Let me take a different angle here. Off the top of my head by using as much fossil fuel as you do, it sounds like 5+years of payback. However, since most people don’t remember the 70’s oil crisis and fossil fuels should rise much faster than wood over the next twenty years, I would guess that using wood to diversify your energy consumption may be prudent. Oil demand is not going down. Keep in mind that wood takes a lot of work but with your potential supply you should be able to shrug off most bumps in the road.
I live in a climate that temps are close to yours, maybe a little colder. I have two furnace with water to air exchangers and my house is 2400 sq. ft. I have about $8000.00 invested in mine with venting. I figured 4-5 year payback.. half way there. Also I don"t have to pay for wood which makes a difference for the cost.
Keith
Going along the lines of steam man, certainly the currently volatile energy situation might make payback even more rapid but I will chime in with another important consideration which I mentioned many posts ago with regard to masonry heaters.
Whatever the added cost of a wood boiler system is, whether a refinanced mortgage, forgone savings, home equity loan, etc, you have made a long-term investment and if you have easy access to wood your operating costs should be pretty minimal between fuel, maintenance and spare parts and electricity for blowers and circulators. But more importantly you have hedged a risk. That is called insurance. If something happens to oil supplies in the near term let alone long term doubts about oil reserves then anyone with a wood boiler will pretty much still enjoy the same quality of life they do now if not better since you’re not worried about the thermostat setting as much as you might be with oil, LP or natural gas especially in a rising cost environment. To paraphrase my Yankee grandfather, “You can always cut up your furniture and burn it but you can’t go drill for oil in the back 40”, (less swearing than in the original quote). We live in a just-in-time world and that will be changing quickly enough in the next few years that worrying about things like payback periods will be less meaningful because the alternatives just won’t be there.
A simple system would be to install the wood boiler and storage tank outside and put a hot water fan coil unit inside, maybe in the crawl space. It sounds like the floor plan is open, so heating the main room would probably work pretty well for the whole house.
You could even consider insulating the crawlspace and heating it with some of the hot air. That will give radiant heat to the whole 1st floor, and should make it to the back bedrooms. If the crawl space was clean enough, and insulated enough, you could even pressurize the crawl space, now hot air plenum, and put some floor supply registers around the 1st flr.
People laugh at my 40+ full cords of wood stacked behind the barn. Admittedly it’s a hobby, but I see it as better than money in the bank. I can heat my house for free for at least the next four years. If I was nofossil, more like 10.
First off - payback. I put my system in 3 years ago and figured on a 6 year payback. Meanwhile, oil prices have gone up so much, that it is now fully paid back. I’ve got about $6k into my setup, but everything was cheaper 3 years ago.
If your options are open for delivery methods, I can’t say enough good things about floor radiant. Working in the crawl space will not be pleasant (I had the same problem in about 3/4 of my floor), but once it’s done it is just fantastic. The added benefit, is that you don’t see any baseboard or radiators. From how you describe your house, that may be a big factor for you.
Now, if AC is important, check out the high velocity systems. Mine is called Spacepak. I just put one in our house last year. It uses a main trunk of square ducting then flexible tubing to the outlets. Depending on what obstacles you have to work around, you can do this in 2 weekends easily. And, I put mine in the crawl space under the house. My house is an A-frame, so I couldn’t get from one side to the other from above.
Do more research on the mini-splits. I was about to put some of them in, at more cost than the high velocity, when I found out that it just wasn’t going to work like I wanted. They are good “area” coolers, but not house systems.
There is probably no payback on the AC system for me, but it feels great.
This is our 7th heating season w/ an OWB, we have our own timber lot & based upon our oil consumption, we will have saved $22,000.00 in fuel costs by the end of this heating system.
This number is based upon the average cost of oil per season for the past 7 years, low as $1.14 a gallon to high of $2.40 last winter, $3.00 for this year.
We did the install in house, but the estimated cost would be around 11k the way we’ve set it up.
If we had to buy wood our breakeven point would occure this heating season.
Fuel oil will only continue to increase in price so the payback periods for wood fired boiler installs will only decrease.
I keep seeing you guys talk about when you can’t do wood any more ,I just thought I’d throw in My 80 something father in law is still cutting and splitting about 30/40 FACE CORD a year.
He sold wood on the side till he was over 70
Guy
Guy, My grandfather also heated his house all his life. no splitter, axe and maul, he said thats how he got his exercise in winter
he was 89 when he passed away and my grandmother continued heating w/wood till she was 90 with some help from my folks.
Hope I can keep up the “tradition”. I like to cut wood in the winter and don"t mind it at all.
Keith
My dad just turned 76 and he still cuts and splits all his own firewood by hand, plus sawlogs from the family tree farm spring, summer and fall. He and my mom are in great shape, and I attribute it to the woodcutting.
Thanks for all replies. Special thanks to Eric, ABGWD4U, and nofossil for specifically addressing my concerns.
