power or gas company.

 

[jrclen]

On the other hand, it's better use of time than the treadmill or the stairclimber, and a lot more fun. The dogs find endless amusement deconstructing woodpiles in search of rodential residents, and many of the dollars spent go to people to who actually make something, rather than to a power or gas company.

Good points there. I agree with you. I enjoy my time in the woods.

 

[gtstang462002]

I dont know if electric could be considered a cheaper way to heat over gas/oil... But what I do know is that within the last 3 years my electric bill has close to tripled and my monthly electric usage is decreasing as I put in more efficient appliences... My heating is a hearth heater fireplace insert that provides me with 99% of my heat. I have oil heat as my backup that comes on if i neglect to load the woodstove one night before passing out or when we leave the house for more than 15hours...

 

[turtleburtch]

I save around $2400 a year on my gas bill.

 

[Ryan Willock]

My house is 1,200sqf and well insulated and when we finished it (fall of 03) we didn't have the money for a wood stove so we used our conventional heating system (appallo system). That system uses the hot water heater to heat the house. Our hot water system uses propane for the heat source. We finished the house the last week November and the first week in January we had to fill up the tank. Well we had to do it again the first week of march! Thats 800 gallons and we only had the temp set at 65!!! If memory serves me correctly propane was $1.80 a gallon then now its $3.50+!!! The summer of 04' we installed a Jotel 400 and now thats all we heat with unless we go out of town for a day or so. I only fill up the propane once a year now (instead of 3-4 times) so my heating costs are much lower. I burn anywhere from 2.5-4 cords per year depending on how cold it is. Lately (the last two years) it has not been that cold. I cut all of my wood on my place and drag it right down to the firewood shed with my tractor and cut, split and stack it on the spot. It costs me about $100-$150 in fuel and expenses to cut that amount of wood so for me its a huge savings espcially since I don't have much work coming in thanks to all of these wonderfull Illegal's undercutting my prices

 

[drdugit]

This year I'm saving $349 less than I should be. Was out cutting wood all day on Saturday. After a long hard day, I was finally all finished up and threw my maul into the bed full of wood. Maul takes the weirdest bounce I've ever seen and smashes right through the rear window of my pickup. The weird thing is, a sliding rear window was cheaper than the fixed glass that I had before, so at least I got an upgrade out of the deal.

:lifter:

 

[beerman6]

bummer,at least it didnt clock ya in the head...

 

[Woodjack]

This is my first year burning wood which I use as my primary heat source. I got a late start ramping up with wood so I feel like most of my time is spent searching for dry wood on my property. I'm going to break down and buy a couple of cords to get ahead of the game. If I calculated the time I spent heating with wood it would probably come out to about $5/hour. I don't care. I get more satisfaction saying screw you to my oil delivery company, the big oil refineries (Exxon, etc.) and especially to the Middle East scum we send all our money to. And heating with wood is friggin primal. After living in the city for the past twenty years I found out what it's like to feel like a human animal again. ugh ugh.

 

[farmermike]

With 3 dollar fuel oil I figure I'm saving between 500 to 700 dollars a month. I'm getting paid pretty well for the time I spend cutting wood. Besides that I like spending time in the wood and it's good exercise. And I get to keep buying new toys to play with.

 

[StihltheOne]

I am a heating my house, 2200 sf, and also a detail shop 2000 sf almost exclusively with wood. Stays pretty cool here, I think that we have been just at freezing for highs for 45 days?> +10 to -10 for lows. I thaw out 2 vehicles in the shop each day and maintain 75 constantly for drying, I guess that it would take 600+ per month in gas, oh yeah.. it is 79 in the house right now, my gas bill is 39 per mo avg, with gas water heat and cook stove.
Oh yeah... I love my new 660.

 

[wdchuck]

Oh yeah... I love my new 660.

Talk about your p0rn somewhere else.


I wonder how much we'd save if we didn't have power tools, you know, no:
power saws
tractors
pickup trucks
other equipment
to help us handle firewood, you know, all the equipment that requires fossil fuels to run....

Thinking out loud, that's all...

 

[musch]

I'm not sure how much I've saved, but I know our gas bill alone has been over $400 in the past.
Keeping in mind that we use gas for water heater and dryer (and 5 people's laundry in the house.

Temps were between 5 and 20 last month, and our gas bill was $60.
:chainsawguy:

Love that wood burnin heat!!! :rockn:

 

[MNTAINGAL23]

Love the wood stove!

Before we had the stove our electric bill was hovering at $300 a month.
That is with two teenage girls that claim it is freezing and they have icecicles in thier nose. They would crank the heat up to 80 to get warm.
We run the wood stove with a fan on it and it heats the whole house.
The electric bill dropped $200.

 

[Lignum]

Just in heating Oil, around $2800.00 Unbelievable how the price has went up 400% since 2001.

 

[cjk]

We used to use about 1500 gals LP per year. Now it is less than 500. Last fill was $2.70/gal so we are saving around $2700 this year.

Along with the woodstove, we put in an on demand water heater and some new windows.

After showing the wife this thread, how can she say No to a new saw
:greenchainsaw:

 

[Sprig]

We used to use about 1500 gals LP per year. Now it is less than 500. Last fill was $2.70/gal so we are saving around $2700 this year.

Along with the woodstove, we put in an on demand water heater and some new windows.

After showing the wife this thread, how can she say No to a new saw
:greenchainsaw:

Having seen some awesome on-demand HW systems I am tempted not to pass up the next Poloma that comes my way, something about never having the water turn cold on ya I like set up well they seem to be a great back-up resource for wood heat and very efficient, with a surface well like I have power outages of a few days or more, well, just laugh. Many boats around here use them and once passed the intitial cost no one I know is unhappy (other than the costs at the pump).



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