Insulation is pretty much a non-starter for us. A large part of this building’s resale value is wrapped up in the all wood interior. My exterior walls are all massive logs of varying widths with large masonry chinked seams. Their appearance within the house is really impressive. That coupled with the red cedar interior woodwork offers a really special look. Almost everyone who enters drops his/her jaw. Can’t risk losing that. While I could easily add additional insulation to the attic area, payback tends to be measured in decades, same with highly energy efficient windows.
Air conditioning is of minor significance here. While everyone looks for it while looking at existing houses for purchase, it actually tends to be used sparing. We are located in a unique sliver running along Virginia’s southwestern border (zone #6). We are almost 2500 feet above sea level, hence cool and non-humid summer conditions. This elevation also tends to drive winter nighttime temps down relative to what I experienced during my many years in South Jersey.
Physical condition is always a big concern once you get past a certain age. At this exact moment I am in good to excellent condition, able to do a full day’s physical work. Hopefully, this will continue; however, you never know.
I, too, enjoy the challenge of unconventional ventures. My wife and I have always explored different ways of doing many things, usually to the frustration of our tightly buttoned down relatives. I must confess that that type of insanity still flows through my veins. My wife is still up for such ventures, amazing after forty years together.
Backup heating systems will be Monitor heaters, a fireplace insert (unfortunately, located at one extreme end of the house), and electric resistance in two of the bedrooms.
I really don’t want to install ducts in any part of this house. There are too many associated problems. Installing an interior boiler or furnace is possible, but not practical. The house comprises two immense rooms and a very large loft upstairs. There is little closet space. Were I to go this route, I’d probably want to build an addition to the house. This is not going to happen.
Aside from the possibility of going with a wood gasifier, the only other attractive (to me) option would be the installation of a highly efficient, European style, mini-split heat pump system. Done right this would realistically cost about seven to eight thousand with most of the work being done by me. Payback on this type of system would not be quick; also, such an unconventional system might do little to increase property value. It is, however, a neat and clean solution that would provide heat and ac in one fell swoop.
The reason I am requesting info on payback and total installation cost is because heating with wood might just provide my biggest bang for buck spent. Wood can be quite cheap here. I suspect that I might be able to purchase decent hardwood for well under $100 a cord. The numerous national forests in this area can be harvested gratis under certain conditions. There is also the opportunity to purchase heavily wooded land for relatively little. Careful lumbering might actually increase land value while providing me with years’ worth of fuel. K1 fuel oil now costs about $3.50 a gallon; that price will only go up over time. The differential between wood and fossil fuels is growing larger with every passing year (here I am, preaching to the choir!).
However, I am concerned that the price of a reasonable install still might require an extended payback period. My wife and I may well stay here for fifteen to twenty years. Given our ages, however, that will always be a concern. Since I suspect that the addition of a wood boiler system will not increase my property’s value (indeed, it may well reduce it with many buyers), getting my money’s worth out of the investment over a five or six year period is a major consideration. If I can’t expect compensation on the back end (resale), then I want it on the front (through my own usage).
In reading this and that concerning this subject, I have gotten the impression that more than a few individuals have spent in excess of fifteen thousand dollars for moderate systems. Even with all that’s been stated above, such a high price tag discourages one from proceeding.
Here’s the URL to a nifty and adjustable comparative fuel calculator. If this has been mentioned before, please accept my apologies for the duplication.
It would be nice to have an energy audit done on your home first. Infiltration is a big concern on log homes. If you can find an HVAC contractor with a blower door, that would be a great first step. With the info from the blower door you could preform a real accurate heat load calc.
Projecting any kind of heating cost comparison without knowing the actual loads is like putting the cart before the horse. I have seen 2400 ft homes with loads under 30,000 btu/hr, and worked on leaky log construction homes the required 100,000 btu heaters!
Once you had some accurate data you could determine your best option. The best money you could spend would b making your home as efficient as possible. then build the heating and cooling system.
I’d wonder about buying firewood to burn at a 70% (a more realistic gasificiation number in my opinion). Certainly the cost of firewood will increase with the cost of other energy. You need to plug actual fuel costs in your area into a calculator to get the best answer.
I have been involved in a couple open plan homes that heat and cool just fine with 17 seer mini splits. I hear some of the new inverter technology units approach 21 seer?? resale would b better with an efficient heating and cooling system. I doubt a wood boiler would appeal to most home shoppers.
I’m a huge fan of efficient wood burners, and all sort of alternate energy. You need to be realistic in your choice. Most of the wood burners here have access to cheap or free wood and the time and age to operate the heaters that burn the fuel.
Run the numbers carefully before you spend thousands of dollars.
A blower door is a high volume fan that is sealed up in a doorway. The fan is turned on and the tech goes around the house with a smoke device and notes the exit points. There is a manometer that registers the pressure in the dwelling. I know that there are certain numbers that denote an efficient house. Some modern construction requires fresh air to be introduced into house through a exhaust heat exchanger. Air infiltration is the greatest energy waster. Where theres a leak on the pressure side there is a leak on the vacuum side. Sealing air leaks is the best return on investment. Can be very inexpensive.
